The current data center craze just feels like the same thing but on a bigger scale.

It'd be pretty easy for the company to dispel those outlandish accusations - the PR department could just report the true numbers.

Noticeably they initially shared this info and then stopped. It seemed to stop around the time researchers started investigating the projects.

Both things happened when Sam Altman blogged about how much water the median ChatGPT query used.

Effectively no reward at any risk level, regardless of whether one agrees if there is actually any risk.

If they are using over a certain percent of any public utility (and yes ALL utilities are public) the utility should force it to be disclosed.

I think the disinformation is people thinking that data centers directly use vast quantities of water. What happens is the power use stresses water supplies in local areas.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/08/datacenter-a...

Now that it has been, though…

Traditional data centers have far smaller power density per rack and thus cooling requirements than AI datacenters; if you can use closed loop system without evaporation, water usage is very small. Difference is around order of magnitude

But if you want to fit maximum amount of compute in the space and need to dissipate it, evaporative based system will be far more effective space wise; especially if also for some reason you built it in hot place, rather than somewhere in the north

It is also interesting how much the anti-datacenter panic sounds like astroturf.

Not necessarily astroturfed but definitely biased.

It's not well-paid enough to be immune to kool-aid etc, and it's not on the sociopathic management level either, so we can expect a certain degree of very human rationalization going on.

It offers the compelling counter-narrative of "yes, we're evil, but hell yeah this is lucrative af". That makes the ego even happier, as in that story, one is the clever mastermind playing the system, so we can reasonably assume that that path will be taken.

If that path is unavailable, and cognitive dissonance sets in, the other path left is actually drinking the kool-aid. The corp must be nice, after all.

(This all assumes that people do in fact want to do good and have a conscience, but for those that doesn't apply to, there's the sociopathy path as mentioned in the previous comment. Reality is slightly more murky and dynamic, but I'd argue that this rough if-ladder exists as described.)

but trade secrets

I think all data centers and other industrial concerns above a certain size should have to publish that.

The hysteria always gives datacenter usage numbers in a vacuum, never a comparison, for good reason; we might have to start protesting golf courses and paper mills instead.

The water bill alone would be only $100k/yr assuming average US domestic rate of $8 per 1000 gallons.

I think at some point someone used the argument of the spoon of water to say about the quantity, but I remember to see explanations that it was unrelated.

Part of why construction of such buildings (starting with pursuing and getting a permit for it) takes as long as it does is because those issues are worked out in advance.

Nobody who is responsible for managing water is surprised by data centers appearing, it's not like they just grow overnight after a rain like people believe mushrooms do.

I think the 13M is referring to “during peak times”, whatever that means.

> However, using a computer cursor to highlight the redacted text box in the report to DWEE, then copying and pasting it into a separate document reveals that *Agate LLC* is reporting 52.65 megawatts of electricity during peak electrical demand and 13.299 megagallons of water between cooling towers, evaporative systems and site operations in the last year. That totals out to 13 million gallons of water.

> For context, 13 million gallons is enough to fill around 20 Olympic-size swimming pools, and is less than half of what the City of Lincoln reports using on Sept. 29.

> The *six* data centers reporting as of Sept. 30 show a total use of 765 million gallons of water last year, enough water to fill 1,159.93 Olympic-size swimming pools.

> More improper redaction shows that the data center using the most water annually is *Fireball Group LLC*, the Google Data Center in Papillion. Fireball LLC reports 547.88 megagallons for their 2025 Annual Water Consumption.

So while pointing to agriculture and saying look there - those guys & gals way more than us it’s a red herring because we need food.

Sure improve efficiency of ag, but a better comp for water usage should be made. Reasonable people tune out.

How so? NOT COUNTING leaks and filling, the average Olympic sized swimming pool uses 1-2 million gallons of water a year.

See EPA Commercial Pooland Spa Equipment Best Management Practices for Commercial and Institutional Facilities https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-11/ws-commer...

It's basically like framing power consumption in watt hours. A million watt hours is tiny at any scale, your whole neighborhood uses millions every day.

So probably we could grow fewer almonds in California.

> Many articles about current or future AI data centers report the number in the water permit they apply for as the amount of water they actually use day to day. But this almost never happens. [1]

This is from the problematic and often wrong but in this case correct Andy Masley. It's not completely clear to me whether this number is observed usage or a theoretical permitted maximum, in which case the actual usage could be even lower. It could be either.

[1] https://blog.andymasley.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake?ope...

The greener solution is to use water.

If those numbers are yearly, they are significant (about what the city of Lincoln uses in a month) but perhaps not troubling. Depends on your perspective.

Over the course of a year, that doesn't sound terrible.

If it really matters, block it out, print it, scan it, then send that.

If it really really really matters, block it out with random extra amounts of width, print it, scan it, edit the page images in paint to move the text to the right of a redaction forward or back a bit so people can't guess the words based on width.

Yes water goes eventually back into circulation but that does not help in the place where the system is already at it's limit

If you pump water out of one watershed into another, perhaps via evaporation and wind transport, then you better expect the downstream users, deprived of their water, to complain.

For example, the upstream users of water from the Colorado use so much that Colorado River Delta is nearly always dry. Or read about the California water wars.

Further, increased competition for surface water raises prices, which encourages additional aquifer extraction.

There will be protests and cases related to water usage of AI, but none of them would hold any ground. And winning the water case would just make the argument in their favour.