Comment by michaelt
1 day ago
In the USA, data centres consume about 164 billion gallons of water annually [1]
Irrigation consumes 118 billion gallons per day [1] and thermoelectric power plants a further 133 billion gallons per day.
There's enormous amounts, and there's enormous amounts. If you really want to get mad about water being wasted, look up what californian alfalfa growers pay for their water.
[1] https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-co... [2] https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2018/3035/fs20183035.pdf
New datacenter projects are usually closed loop now.
From your first citation:
> Closed-loop cooling systems enable the reuse of both recycled wastewater and freshwater, allowing water supplies to be used multiple times. A cooling tower can use external air to cool the heated water, allowing it to return to its original temperature. These systems can reduce freshwater use by up to 70%.
Citation please, I don’t buy it. Evaporative cooling towers almost double the efficiency of heat rejection vs a closed loop system. I don’t see any data center operator giving up those operating cost efficiency gains just to save some water, but I could be wrong.
As i stated, It's literally in the first link from the OP.
1 reply →
It's not a question of quantity but of distribution.
I'm not defending the waste of water that is growing alfalfa in the desert for export, but there are plenty of places datacenters are built where the water they use is impactful.
They can both be bad. Unlike the legal mess that is US irrigation water rights, data centers are also a lot easier to do something about.