You have seen the scary headlines about data centers and water. Fine. Here is a slider. Build as many data centers as you want and see how long it takes to matter. All the numbers come from the government's own counts.
In 2023, every data center in America combined used about 17 billion gallons of cooling water.1 Drag the slider to multiply the whole industry and watch what it takes to catch up to things nobody argues about.
17 billion gallons a year. That equals about 1 hour of America's water withdrawals, or 0.01% of a year.4
These are direct cooling numbers. Being fully fair: count the water used by the power plants that supply data centers' electricity, and the all-in 2023 figure is about 13 times higher — around 230 billion gallons.1 Golf courses and California's almonds still beat it.
Want to match what America's farms withdraw in a year? You would need more than 2,500 times every data center in the country. The slider does not go that far.4
Sources: U.S. Dept. of Energy / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory¹ · GCSAA and USGA national survey, peer-reviewed² · Pacific Institute³ · U.S. Geological Survey⁴
No slider needed here, because electricity already matters. Data centers used about 4.4% of America's power in 2023, and the government projects that share will grow.1 Each dot below is 1% of all U.S. electricity.
Data centers: about 4.4% of U.S. electricity
About 176 billion kilowatt hours in 2023, per the Department of Energy's lab.
That is real demand. It is exactly why the Louisiana deal makes Meta pay to build its own power plants.
Meta has agreed to fund all ten new plants, pay for its own hookup, and pay a set bill every month for 15 to 20 years. Entergy projects the deal covers about $2.65 billion in costs regular customers would have paid.5
Sources: U.S. Dept. of Energy / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory¹ · Entergy Louisiana filings⁵
My standard does not change with the resource. Pay for the power you use. Put the water back. Hire our people. Fund our schools. Read the full breakdown with every source at the Truth About Data Centers page.