this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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Yeah data center bad, but what kills me is the water use thing.
It really seems to rankle peoples bungle, and in both directions, that yes data-center water use is bad, but its just utterly dwarfed in comparison to forms sources of water use. And this is something I can speak to with a fair bit of expertise, in that I've worked extensively in developing water-use analyses for water districts, cities, counties, states, etc. Its just a scale issue and like with that recent Hank Green video about recycling, people truly don't understand how many people there are.
For example, take the MAWA equation (mean average water allowance). Typical indoor water allotment (and there is alot of data to back this up) is about 200 gallons (750 liters) per person per residence per day. That includes toilets, showers, cooking, washing clothing etc..
So lets take the recent number from that NYT article about its data centers water use. I think the number was 2.5 billion gallons?
73,000 gallons would be the average per-person-per-structure indoor only water allotment, which again, is pretty well established.
2.5 billion divided by 73k is about 35k, which is a bit of an over estimate but makes no matter.
All of Amazons datacenters combined "used", and I use "used" lightly here because its not like the water disappeared, but it used less water than a small American town. All of their datacenters combined.
Using duckduckgo to get numbers on this..
Just.. put it into context. Say 1lb of beef takes about 2k gallons of water to produce. The average American consumes 50lbs of beef per year. So an average town of say.. 35k people would go through 3.5 billion gallons of water in beef consumption alone, annually.
And the same equations are going to hold for practically everything else humans consume. Its just... its all a matter of scale. And I agree, datacenters are not good. But the water-use argument is weak when you consider just.. something basic and well established like beef consumption, or golf courses. 2.5 billion gallons is like, 120 golf courses worth of water. Its practically nothing.
Ever heard the idiom: "The straw that broke the camel's back"
Water is not the only issue but to ignore it or minimise it in isolation does nothing but weaken the overall argument which is completely sound. I will aree that it shouldnt be the sole basis for argument.
Datacenters consume absurd amounts of finite resources for no definable return, but at substantial definable environmental, economic, and social costs.
Ahh yes. Let me just use idioms to explain to a state government how much water is being used in a given sector. SURELY they'll appreciate that I focus my analysis on whatever clearly uninformed talking point has bubbled up through social media.
My point is that a lay understanding won't get you there.
120 golf courses is a fuckload of wasted water. That isn't as persuasive as you seem to think it is.
There are 16000 golf courses in the US.
I agree about golf courses being a bad metaphor but only because they feed into the same issue. They're something people see and comprehend but which completely fails to capture the scope. It only seems like a bad metaphor if you don't have any context and most people don't.
I'm not doing it to be convincing, but your reaction feeds into my point. It's back to the Hank Green point. To the ley audience it seems like a lot because "number big", but it's utterly meaningless amount, if you have just look at like "one small suburbs worth of front yard".
I can eat a beef.
I cannot eat a datacentre, no matter how much I try it doesn’t digest.
I agree about golf courses.
completely agree, always thought the water use argument was weak, we are terrible at internalizing large numbers
there are way better arguments against datacenters, like the fact that onsite natural gas generators are now the norm for new datacenter builds where the grid can't supply the load needed, those things are fucking terrible for people and the environment
Data centers typically use evaporative cooling, so the water is consumed (released into the air). If they used closed loop systems it would be different.
Typically? Maybe in some arid climates without humidity but try using evaporative cooling during a thunderstorm and you'll find your data center shutting down from overheating.
~~70%~~ A large part of water usage in industrial nations comes from electricity generation. That's where data centers consume most of their water.
Edit: 70% is only true for Canada, globally agriculture consumes more. The US for example has ~40% each for agriculture and power generation.
Could you elaborate on the 70% figure? A quick search returns multiple hits suggesting the 70% number is actually related to agriculture, not electricity production. See e.g. here.
Or did you mean 70% of the water used be data centers?
Oh, you're right. I used the Wikipedia article as source and it said:
Yet the previous sentence said this was about Canada. Whoops.
Though in Europe and North America, where a big chunk of data centers are typically built, agriculture tends to have a lower share with industry (including but not limited to power generation) having a bigger one:
https://ourworldindata.org/water-use-stress
Yeah so do lawns.
Clearly, the solution is to develop a breed of astroturf that doubles as an AI datacenter. /s
Oh christ don't give them any ideas.