water issue(s)
rf...@sonic.net
https://www.western-water.com/2026/01/12/arizona-data-centers-raise-power-and-water-questions/
Just as the self-driving vehicle is being arbitrarily rolled out onto US streets without a demonstrable need, so too the "need" for AI and its accompanying requirements of high water and electricity use.
rf...@sonic.net
Good luck telling that to the tech overlords who insist that we need water- and energy-intensive data centers so that we can get our search results a second or two faster. We can be certain that if/when water runs out and the grid goes down somewhere, the multi-billionaires will not be even remotely affected.
rf...@sonic.net
The possible overlay of actual or planned data centers nearby may make the situation worse. Should be um interesting to see whether the residents or the center owners finally prevail if that comes to pass.
rf...@sonic.net
rf...@sonic.net
"Share of data-center capacity owned by the three leading cloud-computing providers (Amazon, Microsoft and Google) globally: 59%
Approximate number of data centers run by Amazon: 900
Current number of data centers owned by Google: 114
Gallons of water that a hyper-scale data center can consume each day: 5 million
Ounces of water used for a 100-word AI prompt: 17.5
Portion of total US electricity used by data centers: 4%
Predicted increase in the average US electricity bill by 2030 because of data centers and cryptocurrency mining: 8%"
-"By The Numbers," The Nation, Feb. 2026