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Posted on 06/16/2026 5:20:58 PM PDT by Libloather
Data centers have become the chic new enemy among activists.
Critics claim the centers are using inordinate amounts of electricity and water to power artificial intelligence, inspiring protesters to take to the streets and Democratic lawmakers to head to Albany to stymie their development.
However, some experts say the anti-data center push is more of a moral panic than an empirical one, often based on speculative and sometimes bunk projections.
It seems that data centers are the boogeyman onto which larger fears about the impact of AI are being projected.
“The estimates of future data-center development may be overestimated by a factor of three to five,” Jonathan Koomey, an energy researcher who has been studying data-center electricity usage for decades, told The Post. “It is not as simple as saying, ‘We don’t want data centers to use water.’ You have to think about the trade-offs.”
Concerns about data centers have largely centered around the idea that they are massive guzzlers of energy and water, which (alongside aircon) is used to cool banks of servers and electical equipment.
Worries about water consumption have been popularized via an oft-repeated statistic about the water consumption of a Chilean data center from journalist Karen Hao’s book, “Empire of AI.” The only problem: Hao had accidentally exaggerated the water usage by a factor of 1,000.
According to the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, just 0.2% of New York state’s water and 3.5% of the state’s electricity were used by data centers in 2025.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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At first I had concerns — not that they’d ‘dirty’ water but just suck up enough that it might affect water table levels - and why not closed loop anyway (like many home computers and larger geothermal systems)?
Then the blogosphere found out, like so many other ‘causes’ the money for ‘no data centers’ is coming from PRC.
In the last few weeks the shoe dropped. Now that the 2026 political season is under way, there’s a strong correlation between “house that had “no data centers” sign” and “house that already has Democrat candidate sign.” Ahhh.
The big issue is power, not water.
I just did the math. A small river near me flows around 1500 cu. ft. / s.
That is 3.5 x 10^11 gallons / year. (!!!)
One of the biggest powerplants in the country is sited on that river. It gets cooling water for 4 massive hyperbolic natural draft cooling towers from it. The raw river water gets cleaned up on site, there is a platoon of chemists and techs who work there on the water systems.
I see people hyperventilating over one BILLION gallons per year for a mega scale project. OK. That’s 1 x 10^9 gallons / year. That’s less than 1/3% of the flow of this very small river.
There are reasons to be concerned with the AI data center hype. Water usage is rarely one of them, but it sure is a squirrel.
All the fridges in the US use a bunch of electricity
tlerweave wrote: “but why all of a sudden do they need SO MANY DATA CENTERS”
Please explain how many data centers are needed.
Mariner wrote: “Google AI A one-gigawatt (1 GW) data center consumes an estimated 5 million to 19 million gallons of water daily for direct cooling, ...”
Water is not consumed. It still exists, it’s just used.
Plus, at Niagara Falls(the Robert Moses Power Project)makes some of the least expensive and reliable electric generation in the country. Plus there is a far amount of water running downhill to the Atlantic Ocean EVERYDAY 24/7.
Who is they? The millions using google navigation in real time in any given moment?
Plus, at Niagara Falls(the Robert Moses Power Project)makes some of the least expensive and reliable electric generation in the country. Plus there is a far amount of water running downhill to the Atlantic Ocean EVERYDAY 24/7.
Agree. They aren’t overblown. They are monsters. Not kidding. In Michigan, small communities fight them, but our pockets are not as deep. One Gretch goes around betraying us all.
FWIW, our Florida state rep spoke about a bill pending and said yes, there is an initial water load but then it is an internal closed cooling system.
To support the growth of AI usage as more and more businesses and people find ways to use it.
Remember when everybody needed and wanted computers with faster drives and more memory? And phones with better cameras and more memory?
It is the nature of technology.
Luddites are trying to shout back the ocean. Waves of change are coming.
Because it’s cheaper! Basic economics.
Because these things are heat islands and looking for cheap land.
Just the installed generating capacity for the current group of facilities in Texas is equal to 1/2 the power generation of all of Texas before the centers. That is a hell of a lot of refrigerators.
A group in Oklahoma did a report on the things. The investors are very coy about what they are doing they are also lying about the impacts.
Electricity? Talk about RAISE YOUR RATES. Our local coop says that the cost of everything they used to provide our power is increasing just from AI center competition.
Because the need for DATA STORAGE increases exponentially every day.
It gets contaminated before return, much evaporates as well
I’ve seen reports of nearby ranches were the livestock is no longer reproducing, etc
Look, I’ve been in advanced tech for >30 years but these date centers are simply part of a control grid that will be used against anyone who disagrees with whomever has power and it is not for our benefit.
Build the AI Centers at WATER Treatment plants.
Intake dirty water and run it through STEP 1 of filtration (remove all solid particulates).
Input that water through the AI Center cooling system.
Dump water from AI Center cooling system into STEP 2 of filtration system where it is made into potable water.
END RESULT: The AI CENTERS will promote/monitor/ensure water cleanliness and significant cost savings would be seen.
That explains why my water tastes funny. It's over a thousand years old. Way past it's expiration date.
Build data centers in northern Greenland. Air cooled is the way to go.
Yeah, sell ...sell what’s been family turf for years, maybe generations.
I feel for those folks and here’s why: my family owned property, consisting of a two story house, the original mortar and stone house built in,1858, a two floor barn, and a nice cottage house. My granduncle oversaw the property.
Being an Air Force family, I lived in that house my first three years of school, and my last two years of high school.
The summer I graduated high school, I enlisted in the I.D
S. Air Force. Mom kept telling me the small house was mine
Well, here I was in South East Asia, and I get a letter telling me that my aunt and uncle have decided to sell the house to a developer! After my wtf moment, my plans just got flushed. No input, no opinions asked, just plain, yeah
I had more words for those two, till the opportunity to say passed into the night
It may not have been a farm, but it was home.
Kind of like what happens in a water treatment plant ?
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