Data centers are driving the future of American life. This will have a ripple effect on every fabric of our lives. Businesses, real estate developers, electricity suppliers, and so much more.
Data center companies and business friendly communities are wooing one another into believing that there are mutually beneficial relationships. And that might be true. But in the nation’s driest places, there is an important concern about water availability and use to sustain such water intensive and power intensive operations.
All elements of data center growth will require water — lots of it. Power plants, fossil fuel or renewable, and fuel supply require water for extraction and generation, in most cases. And data centers themselves, many of which require cooling units that need lots of water are not negligible in their usage of the region’s most important natural resource.
In places where water is limited, what do we do as businesses, schools, governments and so many other parts of society require more data, more electricity and more water to live our lives in the virtual cloud.
Read this piece from MIT Technology Review and see what GBWN had to say and learn what is likely coming to Nevada, the nation’s driest state.
