Comment by eventualcomp
5 days ago
The fact that a datacenter is evaporating X gallons of water in a period implies that a datacenter is ingesting X gallons of water (if less, the datacenter dries out, if more the datacenter floods) - meaning X gallons are now locked out of the water cycle. Meaning it rains back down and gets slurped back up.
This is under the happy assumption that all used water evaporates into a cloud directly above the source region, which rains back directly.
How much water is contained inside the datacenter at any given moment? That's how much water is taken from circulation by this datacenter. Is it enough to worry?
There is also buffer for clean water required - Y gallons on-hand at the datacenter. You can see the other replies in this parent comment demonstrating the tight ongoing humidity requirements, and how clean water is sprayed onto the actual hardware to cool it off, and more. Evidently this can't be done by setting up a giant funnel above the datacenter to collect rainwater.
Given those considerations I expect Y to be pretty large.