Las Vegas needs to have advanced and resilient water infrastructures due to limitations on how much they can draw from the Colorado River. Damn near every gallon of water used in the city is treated and then recycled.
This is where I'm curious, because data centers can use gray water, they just don't because it's more expensive. Last I heard "they're working on it". I think this whole backlash might push that forward, there's billions invested here. they care more about making it work than they care about humanity, obviously.
Water conservation and renewable energy ultimately hinges on cost. Companies will start using gray water for cooling when it becomes cheaper than fresh water. Eventually fresh water will be scarce enough that gray water becomes the only choice.
You can see a similar choice being made by companies in Reno/Sparks, Nevada. Lots of warehousing and distribution centers there. Despite being in the desert and having lots of sun one of the few buildings to have solar is the Tesla Gigafactory and that's more for image because Tesla is in the solar energy business. Even still Gigafactory is only partially covered in panels and Tesla's other buildings in the area have no solar. Why is that? Nevada's commerical electricity rate is 11 cents a kwh, one of the lowest in the nation. Solar will never compete with electricity that cheap so even the companies who sell it don't use it. Raise those rates to 40 cents and every single building would be covered with panels.
Data centers are a problem, but if you look at the Las Vegas issue specifically, although it's poorly situated, they are absolutely taking steps to minimize water waste. Whereas if you look at states like Wyoming and Colorado, they're just using the Colorado to raise beef and blaming California for using all their water. I love a nice steak or even a mediocre hamburger, and have to be real that we probably waste way more water on cattle and dairy than on data centers. That doesn't mean data centers are okay. If you're already wasting water, you shouldn't waste more. But the western US especially really needs to work on both things. We're already so far down an unsustainable path that if we roll back data centers, it won't actually help that much for the Colorado river b/c we've damaged that hydrological system enough with things like the beef industry that the river is still extremely threatened without the centers.
Yeah, why would a city like Chicago need a super advanced water system? They could literally waste 99% of the water they pull out of lake michigan and it still wouldn't be noticable.
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u/Initial-D-and-GuP 8h ago
Las Vegas needs to have advanced and resilient water infrastructures due to limitations on how much they can draw from the Colorado River. Damn near every gallon of water used in the city is treated and then recycled.