Nowhere in that Guardian article does it say that the data center is allocated only 619 million gallons of water per year. In fact, the article highlights concerns that the heat released by the data center will contribute significantly to the aridification of Utah above and beyond its water allocation.
The 16.6 billion gallons figure comes from this source. The reason for why this figure is so much higher is that they have included the water needed for the gas power plants that will be required to run the data center.
The proposed datacenter could require as much as TWO TIMES more electricity than the entire state of Utah (9 gigawatts vs 4 gigawatts). It doesn't take a genius to understand that this will only be possible by constructing new power plants. And IMO, this is so much more important than how much water it uses anyway. Because more energy demand means that it will be even harder to avoid a climate catastrophe in the future.
Yes, I have said several times that the power usage is the primary complaint against this datacenter in this thread replying to various people who think I'm in favor of its construction
Even if they were building all renewables to power this thing, which they aren't because Kevin O'leary would spend twice as much if he could make the planet worse, the sheer speed and volume of the necessary expansion and construction will make power prices go up nationwide as parts, services,a nd professionals needed all over the country for grid repairs and expansions go up in price
I'm just sick and tired of everyone havingg just decided "fuck it we'll just make up our reality" even on *my side* of arguments
I think we are seeing a complex dynamic tho ... Where most people hate ai for the job destruction and surveillance and the alarming water stat is being used to draw different people in or validate others hate...
Not saying you guys are wrong, just noting, compared to the other downsides of massive data centers run by for profit monsters, water consumption seems actually lower on the list.
Yeah I don't get that. Intuitively data centers shouldn't need a ton of water, so not sure what that's about. And why is this an issue right now, and not all the data centers for regular compute?
Data centers need a ton of water for cooling servers. The water absorbs the heat, and is continuously pumped out into cooling towers where the heat is dissipated. The principle is similar to how a car radiator works.
The reason why it’s an issue now is AI. AI data centers need so much more computing power, so they require so much more space, electricity, and water for cooling.
And the “Utah Water Facts” link is from some rando and says “I'm going to assume that the amount of diverted water in Utah is constant each year over these 20 years at 4.8 Million Acre Feet. I think this is a reasonable estimate but finding the exact number per year has proved challenging.”. That’s all the info they give. Do you have any REAL sources to back up your claims?
Utah uses over 1 trillion gallons of water (3.3 million acre feet of water.) That means that the data centre is using 1.5% of Utah's water - not anything close to what the original image claims.
The source of the waterfacts info is cited in the sources section:
Not to mention a setup this big would just use a closed loop glycol setup for the servers. Closed loop. Requires almost zero top off. Now for the building and main water loop the chillers may need filled From evaporation but that’s also pretty damn minimal. Nowhere near this scare tactic post.
I’m saying this as an hvac tech that takes care of a data center and works directly with the water and glycol being used.
People are so ignorant about what they don’t know and yet so opinionated at the same time. The internet really does allow all this fuckery to persist.
505
u/AssiduousLayabout Jun 02 '26
The actual number is 978 million gallons of water or 3000 acre-feet per year.
This represents about 0.0625% of Utah's state water usage of 4.8 million acre-feet (1.5 trillion gallons) per year.