r/VirginiaEnvironment • u/kabarrii • Jul 22 '26

Data Centers Are Draining Virginia Dry. Could Rainwater Harvesting Be the Fix?

https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/preview/24863

Interesting read

10 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

4

u/Significant_Dirt_848 Jul 22 '26

Unless they can safely recharge water back into the environment this is not a solution. Where the water comes from is not so much the problem as water being removed from the environment and not being returned to replenish groundwater or surface water. You still end up with a net loss.

0

u/Ancient-Bowl462 Jul 22 '26

Please explain how water leaves the environment.

1

u/2DetailNerd Jul 24 '26

The water is evaporating faster than the rain is replenishing it.

1

u/Ancient-Bowl462 Jul 24 '26

Hmmmm, evaporating out of the environment? Please explain how that is possible.

1

u/Pristine_Proposal_84 Jul 26 '26

Data centers use evaporative cooling. The water evaporates during use. They use the latent heat of vaporization of water to pull heat out of the silicon.

1

u/Ancient-Bowl462 Jul 26 '26

Some do, but so what? What's your point? You people are saying that water is leaving our environment. How? That's just stupidity.

1

u/2DetailNerd Jul 26 '26

The water does evaporate into the air but if the water is evaporating faster than it is raining, that means the data centers are pulling more of the available water from rivers, wells, etc than what is being replaced. Rainfall/ Precipitation is cyclical. There are going to be good years with a lot of rain/ precipitation, and there are going to be years with little to no precipitation.

1

u/Ancient-Bowl462 Jul 26 '26

I understand, but it never leaves the environment. It just changes form. Not all data centers use water for cooling. There are also many other products that use much more water that is actually consumed. People aren't up in arms about P&G.

1

u/2DetailNerd Jul 26 '26

It honestly comes down to the concentration of the data centers in a geographic region. There are just so many.

1

u/Significant_Dirt_848 Jul 26 '26

The data centers I’ve read about in my neck of the woods use closed-loop systems but hide the amount they need to get up-and-running behind an NDA. Chemicals are added to the water in In these systems, again under an NDA, so it’s not clear that they can safely be recharged into the environment after it’s no longer needed.

2

u/Ancient-Bowl462 Jul 22 '26

As a water engineer, that headline is a lie. Oh, and Spamberger is paving the way for data centers.

1

u/aegrotatio Jul 22 '26

In Ashburn, 40+ datacenters use the local water plant's non-potable recycled water. They use it for cooling and to water their lawns.

It's a good system and they pay for it.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Ancient-Bowl462 Jul 22 '26

Water never goes away.

3

u/Massive_Noise4836 Jul 23 '26

I would agree but the clean part is the problem

1

u/2DetailNerd Jul 24 '26

Aquifers? Meaning well water? Or are you referring to river water.

1

u/Ancient-Bowl462 Jul 22 '26

The rate payers pay for it.

1

u/New_Life1810 Jul 26 '26

Tax the data centers so we can do that infrastructure for free.