A HUGE DATA CENTER HAS BEEN APPROVED BY THE COUNTRY COMMISSIONERS IN OUR SMALL RURAL HIGH DESERT N NEVADA VALLEY.
1070 ACRES...THAT IS HUGE FOR THIS AREA.
WE ALL HAVE WATER LIMITS ON OUR PARCELS....2.2 ACRE FEET A YEAR FOR DOMESTIC USAGE.
DATA CENTERS CAN USE OVER 450,000 GALLONS A DAY—— NOT RECYCLED. UP INTO THE DRY DESERT AIR...GONE.
THAT EQUALS THE DAILY WATER USAGE OF 252 PARCELS IN THIS VALLEY.
THE IMPACT WILL BE VERY NEGATIVE FOR US, I FEAR.
Building tech facilities that use a lot of water, especially clean freshwater, are more appropriately sited in place like, say, the Great Lakes region.
We should have diverted the Mississippi River decades ago to serve the Southwest states, along with desalinization plants along the California coast.
Desalinating Water Is Becoming “Absurdly Cheap”
How cheap is cheap? Energy Monitor notes that “globally, around 1% of the world’s drinking water is desalinated, but in Israel, that figure is around 25%.” Israel’s desalinated water comes from five desalination plants. The Sorek B plant has a capacity to desalinate 52.8 billion gallons a year and is contracted to produce water for $0.41 per cubic meter. There are around 264 gallons per cubic meter, so this puts the cost at about a penny per 6.4 gallons.
One hundred percent of the municipal water supply in the United Arab Emirates is desalinated. Dubai bloomed out of the desert with desalination technology. There are some 186 desalination facilities under construction or at the pre-construction phase around the world.