> There's a data center east of Atlanta that has damaged local wells and caused municipal water prices to soar, which could lead to a shortage and rationing by 2030. The price of water in the region is set to increase by 33 percent in the next two years.
This is a real issue that could get much worse.
Data centers do open-loop cooling systems because water is cheap… to them. The market reaction would be to raise water prices until it is “worth it” for data centers to invest in closed-loop, low-loss cooling systems. However they have WAY more purchasing power than local residents. So long before the market solution can kick in, social unrest will show up.
In the U.S. we just had a massive cultural shift over ~9% increase in food costs. Imagine how things will go when water starts getting too expensive. And BTW potable water availability is decreasing globally due to global warming.
> Mike Hopkins, the executive director of the Newton County Water and Sewerage Authority, says that applications are coming in with requests for up to six millions of water per day, which is more than the county's entire daily usage.
> “What the data centers don’t understand is that they’re taking up the community wealth,” he said. “We just don’t have the water.”
We largely stopped growing avocados in the US when water rates went up. With the increased rates, and NAFTA, US avocado ranchers could not compete. There is speculation that Mexican cartels own/operate much of the Mexican avocado industry that we rely on.
I say this as someone who whole heartedly believes in desalination as a way forward, but if we refuse to embrace desalination we need to recognize the tradeoffs like you point out.
I think the problems with desalination are the cost (facilities, energy) and the leftover brine, which is damaging to the environment wherever it's dumped. It has its uses, of course, but not without drawbacks.
I've never fully understood this, shouldn't the brine be mixed in with wastewater? It's all a net-zero system, it's not like water is leaving the system.
The rest is just infrastructure (which is mostly political will).
If you are talking about using it for datacenters than that might be right, the person above is talking about farming, so they desalinate the water, the fresh water is used for crops, and the brine has to go somewhere. If you aren't really careful then dumping it back into the ocean will mess up the ocean in that area.
This is a real issue that could get much worse.
Data centers do open-loop cooling systems because water is cheap… to them. The market reaction would be to raise water prices until it is “worth it” for data centers to invest in closed-loop, low-loss cooling systems. However they have WAY more purchasing power than local residents. So long before the market solution can kick in, social unrest will show up.
In the U.S. we just had a massive cultural shift over ~9% increase in food costs. Imagine how things will go when water starts getting too expensive. And BTW potable water availability is decreasing globally due to global warming.
> Mike Hopkins, the executive director of the Newton County Water and Sewerage Authority, says that applications are coming in with requests for up to six millions of water per day, which is more than the county's entire daily usage.
> “What the data centers don’t understand is that they’re taking up the community wealth,” he said. “We just don’t have the water.”