The problem isn’t about the cooling systems “using” the water in the sense that the water “dissapears” from the water cycle per-se. The problem is that when a Data Center is built, the water that the population of that zone used, is mostly diverted from them to the data center, where it is evaporated and thus the population have access to less and less water.
Evaporated is ‘used’. It’s arguably more ‘used’ than it is when it goes down the sewer to local wastewater treatment, as that water is often put back into groundwater through infiltration fields. Depleting aquifers is the main concern of data center water usage.
The problem isn’t about the cooling systems “using” the water in the sense that the water “dissapears” from the water cycle per-se. The problem is that when a Data Center is built, the water that the population of that zone used, is mostly diverted from them to the data center, where it is evaporated and thus the population have access to less and less water.
Evaporated is ‘used’. It’s arguably more ‘used’ than it is when it goes down the sewer to local wastewater treatment, as that water is often put back into groundwater through infiltration fields. Depleting aquifers is the main concern of data center water usage.
evaporation is also part of the water cycle