I’m against corn production for ethanol too: that AI datacenters aren’t as bad as one of the worst ideas our country has ever had, isn’t much praise.

You know what instantly outs someone as unserious on the topic for me? When they give an unqualified “none of that is true” when someone talks about water use. I agree discussion should carry the nuance, but this conversation started with none of it.

A modern 100MW scale datacenter uses about as much water as a 5-10k population municipality. And provides about as many jobs as a medium-sized wal-mart. Whether that’s a lot to you or not certainly depends on where the proposed datacenter is being built. But it does nobody any good to simply say “nuh uh, you’re wrong” when someone talks about the water use. Nor does bringing up any number of other high-water-using industrial sites that people also wouldn’t want in their back yard.

The fact there is not the social media and political outrage there is on stuff that is literally 10-1000x the water usage is what outs folks as being unserious on the topic. Collectively speaking, people do not give a shit about water usage at all for any reason.

It’s like private jets. If you talk about PJ use in the first 10 minutes about your diatribe about climate change I already know you give zero care about co2 production and only want to either hate rich folks for valid but unrelated reasons, or are an entirely unserious person.

Both are focusing on a mathematically immaterial number when it comes to the supposed problem they say they care about. It they actually cared, they would be talking about things that matter and can move the needle if they “win”.

I welcome high water use stuff in my back yard because my region has plenty of water, plus I firmly believe in the fact that a society cannot have wealth without industry. Datacenters, steel production, whatever. Bring it on.

Are there specific bad projects that should not happen due to local water concerns? Absolutely! But that is not the discussion anyone is having. Datacenter water usage as an industry is a total non issue and is an increasingly immediate tell that someone has no clue what they speak of.