Oil & Water
One can’t help but be startled by these headlines just a few days apart, let alone their irony.
The Arizona Republic cites 100 days in a row of 100-degree days this summer. A week earlier points to the $136 million purchase of a 2,100-acre site near Phoenix to power the next wave of data centers amid land speculation in the region and this particular development of a 15-year plan for next generation data-center complexes.
Hello out there? Anyone home? OMG — I was on a video call with my colleague and Outsell Partner, Christine Rogers leader of M3 Learning yesterday, citing the 100 days and how she’s doing given she lives in the region. We chatted about the fact it’s no longer cooling down at night which is the bigger problem behind these heat waves. Heat is no stranger to AZ of course. What is new is the evenings are no longer cooling down. She said it’s often in the 90s all night long. She told me to get a walk in one has to be done by 5:30 in the morning while the day is only in the mid-80s. Wait any longer and it’s too late and too hot. Egads!
With all this going on why isn’t anyone worried about water powering all this development. Arizona is a fast-growing region for homes and of course now data centers. But I don’t see how any of this is sustainable and why that’s a mystery to anyone. Perhaps all that matters to developers and politicians is greed and winning the next election. I refuse to be cynical.
EVs, solar, clean rooms, server farms — they are energy and water hogs. According to NPR in March of this year the average data center uses 300,000 gallons of water a day to keep cool, roughly equivalent to water use in 100,000 homes. Many data centers directly consume water on-site to remove the heat generated by the IT equipment. Estimates range — there are somewhere between 8000 to nearly 11,000 data centers operating today around the world. AZ is now burgeoning with them.
And this is just a snippet of the world’s water need; nuclear power is now becoming discussed as an alternative of choice to fuel GenAI. How do we hydrate our computers and our people, and power the energy necessary to run all this technology? How do we keep citizens of the world warm, with lights on and stoves working, and ensure they have access to basics like potable water, and the water necessary to grow and raise our food? Can we even operate? Is our industry even sustainable?
We are being forced to address these questions even if the developers and politicians in AZ won’t. So joining us on stage at the Outsell Signature Event, co-produced with JEGI CLARITY on October 9th is Harry Sachinis, industry veteran, PE advisor, prior Chairman and CEO of DEPA Group and now CEO of EDYAP the largest water and wastewater company in Greece — to raise the tough questions, force us to look at the challenges, and give us some ideas about the answers to these thorny questions. With his operating history in information services, and his experience in energy and water and ongoing dialog with other leaders around the globe he has been looking at these issues every day. It’s time we address them. Register today.