This is not an isolated case in the United States, a country that concentrates
approximately 30% of all the data centers in the world. Arizona, Utah and South
Carolina are well aware of the insatiable thirst of this type of infrastructure.
They are also familiar with it in the Netherlands, where Microsoft was involved
in a scandal last year when news broke out that one of its facilities consumed
four times more water than declared in a context of drought. Or in Germany,
where Brandenburg authorities denied Google permission to build a data center in
the region, as a Tesla gigafactory was already consuming too much water.
Data centers reuse water by recirculating the same water through their cooling systems multiple times. According to Google, this practice saves up to 50% of water when compared with “once-through” cooling systems.
However, eventually this reused water needs to be replaced with new water, due to the risk of scale formation or once the conductivity of the water is too high.
The need for new water results from the build-up of scale-forming minerals in the reused water – such as calcium, magnesium, and silica, which become concentrated over multiple evaporative cooling cycles.
Ultimately, the spent data center cooling water can be treated and reused (or recycled) for other purposes such as irrigation or toilet flushing.
Data centers reuse water by recirculating the same water through their cooling systems multiple times. According to Google, this practice saves up to 50% of water when compared with “once-through” cooling systems.
However, eventually this reused water needs to be replaced with new water, due to the risk of scale formation or once the conductivity of the water is too high.
The need for new water results from the build-up of scale-forming minerals in the reused water – such as calcium, magnesium, and silica, which become concentrated over multiple evaporative cooling cycles.
Ultimately, the spent data center cooling water can be treated and reused (or recycled) for other purposes such as irrigation or toilet flushing.
https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/#:~:text=What Happens to Water Used,a local wastewater treatment plant.