“The typical data center uses about 3-5 million gallons of water per day -- the same amount of water as a city of 30,000-50,000 people,” said Venkatesh Uddameri, professor and director of the Water Resources Center at Texas Tech University.
Google's thirst for water in South Carolina:
"Google currently has the right to pump up to half a million gallons a day at no charge. Now the company is asking to triple that, to 1.5 million. That's close to half of the groundwater that Mount Pleasant Waterworks pumps daily from the same underground aquifer to help supply drinking water to more than 80,000 residents of the area."
Google in Oregon:
"The City of The Dalles is located on the Columbia River in Wasco County, Oregon, and is the home of a major Google data center. The ad giant is looking at expanding its presence there and has been granted tax breaks to do so and is asking for more water, which has raised concerns among residents about increased demand at a time when 98 per cent of the county is in "extreme drought." .."
https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/05/oregon_google_water/
Microsoft thirst for water in the Netherlands:
How many data centers get this drinking water for free or very cheap? How many taxes do they pay? They take important ressources away and give back nothing!
More and more we really have to fight for our existance on all levels!
This post was inspired by a thread in this post - thanks also to burritos4everyone:
This is BS - Data Centers use chilled water LOOPS, where the water is cooled and circulated to heat exchangers to pull heat out of the rooms - the water is heated by this process and needs to be pumped through either evaporative or direct exchange cooling towers to again be cooled.
The evaporative cooling only works in warm climates, and uses nothing like "millions" of gallons per day, even for massive data centers.
I'm going to go with "comms" on this one...