I & I Editorial BoardTwo bills that require data center developers to provide estimates of how much water they expect to use have been signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The governor previously said he’s “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements” that the legislation demands. Apparently he’s reluctant no more. He should have been.
The premise behind the bills calls attention to a fundamental question that should have been answered before any new rules were made: Just how much water do data centers use?
It isn’t as much as we’ve been led to believe.
Data centers don’t have a sterling reputation. Their approval ratings are abysmal. It seems most people would rather have a landfill in the neighborhood. Seven in 10 Americans don’t want one built near their communities. Opposition in California is a bit more intense: 73% of all Golden State adults and 77% of likely voters either somewhat or strongly oppose data center construction in their area. They have become the 21st century’s most dastardly villains, maligned as water hogs and electricity gluttons, and are polling lower than the IRS.
CNN reports there is a “uniquely bipartisan backlash against data centers” shaking up the midterms. Politico says “Americans’ attitudes toward data centers have grown increasingly sour and politically polarized in the past six months.” Residents have sued to stop data center projects, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul recently became the first governor to ban new hyperscale data centers.
The fears are unfounded. Data centers provide an array of community benefits, from job growth, to increased local tax revenues, to support for local businesses.
And, yes, they do use water. According to the World Resources Institute, data centers could be swallowing 32 billion gallons of water a year by 2028, “enough to support roughly 360,000 households’ indoor water use.” That sounds a bit ominous. But numbers need context, so let’s see where data centers rank in terms of water consumption
As it turns out, data centers are not the largest water consumers. Alfalfa, for instance, uses more than 6 trillion gallons a year to produce cattle feed. Looked at another way, it takes 346 times more water to grow alfalfa than it does to keep data centers cool, says the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.
Irrigated corn farming is almost as voracious, using 225 times as much water as data centers, which at present consume a little more than 17 billion gallons a year, while residential lawns and landscaping need 168 times as much water as data centers.
Growing almonds (1 trillion gallons), maintaining golf courses (531 billion gallons) and filling swimming pools (200 billion gallons) all need more water than data centers.
The proportions will change as data centers grow — if they are allowed to — but so will the methods used to keep data centers cool. Closed-loop systems, for instance, circulate water through sealed pipes or coils to cool the servers. The water doesn’t evaporate and is recirculated to be used again. These systems can cut freshwater consumption by as much as 70% compared to a conventional technique. Microsoft says these “next-generation” designs “will avoid the need for more than 125 million liters of water per year per data center.”
Another tech advancement, one that could revolutionize data center sustainability, is immersion cooling, in which components are submerged in a fluid that “absorbs and dissipates heat generated by” the servers, “providing a highly effective cooling solution.” Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says immersion has the potential to reduce “cooling energy use by up to 95%.”
Microfluidic cooling is yet another system that cuts water use. This process uses chips that have channels to carry liquid, integrating cooling directly into the chip. Heat extraction is up to 10 times higher than other alternatives, while energy efficiency is more than 50 times greater.
Water use is not the only concern over data centers. There is anxiety that their increasing demand for electricity will raise power bills. While not an unreasonable assumption, it’s probably wrong. University research found there’s “no statistically significant evidence that data-center presence … predicts residential electricity-price inflation.”
In the end, the only losers from the bans and overregulation of data centers will be residents in states that let panic, instead of progress, guide their decisions.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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