But data centers don’t take up much land at all and usually in places people barely live
By 2035, data centers are projected to physically occupy less than 0.1% of all land in the United States. [1] (https://andymasley.com/writing/data-center-land-use-issues-are-fake/)While the exact national acreage isn’t tracked by a single government agency, industry analysis indicates that even with the massive artificial intelligence boom, the physical land footprint remains incredibly small. An estimate based on current growth trajectories places the collective land parcel space for all U.S. data centers at roughly 1,400 to 2,000 square miles by the 2030s. For scale, that is less than the land area of Delaware, or roughly 0.3% of the country's prime farmland. [1] (https://andymasley.com/writing/data-center-land-use-issues-are-fake/)
Interesting. In other words, interstate highways have been more damaging as far as land usage/eminent domain goes yet I’ve never heard a single person complain about them.
@supadupa I hadn't heard about it being an issue of land taken up. What I've read is more like this, actually: https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption
Information and Communications Technology is continuously becoming ever more compact and resource-efficient relative to its computing power.
Here’s a summary of issues with water Where Water Consumption is a Real IssueHigh Local Demand: A single large data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water every day. That matches the daily use of a small town. [1] (https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption)Arid Locations: Many data centers are built in dry areas where water is already scarce. This creates direct competition with local residents and farms. [1] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1sj35pc/real_facts_on_data_center_water_use_is_it_that/), [2] (https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/technology/2026/how-much-water-do-ai-data-centers-use), [3] (https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption)Evaporation Losses: Traditional cooling towers use evaporation to cool servers. This water turns into vapor and is lost, meaning operators must constantly add fresh water to prevent mineral buildup and clogs. [1] (https://foe.org/blog/why-do-data-centers-need-fresh-water/), [2] (https://www.valicor.com/blog/data-center-water-management-afterthought)Indirect Energy Use: Power plants burn fossil fuels or use nuclear power to create electricity for data centers, which indirectly consumes massive amounts of water off-site. [1] (https://www.eli.org/vibrant-environment-blog/ais-cooling-problem-how-data-centers-are-transforming-water-use), [2] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1sj35pc/real_facts_on_data_center_water_use_is_it_that/)How Tech Companies Are Reducing UsageRecycled Wastewater: Major tech companies increasingly use treated municipal wastewater instead of clean drinking water for cooling. [1] (https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275&item_id=130961)Closed-Loop Systems: These systems recycle the same water repeatedly inside a sealed loop, drastically cutting the need for constant refilling. [1] (https://ketos.co/data-centers-water-usage-myths), [2] (https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db0bV1sq78N/)Advanced Cooling: Newer facilities use air cooling for most of the year or switch to liquid cooling and dry coolers to drop direct water use close to zero in favorable climates. Organizations like the EESI note that these novel technologies help lower environmental strains. [1] (https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/sustainability/amazon-data-center-water-usage), [2] (https://www.facebook.com/NVIDIA/posts/water-usage-has-been-a-hot-topic-in-the-ai-data-center-world-but-the-numbers-may/1476478071185613/), [3] (https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption)The Big Picture: Local vs. National ImpactSmall National Share: On a national scale, data centers use less than 1% of total water consumption, far less than agriculture or manufacturing. [1] (https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/technology/2026/how-much-water-do-ai-data-centers-use)The Real Problem: The crisis is geographic. While the national average looks fine, a cluster of AI data centers in a desert town can drain local supplies and cause real water shortages. As detailed in reports on Myths vs. Reality: Data Centers And Water Usage, shifting entirely to recycled water remains a work in progress. [1] (https://mwrd.org/news/epa-wants-companies-reuse-water-cool-data-centers-wall-street-journal), [2] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1sj35pc/real_facts_on_data_center_water_use_is_it_that/), [3] (https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption), [4] (https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275&item_id=130961)To help you explore this further, tell me:Are you looking at a specific town or region with a planned data center?Do you want to compare air cooling vs. water cooling technologies?
@supadupa and do you have an opinion on everything that you copied and pasted?
I'm just surprised that they are surprised or feel the need to make a warning. Like, they didn't expect this was going to happen? Lol c'mon now
It's also an issue with air, noise, and light pollution. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2026-04-28/living-in-hell-data-center-neighbors-grapple-with-noise-air-pollution
Here’s a summary of issues with water
It's not to late to edit this and make it readable. Where did you copy/paste it from?
I’m sure in a few weeks something (new) and awful is going to happen that AI did and they will all get to be like “see, we warned you this would happen”
It’s a PR stunt. 🤷♀️
Everyday we get closer to living out a sci-fi movie plot.
Like anything, putting power in the wrong hands, never favors the majority. I'm more in the boat with @IronicMaiden on this being a PR stunt while they butter everyone up. Making themselves look like the "good guy's"
There are always whistle blowers pre disasters. Always warnings signs that are ignored and everyone continues on.
I'm not super into AI or the billionaires, but about 10 years ago I did watch a ton of Elon Musk interviews b/c I wanted to see what the hype was around this guy. He had demonstrated a skepticism and fear about AI since the early to mid 2000s. I don't know if that changes how he is now, but I feel at least he's been fairly consistent.
@supadupa: Thank you so much for all the excellent information you provided about the impact of data centers and their resource usage. I hope you will forgive me, but being inspired by what I was able to learn in what you offered, I wanted to reformat it in the hopes more people might be more interested in reading and understanding what you shared. These are you words and links, as you provided them, simply reformatted. I’ll offer my thoughts separately. Thank you for compiling so much useful information. 🙏 -Jojo
Here’s a summary of issues with water.
Where Water Consumption is a Real Issue: (1) High Local Demand: A single large data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water every day. That matches the daily use of a small town. (2) Arid Locations: Many data centers are built in dry areas where water is already scarce. This creates direct competition with local residents and farms. (3) Evaporation Losses: Traditional cooling towers use evaporation to cool servers. This water turns into vapor and is lost, meaning operators must constantly add fresh water to prevent mineral buildup and clogs. (4) Indirect Energy Use: Power plants burn fossil fuels or use nuclear power to create electricity for data centers, which indirectly consumes massive amounts of water off-site.
How Tech Companies Are Reducing Usage: (1) Recycled Wastewater: Major tech companies increasingly use treated municipal wastewater instead of clean drinking water for cooling. (2) Closed-Loop Systems: These systems recycle the same water repeatedly inside a sealed loop, drastically cutting the need for constant refilling. (3) Advanced Cooling: Newer facilities use air cooling for most of the year or switch to liquid cooling and dry coolers to drop direct water use close to zero in favorable climates. Note: Organizations like the EESI note that these novel technologies help lower environmental strains.
The Big Picture: Local vs. National Impact: (1) Small National Share: On a national scale, data centers use less than 1% of total water consumption, far less than agriculture or manufacturing. (2) The Real Problem: The crisis is geographic. While the national average looks fine, a cluster of AI data centers in a desert town can drain local supplies and cause real water shortages. As detailed in reports on Myths vs. Reality: Data Centers And Water Usage, shifting entirely to recycled water remains a work in progress.
To help you explore this further, tell me: Are you looking at a specific town or region with a planned data center? Do you want to compare air cooling vs. water cooling technologies?
@supadupa LINKS: (I only used a handful above that I found most useful, here are all of them, less the Reddit posts. -Jojo) "EPA Wants Companies to Reuse Water to Cool Data Centers," The Wall Street Journal “Data Centers and Water Consumption,” Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) “Myths vs. Reality: Data Centers And Water Usage,” Florida Water & Pollution Control Operators Association “Amazon's data centers are 7x more water-efficient than the industry average. Here’s how we do it.” Amazon News “Myths vs. Reality: Data Centers and Water Usage,” KETOS “AI’s Cooling Problem: How Data Centers Are Transforming Water Use,” Environmental Law Institute “How much of a problem is AI’s water use?,” Knowable Magazine
My takeaways from all the really incredible info @supadupa 🙏 compiled (above): 1. There is a tradeoff between consuming energy/water and spending money - the tech exists today to dramtically reduce, if not almost entirely eliminate water usage, but it's more expensive and consumes more electricity. Data Centers have been built with the high consumption water cooling tech because it is more energy efficient. There is also tech to reduce water usage without dramtically increasing power usage, but it is more expensive. 2. Sites could be located in more remote areas that could also reduce power and water consumption, but then they're much more expensive to build and maintain. 3. Tech companies are going to continue to operate as for-profit companies, and produce the most processing power as cheaply as possible. They cite nationwide or statewide resource use to camouflage the huge resource drain they inflict on the local communities the operate in, who bear the price, disproportionately. 4. It is up to people to hold their elected officials responsible and accountable for creating laws to protect us from all paying more for electricity and water, due to data center development. The for-profit companies that build and manage data centers are not going to voluntarily forgo profits unless laws and regulations require them to operate more efficiently and pay their fair share for the resources they consume. 5. Most of the small number (10-25%) of higher cost/lower resource using data centers in operation today were built to give the trillion dollar companies that own them (like Amazon) a story to improve their PR, in a battle they are not currently successfully managing, in part, because most of our elected reps have been unable to develop guidance for the industry's development. But left to their own devices, tech industry companies will do the bare minimum required to improve their image enough to reduce political and public backlash, while continuing to maximize profits for their shareholders (and to be fair, that is their job). 6. @IronicMaiden shared 🙏 on Sept 13th in this thread a law the state of Massachusetts passed, that didn't limit data center development, but merely required them to be responsible for their own resource usage. A great example of ways we can positively influence data center development, so it can continue, without adversely affecting us as utility paying citizens. Providing a great example how of we can advocate our state govt. reps to address this challenge (which, to be fair, is their job.). 🙏 ✌️