Guardian analysis finds facilities to be built in some of the driest areas as outcry grows over water needed to power AI
Oliver Milman, featuring data visuals by Andrew Witherspoon in The Guardian:
A record-shattering drought has racked much of the US. But the artificial intelligence industry is pushing ahead regardless, with the majority of planned datacenters set to be built in drought-ridden locations, a Guardian analysis has found. About two-thirds of upcoming datacenters, which typically require a large amount of water to operate, are set to be built in places that have been among the driest in the country over the past year. Of 809 planned datacenters, 517 are in locations that have been in drought conditions throughout the past year, according to data from Cleanview and the federal government, which grades drought across four levels of severity. A similar proportion of existing datacenters are already situated in drought-affected areas.
More than 60% of the contiguous US is currently at varying stages of drought, the largest expanse for spring in modern records, with a particularly severe lack of rain and snow in the south-east and west desiccating croplands and raising fears of a disastrous wildfire season. Scientists have determined that the climate crisis, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is worsening the duration and intensity of droughts in the US. But a stampede of new datacenters are adding extra demands via their hefty energy and water requirements. Large datacenters, some the size of small towns, can require up to 5m gallons of water a day, equivalent to the water use of up to 50,000 people, in order to provide cooling to arrays of humming networked computers.
Overall, the multiplying datacenters across the US are set to demand as much as 73bn gallons of water a year by 2028, up from about 17bn gallons in 2023. Each 100-word AI prompt uses up roughly one 500ml bottle of water due to the cooling needs of datacenters, researchers have estimated. “The AI industry is sprinting as fast as it can to gain market dominance, and the rest of us have to deal with a great increase in water demand in places already in drought,” said Christopher Dalbom, an expert in water resources law at Tulane University. [...]
While an immediate water shortage is unlikely, hard choices will have to be made to avoid future clashes over water access, according to Dalbom. “When we get into a situation where there’s a limited amount of water available, are we going to limit water to residents and businesses before datacenters?” he said. “In the eastern US, we have always assumed an abundance of water, so the legal systems aren’t set up for shortages. We can’t just assume that people aren’t going to be asked to reduce their water use, while datacenters and energy won’t be.” Concerns over water use, as well as rising energy bills, have stirred local opposition to a rash of datacenter projects, causing some developments to be curtailed or canceled. These concerns have become a political headache for Republicans – Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of the AI industry – with much of the opposition coming from rural, more conservative areas.
[...] Yet the public backlash has been so strong – polling shows 70% of Americans don’t want to live next to a datacenter – that some states are considering new restrictions. California, Michigan and Iowa, for example, are mulling bills to require operators to submit regular reports on water use while others, such as South Carolina and Kansas, may force developers to use closed-loop cooling systems. Lawmakers in New York have gone further, with plans for an outright moratorium on datacenters.
[...] In Utah, the state’s governor, who last year asked residents to pray for rain amid a deep drought, has attempted to reassure voters that the enormous new Stratos datacenter will not endanger the Great Salt Lake, which was already shrinking due to water overuse and rising global temperatures. A group opposing the county approval of Stratos is aiming to overturn this decision via a public referendum. The datacenter is backed by Kevin O’Leary, a Canadian businessman who has featured on TV shows such as Shark Tank and is a keen supporter of Trump. O’Leary has, without evidence, accused opponents of Stratos of being paid protesters or in league with the Chinese Communist party.
This Guardian article on data centers and their disastrous impacts on water usage and energy prices is a must-read. In addition to that, the benefits and jobs that would come with the building of such centers would be a short-term boon at best.
