Posted on 07/30/2025 4:05:59 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Texas has long been defined by oil, heat, and huge infrastructure projects. Now, it’s also at the center of a growing environmental debate. Microsoft’s Stargate campus in Abilene is leading a data center boom that is drawing concern over water use, right in the middle of a prolonged drought.
According to a July 2025 investigation by The Austin Chronicle, data centers across Central Texas are consuming millions of gallons of water every day. This comes as many residents are being asked to reduce their usage due to dwindling supplies.
The problem is not limited to one city. In San Antonio, Microsoft and U.S. Army Corps facilities used a combined 463 million gallons of water in 2023 and 2024, according to local water utility SAWS. That’s the equivalent of usage for tens of thousands of households.
Stargate and the scale of AI
The Stargate campus in Abilene is expected to become one of the largest AI data centers in the world. Microsoft has partnered with OpenAI to develop advanced infrastructure capable of supporting the next generation of large language models. What’s received far less attention is how much water it will take to keep that infrastructure running.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at techiegamers.com ...
It’s good to see Travis up to 90%, it was getting a little low before the rains.
You are spot on about the Hill Country. The newer folks out here do not understand that it is a desert and drought and flood cycle is normal.
If you go back just a 100 years, the Hill Country was one of the poorest regions of the country, they did not even have electricity.
Now, it is full of vanity ranches and wannabe cowboys riding the paved range in Range Rovers.
Remember Ace Reid’s “Cowpokes” cartoons? Thats what your comment reminded me of. Kerr County guy.
http://www.texasescapes.com/MichaelBarr/AceReidCowpokes1.gif
Seeing your professional interest in Texas water you might like post 103. One misses comments when the discussion on a thread peters out so to speak.
I asked ChatGPT the risks.
This is what it gave me.
I understand the water runs out of springs in the Edwards, in addition to out of wells, so its not like injecting oil into a salt dome, for long term storage. And to some extent, adding more water to the Edwards will cause more springs to begin flowing, as the water level rises.
But how much water would berms along hundreds of miles of creeks and gullies add to the Edwards? Who did the study that said not only would berms in the Hill Country not solve all of San Antonio's water problems, but that they were not even a cost effective component of the overall water plan?
Isn't the recharge zone a lot wider at the western edge of the Edwards, near Brackettville, and Uvalde? A limestone aquifer is not a swimming pool, and water will not flow through the Edwards from Uvalde to San Antonio. Certainly not a meaningful rate. But why not supercharge the Edwards between, Brackettville and Uvalde, with berms, then draw the water out, and let it flow down the gentle slope to San Antonio, rather than pumping it uphill from nearer the coast?
If you think one must subscribe to a "conspiracy theory" to believe governments don't routinely reject solutions to public problems because they don't afford sufficient opportunity for graft, both the $50s in a brown paper bag, and the "Board Member A votes to sell bonds for a project, and whaddaya know, Board Member A's niece's law firm is hired as bond counsel" varieties, well, OK.
Horrible comparison.
For AI data center cooling:
I would run miles of 1 inch diam. stainless steel tubing, at a depth of 10 ft (down where the “erf be cool”); in a grid pattern; as a giant sub-surface cooling “mechanism.”
Rate of water flow, determined by how much heat can be “lost” for G gallons per M minutes . . . something like that. Test to see how many acres are needed.
Probably not all-curing, but a way to cut down on amount of “just passing thru” source of water.
“Electric power creation and big electric use both need cooling and to get cooling you need to use power.
SMN - Small modular nuclear is the answer for A.I. data centers;”
Modular reactors need cooling. Gas turbines not so much.
“Modular reactors need cooling. “
“ALL” is not true. There are versions that have processes where the heat from the nuclear aspect is recycled through a heat exchanger to add heat input that drives the turbines. There is no water cooling process needed.
I use a /sarc on mine to avoid any confusion. Serious topics require serious messages or humor that is notably such, leaving no one guessing.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of an educated person is the ability to identify and understand things that are implicitly obvious.
“One of the distinguishing characteristics of an educated person is the ability to identify and understand things that are implicitly obvious.”
Some things are only “implicitly” “obvious” to the person uttering them.
You’re the only person who complained about it, amigo.
“You’re the only person who complained about it, amigo.”
The rest just thought “how stupid” and stayed silent.
I admire your clairvoyance.
How can you multitask all those voices at once?
I, for one, welcome putting AI down like a horse with a broken leg. Every time I hear news about AI, it seems to only get worse. No reason good enough that normal people should have to sacrifice on water OR electricity for them.
After reading about taking shorter shorters & how electricity rates may skyrocket...does this make sense? They SHOULD be producing their own electricity & water. Not sure how they will do the water trick, but don’t care either.
Desalinization. Oceans of water are available. They can always recycle water too.
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