The explosive growth in data centers is fueling concerns in California, as well as across the country, about water and energy use. Some have gone as far as to propose a water usage fee on data centers. However, others argue that data center water use is just a drop in the bucket compared to other uses or that most data centers are moving toward less water-intensive practices, such as reusing water in closed-loop systems. To help us understand what we do and don’t know about California data centers and water use, we spoke with Dr. Marie Grimm, an environmental policy research fellow at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment, about their new report “Regulating Data Center Water Use in California.”

Other data center water use news:

• inewsource (San Diego): California’s largest data center may be built in their backyard. Not if they can stop it.​
• Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, Calif.): Supervisors approve data center lot merge; deny Imperial’s appeal
• KLAS (Las Vegas): Nevada data center leaders offer answers, some neighbors slow to trust
• Las Vegas Review-Journal: Proposed data center draws ire of some Boulder City residents
• Cowboy State Daily (Cheyenne, Wyo.): Where ‘a river runs through it’: inside the hunt for data center sites
• JD Supra: Blog: The new battleground—water rights and data center development in the AI era
• Colorado Newsline (Denver): Opinion: Data center water use not sustainable in increasingly dry American West