Is there any reason the water can’t be safely consumed later? It’s not toxic or nuclear is it? The cooling water didn’t just up and disappear did it?
Edit: Links provided in the comments…
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.03271
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc&t=1264
- https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/03/06/how-much-water-do-the-data-centres-use-its-a-secret/
- https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025EcInd.17012986J/abstract
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_cooling_towers
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederaussem_Power_Station
Notable comments:
- https://lemmy.world/comment/23672269
- https://sh.itjust.works/comment/25288634
- https://lemmy.cafe/comment/16350045
- https://sh.itjust.works/comment/25294655
Edit addendum: I’d like to thank everyone that’s participated in this question thread, sorry if I missed any good relevant links in the comments.
To be clear, I still loathe the whole AI datacenter era, it really is heavily wasteful of resources, notably energy, but I wanted to better understand the water usage situation.
The water is used to absorb heat and reject it outside. It will not be contaminate. It evaporates into the air which depletes local water supply. Could it come back? Sure. Can you guarantee it will? No.
Agriculture by and large still uses the most water but in the year of our lord 2026 theres no reason to not be building closed loop data centers. Evaporative cooling is mostly done in places where water is cheaper than power. Its still grossly irresponsible but that doesnt matter if their arent laws on the books.
There will undoubtedly be some level of contamination.
No more than any normal level of evaporated water in the area. Its literally just water evaporating from heat.
Agriculture’s use has been eliminated. The farmers and ranchers who voted for this regime will be out of business by the time the data centers are up and running because ICE kidnapped all their laborers. The only jobs left will be guarding the centers from Antifa.