THE CLOUD IS THIRSTY:

THE CLOUD IS THIRSTY: In the last post, I explained how data centers are becoming the nervous system of the digital world. Here’s the part most people never see.. The cloud has plumbing. Those massive buildings are packed with servers running artificial intelligence, cloud storage, banking systems, government records, medical networks, surveillance systems and nearly everything else being pushed online. All of that computing creates an enormous amount of heat. If the heat isn’t removed, the equipment slows down, fails or catches fire. Water remains one of the cheapest and most efficient ways to move that heat out of the building. That means the digital world doesn’t only run on electricity. It runs on water. THERE ARE TWO WATER BILLS The first is the water used directly at the facility. Many data centers use cooling towers or evaporative cooling. Heat is transferred into water, and part of that water is released into the air as vapor. Once it evaporates, it isn’t immediately returned to the local water system. The second bill is harder to see. Power plants often consume water while producing the electricity that runs the servers. A facility may claim that it uses very little water on-site while its enormous electrical demand creates a much larger water footprint somewhere else. Researchers call these direct and indirect water consumption. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that American data centers directly consumed about 66 billion liters of water in 2023, approximately 17.4 billion gallons. The electricity supplying those facilities carried an estimated indirect water footprint of nearly 800 billion liters, or roughly 211 billion gallons. Count both sides, and the 2023 water footprint approached 229 billion gallons. That’s the part usually missing when a company announces that its new cooling system barely uses any water. Maybe the building doesn’t. What about the power plants feeding it? AI IS ACCELERATING THE DEMAND Global data-center electricity use was estimated at about 415 terawatt-hours in 2024. The International Energy Agency projects it could reach approximately 945 terawatt-hours by 2030. The United States is expected to account for a major portion of that increase, with American data-center electricity consumption projected to rise roughly 130 percent between 2024 and 2030. That creates a difficult problem. Newer facilities may use less water for every unit of computing, but companies are building so many facilities, packing them with so many high-powered AI chips and running them so hard that total consumption can continue climbing anyway. Efficiency doesn’t solve much if growth outruns it. THE NATIONAL NUMBER DOESN’T TELL THE WHOLE STORY Compared with all the water used across the United States, data centers are still a relatively small category. That sounds reassuring until several enormous facilities are placed in the same county, connected to the same treatment plant, the same reservoir or the same aquifer. Water problems are local. A data center in Virginia doesn’t drain a faucet in Nevada. It can, however, place tremendous pressure on the water system serving the people who live beside it. Arizona’s data centers were projected to consume around 905 million gallons in 2025. That was less than one-tenth of one percent of the state’s total water use, but it was still enough water to supply nearly 10,000 Phoenix-area homes for a year. Both statements can be true. The statewide percentage can appear small while the demand placed upon one utility, one pipeline or one community becomes significant. Prince William County, Virginia, offers another example. Its water authority reported that approximately 55 data centers consumed 3.8 percent of average daily water demand during 2025. On the highest-demand days, however, their share rose to 10.1 percent. That peak is crucial. Cooling demand often rises during the hottest part of the year, precisely when residents are watering crops, fighting fires, filling cooling systems and being warned to conserve. The issue isn’t only how much water a facility uses over twelve months. It’s how much it demands on the worst day of the year. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE COMMUNITY? A large new customer can require bigger pumps, new treatment capacity, larger water mains, expanded sewer systems and additional reservoir or river allocations. Some communities require the developer to pay those costs. Prince William Water follows a “growth pays for growth” policy, requiring new development to fund the capacity and infrastructure it needs. Other communities may approve tax incentives and development agreements before the public even receives reliable numbers on expected water consumption. That leaves residents asking basic questions after the deal has already been made. How much drinking water will it use? Where will that water come from? What happens during drought? Will private wells be affected? Who pays for the new infrastructure? Can the facility continue operating while residents are ordered to conserve? What chemicals will leave the cooling system in its wastewater? Heavy groundwater pumping can lower water tables, reduce water available to private wells and decrease streamflow. Large surface-water withdrawals can also increase competition between municipal users, agriculture and wildlife during drought conditions. Cooling-system discharge may require treatment because it can contain corrosion inhibitors, biocides and other chemicals used to control mineral buildup and biological growth. Those consequences aren’t guaranteed at every facility. They’re reasons the public should see the water plan before construction begins. WE’VE ALREADY SEEN WHAT POOR OVERSIGHT LOOKS LIKE In Fayette County, Georgia, officials discovered that a massive data-center construction site had drawn nearly 30 million gallons of water through connections that weren’t properly included in its billing account. Residents had complained about weak water pressure, although the county and company disputed whether the project caused the pressure problem. The company blamed a metering and billing oversight and later paid retroactive charges. The larger lesson isn’t that every data center is secretly stealing water. The lesson is that a project can move tens of millions of gallons before the surrounding community receives a clear accounting of what happened. That is unacceptable infrastructure management. THE INDUSTRY KNOWS THIS IS BECOMING A PROBLEM Investors are now pressing Amazon, Microsoft and Google for more complete information about water and electricity use. Reuters reported that company disclosures still vary widely. Some reports omit leased facilities, projects under construction or site-level figures, making it difficult for residents and investors to determine what a specific project is doing to a specific watershed. A worldwide sustainability total can look impressive while hiding a serious local problem. Water replaced through a conservation project in one location doesn’t automatically erase water consumed from a stressed aquifer hundreds of miles away. Timing counts. Location counts. The condition of the watershed counts. THERE ARE BETTER WAYS TO BUILD THESE FACILITIES This isn’t an argument to shut down the internet or pretend modern computing has no value. The technology exists to reduce the damage. Microsoft reports that its average data-center water-use effectiveness fell to 0.27 liters per kilowatt-hour in 2025, nearly 90 percent lower than its earliest generation of facilities. The company is also introducing designs intended to eliminate water evaporation from the cooling process at certain new facilities. Amazon reported a global data-center water-use effectiveness of 0.12 liters per kilowatt-hour in 2025. It had also contracted for reclaimed-water cooling at 130 data centers and said 26 operating facilities used reclaimed water, preserving potable water for residents and ecosystems. Google reported replenishing approximately 7.7 billion gallons through water projects in 2025, equal to about 78 percent of its reported freshwater consumption. Those efforts are real progress. They also prove that companies have options. Data centers can use treated wastewater instead of drinking water. They can recirculate cooling water, capture rainwater, cool chips directly, use dry cooling where conditions permit and place facilities in regions that can actually support them. Every method involves tradeoffs. Waterless cooling can consume more electricity. Evaporative cooling may save electricity while consuming more water. A closed loop can greatly reduce ongoing withdrawals but may still require water during construction, filling, maintenance or emergency operation. There is no magic system with zero footprint. There are responsible choices and irresponsible ones. WHAT SHOULD COMMUNITIES DEMAND? Every major project should disclose its expected annual water consumption, maximum daily demand, water source, cooling technology, wastewater plan and drought operating procedure. The public should be told how much potable water will be consumed, how much reclaimed water will be used and how much water is indirectly consumed through electricity generation. Independent meters and public reporting should be required from the first day of construction. Developers should pay for the pipelines, pumps, treatment capacity and electrical infrastructure their projects require. Water-stressed communities should have enforceable drought limits before permits and tax incentives are approved. Promises to become “water positive” someday shouldn’t replace protections for the people living beside the facility today. THE CLOUD ISN’T FLOATING ABOVE US It sits on land. It connects to real power plants. It draws from real rivers, reservoirs, aquifers and municipal pipes. The digital world may appear invisible from your phone, but its physical footprint is becoming impossible to ignore. Data centers will continue being built. The real question is whether they’ll be built with honest accounting and proper safeguards, or whether ordinary people will be expected to surrender their water, absorb the infrastructure costs and accept whatever explanation comes afterward. Technology isn’t the enemy. Secrecy, weak oversight and making the public carry the cost are the problem. The cloud has plumbing, and the people paying the water bill deserve to know exactly where every gallon is going. #MoreJoyMinistries