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The biggest externality is the electrical usage. IDK why they keep mentioning water. The AI DCs are driving huge loads to grids, and all ratepayers are being asked to pay for that. IMO if they built a solar + battery farm on grid, paid by AI DCs, there would be no significant hurdles.

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I used to think it was just electricity. It could be just electricity, but when they try to divert hundreds of millions of gallons out of water scarce resources like the colorado river[1] in dry, HOT areas where water usage rises -- you can begin to understand why people are irritated. Even if you get promises of using closed systems, corporations are liars.

I think these corporations do a lot of harm to their own arguments.

[1] - https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/data-center-develop...

This is about a DC in Nashville -- it is on the Cumberland river.

As someone who lives in the great lakes region, we don't assume that because the resource is large in comparison to a human being that it is an endless resource.

DCs operate at the scale of agriculture, even this one will consume/expel significant resources.

Are they asking for treated water? What's the concentration of residual metals, bromine and salts? Who is monitoring it?

It's inconvenient. Think of it as tech debt. You can either pay it down now, or you pay it down later.

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