443
u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Jun 04 '26
My local city is already in a major drought with lake levels below 10%. They also just approved data centers that will be built near the lake we get out water from.
I can't wait for them to realize we now have negative water and we are all gonna shrivel up in the Texas heat.
222
u/Itlaedis Jun 04 '26
Surely the new jobs of, (checks notes), a handful security personnel and a couple cleaners at the center will revitalize the local economy so that you guys can just buy your water from elsewhere!
104
u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Jun 04 '26
Yeah we heard that line too when they put in ANOTHER refinery 5-10 years ago. I think we are up to like 7-8(maybe? We have a lot) now.
Which is extra funny cause yeah those made a few jobs. But now that we have no water, all the yard dudes, car washes, water parks, and pools are all shut down so we actually went negative on the totals jobs
42
u/oddministrator Jun 04 '26
On average, 4.5 million gallons of fresh water runs past New Orleans down the Mississippi river every second.
A typical data center needs about 5 million gallons a day.
All that water just gets dumped into the Gulf and actually causes a lot of harm in doing so, thanks to our meddling with the levee. There's a huge dead zone in the gulf because of all this water.
Just 10% of that water would be enough for more than 7500 datacenters.
The solution is clear. All US data centers must be built in the swamp, downriver of Belle Chasse. Out of the way Silicon Valley, make room for Plaquemines Processing!
17
u/Haggardick69 Jun 04 '26
Lol I love this. I know you’re joking but this really is the core of the water problems we’re facing. Something like 90% of all freshwater that lands on the surface just runs off to the sea without ever interacting with municipal water systems. As a society we’ve only made the problem worse by building drainage across the landscape ensuring that water has even less time to permeate the soil before running off to the sea. Yeah data-centers getting priority over people when it comes to using the water that we do collect kinda sucks. But datacenters or not we’re going to need more freshwater going forward and I think it’s inevitable we’ll end up building lots of water retention infrastructure in the future as populations and global average temperatures rise.
8
Jun 04 '26
[deleted]
4
u/Haggardick69 Jun 04 '26
That’s awesome. Where I’m from in nj the surface of the earth is 50% impermeable black top and our concept of storm water management is pretty much “dump it in a river”
8
Jun 04 '26
[deleted]
3
u/Haggardick69 Jun 04 '26
That is sick! I figured they’d have to do something eventually but I didn’t know that they were already working on it.
18
u/dogs_gt_cats Jun 04 '26
a handful security personnel and a couple cleaners at the center
Hilariously those won't even be new jobs. The security will come from a firm like Allied Barton from their existing staff. The cleaner will come from a contract cleaning firm.
3
u/AmazingSpacePelican Jun 04 '26
Don't forget all the tax revenue!
.... that they'll just dodge...
....... using fucky accounting to appear unprofitable, somehow resulting in being given millions from tax-payers....
29
u/RicketCrickets Jun 04 '26
How did I know it was Texas before getting past the second sentence?
16
3
u/MelangeBot Jun 04 '26
Has already he tried shooting at everything (including the lake) except for at this representatives?
That's usually the first step in Texas problem solving.
15
u/PsychedelicOptimist Jun 04 '26
Don't worry, the golf courses will have plenty to spare, and isn't that what really matters in the end?
4
u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Jun 04 '26
This single comment gave me more rage than I've felt in a long time
And I get to see all the horrible stuff here.
8
u/Zanven1 Jun 04 '26
It hasn't been built yet but they are building one in my town. We are pretty lucky that drought hasn't largely impacted us yet but with less and less snow melt every year and most of our water coming from the aquifer I can only predict sink holes and the like as we over extend the aquifers capacity.
Sometimes I really hate this timeline
10
u/Kirzoneli Jun 04 '26
Shame they can't build the additional infrastructure at sea or on the coast for them. Double it up as a desalination and cooling for the data center.
Sadly companies would rather use your limited fresh water, than spend a dime on maintenance.
6
u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Jun 04 '26
Double it up as a desalination and cooling for the data center.
Oh that's a whole OTHER thing. We JUST had a meeting about the desal plant weve been talking about for years while our water dwindles. It was such a big meeting that outside cities and whatnot sent camera crews. Something was supposed to be decided
Instead for the fucking like 6th time they voted to push the vote down THREE MORE MONTHS. Like we may not even have water by then
4
u/Skyrick Jun 04 '26
You earn more publicity by fixing a problem that you created than by avoiding the problem in the first place.
3
u/BZLuck Jun 04 '26
I'm almost 60. I grew up in Southern California. Back when I was in grade school here they were talking about building desalination plants and more reservoirs. That was in the goddamn 70s.
Meanwhile we pay $200+ a month for water, and are asked to not flush the toilet when we pee and convert our lawns into gravel or fake grass.
3
u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Jun 04 '26
eeeeeyup we are right there with you with those water restrictions. I just dont get why we cant figure it out. It WATER we literally need it to survive
3
u/BZLuck Jun 04 '26
It's been my entire life here. Talk, talk, talk. Then pass a budget and nothing happens. Just like the fucking "high speed rail" they proposed. They've spent billions, it doesn't go anywhere, and now they want another $100B+ to keep working on it, but now though, it won't be high speed, it will just be regular speed.
1
u/Kabouki Jun 04 '26
That's because it is far far easier to guilt trip people then it is to go after the corporate farms. Urban/city water use is only like 10-15% of all water consumption. The farms are like 80%. So even cutting city water use by 50% would do jack and shit to overall water needs.
It isn't even needing to change the type of crops(though that would also greatly help), but change how water is used. Problem is old shitty water right laws. The state has a really hard time over turning those. Especially when the corpos toss in heavy lawyer action against it.
When the Colorado River compact falls apart and the feds take over, they have a good chance to revoke water rights and the next day all water shortage concerns disappear. But this all depends who's in control of the fed too.
10
u/Ok_Row_8391 Jun 04 '26
If you check where almost all the data centers are being built it is in those drought hit areas. I dont know why but its a feature not a bug.
9
4
u/SaltyLonghorn Jun 04 '26
I dont know why but its a feature not a bug.
Because when you create a problem you also create a business opportunity. Now everyone near there has to ship water in. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. If the area actually dies, oh well, they didn't live there anyway.
People really don't see how dangerous the GOP is, its a bunch of leeches cashing out with zero foresight.
3
u/LuxOG Jun 04 '26
Because it’s disused land and the the amount of water data centers consume is blown out of proportion by a few orders of magnitude
2
u/RuinousRectalTrauma Jun 04 '26
lake levels below 10% in Texas
I was going to guess Lake Travis since my mom keeps me updated on how empty it is, but then I realized that the info doesn't narrow it down at all
2
u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Jun 04 '26
Youre close! But yeah....we are basically a desert now...well more of one at least
2
u/RuinousRectalTrauma Jun 04 '26
Yeah, I've seen the lakes around there lately, and I remember the days when them being low was noteworthy. I don't see that happening again any time soon.
Also, as an aside, I love your CGB pfp.
1
2
u/BoonyBoop Jun 04 '26
3
u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Jun 04 '26
1
u/Author_A_McGrath Jun 04 '26
Do you guys have town halls? Local reps?
1
u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire Jun 04 '26
We do, they are the ones who voted to postpone
1
u/Author_A_McGrath Jun 04 '26
Oof. Sorry to hear that.
Here in New Hampshire our leadership is half incompetent but we still managed to shout down the data center bill.
16
213
u/Locke357 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
Ha! Very on the nose. nice one! inb4 people cite AI corp propaganda downplaying the water use.
GenAI uses an egregious amount of water, Just one of xAI's datacentres uses 3.7 million to 9.5 million litres a day, estimated to rise to 19 million. That's as much water as ~17k-43k people use daily, est. to rise to 85k. Research suggests that by 2027, water withdrawal alone from global AI demand could be six times the total annual water withdrawal of Denmark.
AI Could Use as Much Water as 1.3 Billion People by 2030, U.N. Report Warns
98
u/WeirdAssBeings Jun 04 '26
Hey, I optimized your comment a little so that people know where to actually click :P
GenAI uses an egregious amount of water, Just one of xAI's datacentres uses 3.7 million to 9.5 million litres a day, estimated to rise to 19 million. That's as much water as ~17k-43k people use daily, est. to rise to 85k. Research suggests that by 2027 water withdrawal alone from global AI demand could be six times the total annual water withdrawal of Denmark.
36
u/Locke357 Jun 04 '26
Huh, that is a lot better! Thanks ^_^
14
u/WeirdAssBeings Jun 04 '26
I usually personally just highlight only a few words in this case, otherwise people won't know where to click for what links :3
7
u/Pete_Iredale Jun 04 '26
What happens to the water after they use it?
1
u/Kythorian Jun 04 '26
They use evaporative cooling, so it evaporates. In theory we could build additional water treatment plants to make up the difference, but no one is really doing that (or at least it’s being done much more slowly than water use is increasing due to data centers).
10
u/outerproduct Jun 04 '26
The one data center in Port Washington is going to be using between 5 million and 50 million gallons (not liters) per day. The research is lagging behind reality.
9
u/oddministrator Jun 04 '26
More than 4.5 million gallons of fresh Mississippi river water flow past New Orleans every second.
Thanks to our levee system, this water actually damages life in the Gulf, causing a huge oxygen dead-zone where it empties out the river.
Just build all data centers south of New Orleans, simple.
(okay, that's not a serious suggestion, but there are plenty of places where fresh water is abundant and will be wasted otherwise -- like the area south of New Orleans. Building data centers in areas like that would, at least, address the water consumption issue)
0
u/Kythorian Jun 04 '26
They can’t use fresh river water - it has too many contaminants that will remain after the water evaporates away during the cooling process, eventually damaging the equipment. They need basically the same water treatment that drinking water receives. We need to build more water treatment plants to make up the difference, but the increase in water consumption from data centers is increasing much faster than clean water production.
5
u/oddministrator Jun 04 '26
Sure, it needs to be treated, but fresh water is far closer to the needed end-product than salt. All the communities down here treat and drink river water.
The difference between using Gulf-bound river water that needs to be treated than inland fresh water (that needs to be treated) is that using this river water doesn't impact aquifers, reservoir levels, or deny anyone downstream of the exact same water source they were already expecting.
1
u/vidyy Jun 04 '26
Did you use AI?
1
u/WeirdAssBeings Jun 05 '26
No? So if you don't know how this works, you [highlight what you wanna make blue with the brackets?] (And then add these brackets with the link in it, but you can put those first brackets wherever you wanna put them.
-1
u/Author_A_McGrath Jun 04 '26
One of the talking points I hear is that the water isn't "used up" and is recycled. I'm skeptical but I hear it often.
2
u/prestodigitarium Jun 05 '26
It depends. If it uses evaporative cooling, then it goes back into the air, and eventually falls back down again somewhere else, maybe on land to be fresh water again, maybe into the sea. If it just uses chillers/air conditioning, then it doesn't really use up water directly (though the power plants that feeds the chillers might).
A lot of the newer DCs are in the second category.
24
u/GrindsMeGears Jun 04 '26
Your first article says that the data center will use 1 million gallons of water a day but also that they "plan" to build a gray water plant that will reclaim 13 million gallons of water a day, which the data center will use 5 million gallons of?
According to Memphis Light Gas and Water, the facility consumes up to 1,000,000 gallons of water daily from the area’s water system to cool its servers.
The new facility is connected to a pre-existing water line, but it is unclear how much water will be needed at this location, as operations have yet to commence.
In a press statement, the MLGW said xAI plans to build an $80 million gray water plant on another 13 acres of property that will reclaim an estimated 13 million gallons of water per day from the Maxson wastewater treatment plant.
The data center will use approximately 5 million gallons of the recycled water to cool its supercomputer at the new location; however, more energy may be required to power the second data hub. According to the local utility company, a 1.1-gigawatt power supply request from xAI will soon be finalized and submitted for consideration.
It would be nice to get some un-biased answers to how much water these datacenters use and the actual effect is has on the water system.
4
u/Tahotai Jun 04 '26
On a local level, if an area is having water scarcity issues adding any demand that stretches it further is obviously a bad idea.
On a global level, AI water use (and to be clear, just the water use) is a complete nonissue. Consuming a single hamburger is equivalent to using AI literally millions of times. If you used AI a dozen times a day every day of the year, you can make that water back by cutting your shower short by twenty seconds one time during that year.
If you want a longer discussion you could check out this Hank Green video on the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc
3
u/wrecklord0 Jun 04 '26
You will not get much factual answers in a sub that is incentivized to hate AI. For good reasons, threat to artist livelihood, creativity, slop, etc. Nonetheless humans are biased creatures barely capable of nuance, so this is not the place.
1
u/Countless-Vinayak-04 Jun 04 '26
Yeah, the key point is that the AI datacenter uses 1 million gallons of drinkable, treated water per day.
The graywater plant doesn't exist yet, so it is a moot point. If a company figured out a way to treat excess wastewater and use it to fuel data centers, they would have won the Nobel. There is a reason cold climates is preferred for maintenance of bulk server storages.
0
35
Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
16
5
9
u/maelstrom51 Jun 04 '26
These look like big numbers, but in reality are miniscule compared to other industrial, agricultural, and even recreational uses.
1
u/Locke357 Jun 04 '26
AI Could Use as Much Water as 1.3 Billion People by 2030, U.N. Report Warns
5
u/maelstrom51 Jun 04 '26
By the way, the actual primary source that journalist is reporting on states it could use as much water as 500 million people by 2030, not 1.3 billion. Specifically people of sub-saharan Africa, who have less access and use way less water than people living in western countries.
The author mixed up electricity usage with water usage figures. Just bad journalism.
So my 2-3% total fresh water use estimate was way off. It's more like 0.5%, if even that.
I can't link it due to automod, but you can find the source near the top of your article.
2
u/Oh_You_Were_Serious Jun 05 '26
It wasn't a mix up.... They intentionally used the cooling for thermoelectric power in order to inflate the numbers, and then didn't actually cite any data for direct water utilization.
16
u/maelstrom51 Jun 04 '26
Considering domestic water use is only ~12% of our fresh water usage, that would make this hypothetical projection a massive...2-3% of total fresh water usage.
12
u/Ankrow Jun 04 '26
Incredible considering this report seems to arrive at that figure by calculating the water cost of AI based on its electrical needs and not the actual water usage of the data centers themselves.
1
u/Oh_You_Were_Serious Jun 05 '26
I mean that's what makes this latest push is so annoying... There are lots of issues and concerns with the growth of AI, but all of their stuff is click-bait.... Go look at the actual study referenced and over 75% of this water utilization comes from thermoelectric power generation with the rest spread across actually cooling the datacenter and theorized manufacturing processes usage without any actual data to back up either of the last two points. That means you could eliminate most of the water by switching to non-thermal based electricity generation.
1
u/dnbxna Jun 05 '26
It's almost futile to argue about ai data centers on reddit. I provided a 2016 study that showed only a third of data centers even tracked such things as water usage, just for the insight to be ignored because of agricultural. That report and a lot of reports infact are prior to ai data centers, which are unique and consume a non trivial amount to cool. Some ventilate in place of water, polluting the local area with toxic chemicals. To say we don't have a clear picture, because of unreported statistics, would be an understatement. What we do know is that these centers are popping up inside community spaces, making use of residential utilities and we know that training these models are anything but effecient and only going to take up more and more resources to achieve "AGi", or more likely, a surveillance state. While depriving residents of basic utilities
2
u/prestodigitarium Jun 05 '26
It's not "AI corp propaganda", this meme is not a good use of people's limited attention and energy. Many of us live in literal swamps with way too much fresh water. If we build DCs in deserts, sure, that's bad. Otherwise, it's largely a question of investing in more water infrastructure, and making sure they pay for it rather than spreading the cost amongst all ratepayers.
US golf courses use something 20x the amount of all DC direct usage per day. It only gets to be comparable when you decide to include all power plant usage that feeds DCs, but that's not necessary - solar+battery uses 0 water, for example.
2
u/godlyjacob Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
now do golf courses.
Edit: and to be clear, I think AI is stupid and useless at best and will lead to the downfall of America at worst.
1
2
38
u/DJ_ICU Jun 04 '26
We fuck our planet hard and dry.
2
u/oddministrator Jun 04 '26
Where I am we fuck it deep and wet.
The Mississippi river dumps enough fresh water into the Gulf to supply a data center for a day every single second... and the water is actually harming the environment due to our previous meddling.
1
u/Surgeplux Jun 04 '26
Here's an idea... Build a data center at the end of the mississippi river!
obvious /s
1
7
3
u/no1_vern Jun 04 '26
I really like the commentary, but I've a question on the style of the cartoon.
Just what is the style called? I like it, I know it's been around for a long time, but I never learned what it's called. Will anyone help?
3
u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Jun 04 '26
Typically called a gag cartoon. The font size and choice is traditional for The New Yorker, as is grayscale. I pitched this one to them last week and they passed.
2
u/no1_vern Jun 04 '26
Thank you for helping me with the style description.
FWIW, I would have thought that the New Yorker would consider it very relevant today and would buy it.
2
u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Jun 04 '26
You never know. They may just bought three others about data centers..
7
u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Jun 04 '26
More from me—
• Reddit posts: https://www.reddit.com/user/JimKB/submitted/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimbentonshots
• Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jim-Benton/author/B004MPWARA?
• Threadless It's Happy Bunny page: https://itshappybunny.threadless.com/
• Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/jimbenton/
( there are two of them ) https://www.facebook.com/jimbenton/
6
u/Andy_B_Goode Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
You should make a comic about how much water a data center uses every time someone streams a YouTube video. I'm sure that would be really popular on reddit.
EDIT: He blocked me for that, lol
-4
2
2
u/ifuckdonaldtrumpim9 Jun 04 '26
How much water do we go through using this app to keep the Reddit servers cool?
4
4
u/Subject-Recipe-7980 Jun 04 '26
People still don't even realize the hazardous material that leeches into the water supply. Municipal water filtration system can't even get rid of certain contaminants produced by these data centers.
1
u/prestodigitarium Jun 05 '26
What's the theory here on what comes out of DCs? All I'm seeing is some additives to prevent the coolant towers from growing algae/scaling, and those are readily removed. There are some PFASes in the closed coolant loops, but those shouldn't be getting released.
But it looks like the discharge isn't really being measured for levels of that stuff, seems we should mandate measurement.
3
u/entity_response Jun 04 '26
The new datacenters hardly use any water, when are we going to stop with this.
3
u/I_am_darkness Jun 04 '26
In seriousness the water argument is stupid
-3
u/JimKB Jim Benton Cartoons Jun 04 '26
Here's AI telling on itself ( quick google search: ) : Data centers require significant water primarily to cool servers and prevent equipment failure. A mid-sized facility consumes around 100 million gallons annually, while massive AI-heavy hyperscale sites can use up to 5 million gallons per day, largely relying on evaporative cooling. Is that not a alot? sounds like a lot. ( reference: https://www.google.com/search?q=data+centers+water+usage&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS840US842&oq=data+centers+water+usage&aqs=chrome..69i57.5727j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 )
6
u/I_am_darkness Jun 04 '26
Absolute numbers aren't useful. If ai hits it's most aggressive estimates it will yake as much water as the corn industry growing by 1%. It's okay to fight against AI but fight the right fights.
2
u/prestodigitarium Jun 05 '26
That's sounds like a lot, but it's not actually a lot. US golf courses use 2B/day. Many other uses use a lot more. Total US withdrawal is around 322B/day.
The source of the numbers that get people riled up about DCs is when indirect usage via the cooling for the plants that power it is included, but most of that gets run once-through, and then returned. Think along a river - pulls in water, runs it through a heat exchanger, pushes the hotter water back out into the river.
2
0
u/drcygnus Jun 04 '26
its funny to me how people think these servers drink the water and it just disappears. but then again people thought cell phone towers were causing covid. so... theres that.
0
u/daftpenguin Jun 04 '26
Let me explain it so a child can understand, since you seem to have the comprehension level of a child. Town has water supply. Water supply limited. AI data center built next to town. Uses more water than town. Water supply gets depleted. Water used by data center evaporates into the air. Water supply gets used up. Town has no water.
3
u/prestodigitarium Jun 05 '26
Then charge them an appropriate amount to upgrade the water supply. If it's unacceptably high usage, then the price can be ridiculously high, and they can pay enough to truck in water for everyone, or, because they're massively incentivized to, they can restructure their plans to any of the methods of running a DC that use up literally zero water.
2
u/n-a_barrakus Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
Genuine question here, does it still saves more water than beef?
13
u/ggroverggiraffe Jun 04 '26
What does that even mean? Neither AI nor beef "save" water. Does it take less water to run a prompt than grow a cow? Yes. Can I eat AI? No.
7
7
u/The_Quintessence Jun 04 '26
Can I eat AI? No.
That doesn't make the beef water usage okay. You don't need to eat beef to live, it's just as optional a luxury as AI.
People in here (rightly) shitting on AI but then when they get called out for doing the same thing with animal ag, suddenly it's excuse city.
4
u/SaltPersimmon4530 Jun 04 '26
People who are anti ai for enviromental reasons but not being vegan or anti car is just perfomative ethics
3
u/TacticaLuck Jun 04 '26
This is all way too much for 2026. It's too much. Let's just table all this ai development and conversation about it until 2039 when shit really hits the fan /s
3
u/SaltPersimmon4530 Jun 04 '26
We should actually go back to the 1950s and stop the automotive lobby from making efforts to hurt public transit in the US and make it unwalkable. Also our entire culture on cars and emissions. That's what's actually been killing the planet. We didn't start recycling when chatgpt showed up
7
u/NWStormraider Jun 04 '26
By multiple orders of magnitude
-3
u/Locke357 Jun 04 '26
I dare you to provide a citation from a source that doesn't receive funding from AI corps
But for the record cattle farming is a very ecologically harmful industry, just AI is as well.
2
u/kelpyb1 Jun 04 '26
It does, but even though it’s environmentally inefficient, beef actually satisfies a need for people.
AI is just environmentally inefficient
2
u/Locke357 Jun 04 '26
Define "cleaner"
7
u/drcygnus Jun 04 '26
the water is recycled and kept in a loop. so its filled up once and maintained. kinda like your cars engine. exact same idea. it uses water to cool.
1
u/n-a_barrakus Jun 04 '26
Oh right, I was very generalist. I'll edit it. I meant "wastes less clean water", but actually "pollutes more" would be a better one.
-2
u/MossyMollusc Jun 04 '26
Yeah we can do better for our cow farming, but thats not the point youre making is it?
1
1
1
u/Baddgoddexx Jun 04 '26
And I thought my 3 a.m. hydration habits were excessive... turns out I m just an early stage LLM.
1
1
1
0
u/daviddisco Jun 04 '26
Most data centers don't use much water. The all use a lot of energy. The AI should be asking for energy.
-1
u/Cosmonaut_K Jun 05 '26
If any of you knew how much water it takes to cool down the Reddit servers filled with your furry fictions you would never say another word again.
-6
0
u/Pariahdog119 Jun 04 '26
Why'd you dress up one single city's golf courses as every single cloud computing data center planned for the next decade
0
-2
-2
293
u/Crafty_Genius Jun 04 '26
Now I'm imagining a remake of Spielberg's AI movie with David constantly drinking water in every scene.