Water.\u00a0 Data centres.\u00a0 The continuous, pressing need to cool the latter, which houses servers to store and process data, with the former, which is becoming ever more precious in the climate crisis.\u00a0 Hardly a good comingling of factors.<\/p>\n
Like planting cotton in drought-stricken areas, decisions to place data hubs in various locations across the globe are becoming increasingly contentious from an environmental perspective, and not merely because of their carbon emitting propensities.\u00a0 In the United States, which houses 33%<\/a> of the globe\u2019s data centres, the problem of water usage is becoming acute.<\/p>\n As the Washington Post<\/em> reported in April this year, residents in Mesa, Arizona were concerned that Meta\u2019s decision to build another data centre was bound to cause more trouble than it was worth.\u00a0 \u201cMy first reaction was concern for our water,\u201d claimed<\/a> city council member Jenn Duff.\u00a0 (The state already has approximately 49 data centres.)<\/p>\n The move to liquid cooling from air cooling for increasingly complex IT processes has been relentless.\u00a0 As the authors of a piece in the ASHRAE Journal<\/em> from July 2019 explain<\/a>, \u201cAir cooling has worked well for systems that deploy processors up to 150 W, but IT equipment is now being manufactured with processors well above 150 W where air cooling is no longer practical.\u201d\u00a0 The use of liquid cooling was not only more efficient than air cooling regarding heat transfer, but \u201cmore energy efficient, reducing electrical energy costs significantly.\u201d\u00a0 The authors, however, show little concern about the water supplies needed in such ventures.<\/p>\n The same cannot be said about a co-authored study<\/a> on the environmental footprint of US-located data centres published two years later.\u00a0 During their investigations, the authors identified a telling tendency: \u201cOur bottom-up approach reveals one-fifth of data center servers\u2019 direct water footprint comes from moderately to highly stressed watersheds, while nearly half of servers are fully or partially powered by power plants located within water stressed reasons.\u201d\u00a0 And to make things just that bit less appealing, it was also found that roughly 0.5% of total US greenhouse gas emissions could also be attributed to such centres.<\/p>\n Google has proven to be particularly thirsty in this regard, not to mention secretive in the amount of water it uses at its data hubs.\u00a0 In 2022, The Oregonian\/Oregon Live<\/em> reported<\/a> that the company\u2019s water use in The Dalles had almost tripled over five years.\u00a0 The increased usage was enabled, in no small part, because of increased access to the municipal water supply in return for an upgrade to the water supply and a transfer of certain water rights.\u00a0 Since establishing the first data centre in The Dalles in 2005, Google has also received tax breaks<\/a> worth $260 million.<\/p>\n The city officials responsible for the arrangement were in no mood to answer questions posed by the inquisitive paper on Google\u2019s water consumption.\u00a0 A prolonged 13-month legal battle ensued, with the city arguing that the company\u2019s water use constituted a \u201ctrade secret\u201d, thereby exempting them from Oregon\u2019s disclosure rules.\u00a0 To have disclosed such details would have, argued Google, revealed information on how the company cooled their servers to eager competitors.<\/p>\n In the eventual settlement, The Dalles agreed to provide public access to 10 years of historical data on Google\u2019s water consumption.\u00a0 The city also agreed to pay $53,000 to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which had agreed to represent The Oregonian\/Oregon Live<\/em>.\u00a0 The city\u2019s own costs had run into $106,000.\u00a0 But most troubling in the affair, leaving aside the lamentable conduct of public officials, was the willingness of a private company to bankroll a state entity in preventing access to public records.\u00a0 Tim Gleason, former dean of the University of Oregon\u2019s School of Journalism and Communication, saw this distortion<\/a> as more than just a touch troubling.\u00a0 \u201cTo allow a private entity to essentially fund public advocacy of keeping something out of the public domain is just contrary to the basic intent of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of conceding that the whole enterprise had been a shabby affront to local residents concerned about the use of a precious communal resource, compromising both the public utility and Google, the company\u2019s global head of infrastructure and water strategy, Ben Townsend, proved benevolent<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cWhat we thought was really important was that we partner with the local utility and actually transfer those water rights over to the utility in a way that benefits the entire community.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s right, dear public, they\u2019re doing it for you<\/em>.<\/p>\n