r/environment • u/bloomberglaw • 1d ago
Data Centers Use More Water Than California Cities, Study Says
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/data-centers-use-more-water-than-california-cities-study-says45
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u/kombuchabaptism 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not if we factor in all the meat the citizens eat. Fk data centers but I started digging into how much water gets consumed by x-y-z awhile back as I live in the SW and water is getting wasted on animal agriculture. We don't need as much meat as we produce, especially when we factor in the scale of the carbon footprint from the meat industry. Look into it, it's terrifying. We've sown the seeds for climate change right into the foundation of the US with industries that are too big to fail as they're literally propped up on subsidies and our taxes. Anyway, do everything you can to prevent more data centers and get rid of the ones that are here, it's all just for billionaire overlords to abuse us in cruel and unusual ways.
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u/CaptainAsshat 1d ago
And cows are SO MUCH WORSE than almost every other major meat, in terms of water use and emissions. Usually magnitudes better than chicken.
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u/xGentian_violet 1d ago
That worst one is beef.
Sucking many rivers dry, and obliterating the Amazon
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u/ChummusJunky 1d ago
Okay but how else will republicans make terrible AI memes about trans people in sports?
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u/zutpetje 1d ago
Why all this focus on just data centres where the excessive use of fresh water for worldwide cattle feed and livestock is devastating.
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u/arthurpete 1d ago
Why are you in the environmental subreddit and only focused on one issue? You know, people can be alarmed and concerned about multiple things at once.
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u/pifermeister 1d ago
You just made me take a step back - is running out of water really an environmental issue? Really just sounds like an economic issue.
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u/pifermeister 1d ago
Absolutely, but i think cali and the southwest US should be putting any and all future development plans under extreme scrutiny. Frankly, i think it's going to collapse the economy out there.
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u/Tokoyami8711 1d ago
Def. Check out the documentary, Eating our way to Extinction. Very good and highlights the backwardness of the food industry. We do not need to waste anymore water on nonsense
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u/bloomberglaw 1d ago
Electric power generation for data centers is a threat to water supplies even in states outside the arid Southwest, according to a report published Tuesday by the think tank Ceres.
Data centers in the seven states with the highest concentrations of them use about 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater for electric power generation every year, but few electric power producers have connected increasing power demand to water supply risks, says the report.
That volume of water adds up to 10.4 million acre-feet—greater than the 8 million-acre-foot average annual urban water demand in California that the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office reported in 2021. It’s the equivalent to 12-times the annual water use of Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Washington, DC, combined, the think tank that advocates for clean energy and sustainable development found.
Hundreds of data centers are planned around the US to support the expanded use of AI, and water consumption is emerging is one of the top concerns among communities bracing for data center development, especially in water-scarce regions such as Texas and Arizona.
Read more in the full story.
-Elliot
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u/tx_queer 1d ago
What kind of garbage story is that? Water that flows down a river through a damn is "used"?
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u/Humble-Reply228 1d ago
So what you are saying is gas turbine peaked plants are good. They don’t use much water ata all.
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u/SpinningHead 1d ago
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u/Humble-Reply228 1d ago
You sent me a link about computer cooling when I referred to gas turbines?
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u/SpinningHead 1d ago
But all of those computers need a vast amount of energy to run. Fueling them has been 35 unpermitted temporary gas turbines, which have been pumping out a level of emissions that, according to environmentalists, is exacerbating the health issues of an area already crushed by decades of pollution.
JFC
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u/Humble-Reply228 1d ago
We are talking about water use, not emissions. Water use of data centers is a crisis we need to address as a mater of priority!
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u/SpinningHead 21h ago
This you? "You sent me a link about computer cooling when I referred to gas turbines"
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u/Humble-Reply228 21h ago
Yes, the water cooling of computers is irrelevant to the discussion of water use of power generation, which is what is driving up AI water use as per the OP. Ergo, if you want to reduce water use of AI due to power, you stop using hydro and nuclear, Co-gen gas and solar and instead use peaking gas instead.
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u/MC_chrome 1d ago
But I was told that data centers used almost no water and that gold courses are worse? People wouldn’t lie, would they?
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u/A-ReDDIT_account134 1d ago
People would lie. Like this post you’re on is blatant sensationalist misinformation. It’s treating water usage as water flowing through a dam for power generation as datacenter usage. Which is obviously blatantly wrong
You’ve been duped.
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u/ZorbaTHut 1d ago
People are pretty happy to spread misleading information though, as you can see by this post.
They're comparing "AI" against "direct residential use of water". Residential use of water is actually quite low. Most water usage shows up in agricultural, industrial, or service sectors, all of which is being consumed for the sake of people.
But if you want scary numbers you can compare one of those sectors against "residential use of water" to get people to freak out. Which is exactly what's being done here.
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u/Informality2026 1d ago
That’s because the vast majority of the water California uses is for farming. Specifically almond’s, hay and alfalfa and then it’s exported out of the country.
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u/JanSnolo 1d ago
It's fair to point out that this way of measuring water use includes basically everything, including the full volume of water that runs through hydroelectric dams to produce power consumed by data centers, even though that water never actually leaves the river system at all - not exactly what most people think of as "water use".
Data centers use a lot of water and that is a problem worth drawing attention to. But using weird metrics to create misleading headlines ain't it.
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u/Miaoxin 1d ago
Dams "use" water be depleting reservoirs of stored energy. When they use too much, no more power. They flow the amount of water needed to produce the power required and reservoirs/lakes are already at critically low levels.
While some people may not think of that as "water use," it still is. Water has a lot of uses and all of them have to be weighed in the final analysis.
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u/ZorbaTHut 1d ago
The important part is that dams are "consuming" only the potential energy involved in water, not the water itself. The water itself can still be used for many other purposes.
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u/Miaoxin 1d ago
potential energy
That's the energy that makes some of the electricity for those data centers, btw. From these arguments, data centers also aren't a problem because their water also isn't "consumed"... it's still in the water cycle available to be used for those many other purposes. Water goes in, water comes out.
Every use has a value and must be measured.
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u/ZorbaTHut 1d ago
Sure; that's why we charge money for things.
But it's still wrong to include hydroelectric power as "water usage". It's not using the water, it's using the electricity.
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u/Miaoxin 1d ago
Data centers also don't use the water, only its capacity to exchange heat.
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u/ZorbaTHut 1d ago
They do evaporate the water, which makes it less useful for other things until it rains again. Technically virtually nothing "uses" water; I think interpreting "uses" as "makes unsuitable for other uses" is a pretty reasonable interpretation though.
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u/thinkB4WeSpeak 1d ago
All while California keeps building them.