I feel like we've already had this discussion with respect to Crypto; crypto used more energy than banks (which proved to be false, but whatever); and water. Now AI uses magnitude more energy than crypto (or humans) and somehow they're now saying it's okay?
Google’s just-released 2025 sustainability report is an instructive example. The company said it consumed 10.9 billion gallons of water—a 34% increase from 2024—almost all for data-center cooling.
…
Google consumes around three times as much water indirectly as directly, according to a paper published earlier this year by Alex de Vries-Gao, a researcher at the Netherlands-based university VU Amsterdam.
—
My take: they should report this in acre-feet instead of gallons, and then compare it to a crop, alfalfa for example.
My back of the envelope says even at the larger number Google is using the enough water to grow about 23,000 acres of alfalfa. That would produce about 138,000 tons which would sell for about $34 million.
The $34 million gives the idea that the water is worth $34 million, but the water costs of growing Alfalfa (largely to be used in the extremely inefficient animal agriculture industry), are a small fraction of the overall costs. Labor and 23,000 acres of land and seeds and fertilizers etc would be a significantly greater cost contributing to the $34 million value.
My point was that google generates hundreds of billions of dollars from the same water that $34 million in alfalfa. It’s absurd to complain about their usage.
Water use policy is about agriculture, agriculture, and also agricultural. Everything else is a distraction.
I find golf courses to be a more effective framing. Even if the alfalfa is consumed by animals, it's still a part of the food supply chain and gives people the easy response, "yeah, but we need to eat, we don't need datacenters."
Google's 10.9B gallons in 2025 is equivalent to ~55 18-hole golf courses (200M gallons/year average in the US). Which provided more value to the economy and to you as an individual last year? Google or 55 out of ~15k total golf courses in the US?
I feel like it’s never made clear in what way the water is used up in these cases.
It’s not like it’s consumed like fuel. And it is not absorbed like in agriculture. But I understand it is not trivially recyclable either, the heat of the water alone can be harmful if released as-is. Does cooling happen via evaporation and is that how the water is “lost”? And I am not sure if it is contaminated in other ways.
What is the actual impact or opportunity cost of using the water in datacenter (or energy plant) cooling versus other uses?
Obviously water is renewable, but the constraint here is finite public water system capacity. When that capacity is allocated to data centers less is available for other community needs. See https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.02705
When you're using water in a open-loop data center, you get in cool/cold water, add biocides and other chemicals to protect your infrastructure, then heat it and pump it back to the body of water (i.e. river, lake or an underground hole, or somewhere).
The result is unusable, somewhat toxic (since you can't remove the chemicals), deoxygenated (hot water can dissolve less oxygen) liquid which can't be used for anything, incl. farming or support any kind of life.
It's water, but it's not. It's not suitable for anything. Practically, waste.
If you use heat exchangers and closed circuits in outer loops, you don't waste the water and pump the heat elsewhere, and make that useful. Heat something in the winter, support greenhouses, provide hot water in the building, etc. etc. When you discard the hot water instead of recycling it in closed loop, you make it unusable for anything. From potting it to flushing your toilet. Every possible use case is gone.
If you need a toxic ballast material, maybe you can use it.
Almonds producers in California use roughly 60-85 times more water annually than all US data centers combined, depending on the exact figures and whether indirect power-plant water is included.
Wake up, people! Stop the evil producers of almonds!
I wish these articles would clarify that there are climates where datacenters exist where water is not used food for cooling including evaporative cooling.
Just because the U.S. uses it doesn’t mean the rest the world does in every build.
Buildings are built for the climate of where they exist.
If a building can’t cool itself above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, that sounds like it could be common in the U.S. there are other ways to cool the building other water.
It would not be the same in a country like Canada, or other northern climates.
This water narrative is being used to undermine new datacenters in other countries, and it’s kind of strange a publication would so willingly not learn a and clarify the difference about buildings being built differently in different countries with different climates.
tl;dr: Because the power plants they rent power from, and have very little control over, use water too
Is that water cleaned and put back in the environment?
Can the municipalities use the tax cash influx to clean up their power sources?
Not answered or considered which is weird for an org as storied as WSJ.
The bottom line is Heartland re-industrialization will use resources and look different from previous industries.
Can we keep the political focus on the oligcharcal control over our government instead of making something as dry as data centers some kind of new frontline on the Omni-cause
> Can we keep the political focus on the oligcharcal control over our government instead of making something as dry as data centers some kind of new frontline on the Omni-cause
I imagine every side jumping on the water issue is exactly trying to distract from this. You'll notice you hear about water consumption issues much more than oligarchy and wealth inequality on "progressive media".
I feel like we've already had this discussion with respect to Crypto; crypto used more energy than banks (which proved to be false, but whatever); and water. Now AI uses magnitude more energy than crypto (or humans) and somehow they're now saying it's okay?
Google’s just-released 2025 sustainability report is an instructive example. The company said it consumed 10.9 billion gallons of water—a 34% increase from 2024—almost all for data-center cooling.
…
Google consumes around three times as much water indirectly as directly, according to a paper published earlier this year by Alex de Vries-Gao, a researcher at the Netherlands-based university VU Amsterdam.
—
My take: they should report this in acre-feet instead of gallons, and then compare it to a crop, alfalfa for example.
My back of the envelope says even at the larger number Google is using the enough water to grow about 23,000 acres of alfalfa. That would produce about 138,000 tons which would sell for about $34 million.
The $34 million gives the idea that the water is worth $34 million, but the water costs of growing Alfalfa (largely to be used in the extremely inefficient animal agriculture industry), are a small fraction of the overall costs. Labor and 23,000 acres of land and seeds and fertilizers etc would be a significantly greater cost contributing to the $34 million value.
My point was that google generates hundreds of billions of dollars from the same water that $34 million in alfalfa. It’s absurd to complain about their usage.
Water use policy is about agriculture, agriculture, and also agricultural. Everything else is a distraction.
How is everything else a distraction? We are overusing our water budget so every little piece on top is extra impactful.
I find golf courses to be a more effective framing. Even if the alfalfa is consumed by animals, it's still a part of the food supply chain and gives people the easy response, "yeah, but we need to eat, we don't need datacenters."
Google's 10.9B gallons in 2025 is equivalent to ~55 18-hole golf courses (200M gallons/year average in the US). Which provided more value to the economy and to you as an individual last year? Google or 55 out of ~15k total golf courses in the US?
I feel like it’s never made clear in what way the water is used up in these cases.
It’s not like it’s consumed like fuel. And it is not absorbed like in agriculture. But I understand it is not trivially recyclable either, the heat of the water alone can be harmful if released as-is. Does cooling happen via evaporation and is that how the water is “lost”? And I am not sure if it is contaminated in other ways.
What is the actual impact or opportunity cost of using the water in datacenter (or energy plant) cooling versus other uses?
Obviously water is renewable, but the constraint here is finite public water system capacity. When that capacity is allocated to data centers less is available for other community needs. See https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.02705
The water you infuse with biocides is not "immediately renewable". You can't send it to your water management center and just pump back to people.
When you're using water in a open-loop data center, you get in cool/cold water, add biocides and other chemicals to protect your infrastructure, then heat it and pump it back to the body of water (i.e. river, lake or an underground hole, or somewhere).
The result is unusable, somewhat toxic (since you can't remove the chemicals), deoxygenated (hot water can dissolve less oxygen) liquid which can't be used for anything, incl. farming or support any kind of life.
It's water, but it's not. It's not suitable for anything. Practically, waste.
If you use heat exchangers and closed circuits in outer loops, you don't waste the water and pump the heat elsewhere, and make that useful. Heat something in the winter, support greenhouses, provide hot water in the building, etc. etc. When you discard the hot water instead of recycling it in closed loop, you make it unusable for anything. From potting it to flushing your toilet. Every possible use case is gone.
If you need a toxic ballast material, maybe you can use it.
Almonds producers in California use roughly 60-85 times more water annually than all US data centers combined, depending on the exact figures and whether indirect power-plant water is included.
Wake up, people! Stop the evil producers of almonds!
I wish these articles would clarify that there are climates where datacenters exist where water is not used food for cooling including evaporative cooling.
Just because the U.S. uses it doesn’t mean the rest the world does in every build.
Buildings are built for the climate of where they exist.
If a building can’t cool itself above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, that sounds like it could be common in the U.S. there are other ways to cool the building other water.
It would not be the same in a country like Canada, or other northern climates.
This water narrative is being used to undermine new datacenters in other countries, and it’s kind of strange a publication would so willingly not learn a and clarify the difference about buildings being built differently in different countries with different climates.
U.S. can also do closed loop liquid cooling, though. No?
With drycoolers or chillers, you can pump out enormous amount of heat energy out of water, even in hot climates.
tl;dr: Because the power plants they rent power from, and have very little control over, use water too
Is that water cleaned and put back in the environment?
Can the municipalities use the tax cash influx to clean up their power sources?
Not answered or considered which is weird for an org as storied as WSJ.
The bottom line is Heartland re-industrialization will use resources and look different from previous industries.
Can we keep the political focus on the oligcharcal control over our government instead of making something as dry as data centers some kind of new frontline on the Omni-cause
> Can we keep the political focus on the oligcharcal control over our government instead of making something as dry as data centers some kind of new frontline on the Omni-cause
I imagine every side jumping on the water issue is exactly trying to distract from this. You'll notice you hear about water consumption issues much more than oligarchy and wealth inequality on "progressive media".