AI's Exponential Growth Strains Global Energy and Water Resources

Key Quotes

"According to the international energy agency data centers accounted for about you know 1 5 of the world's electricity consumption in 2024 and that's set to double by 2030 we're seeing so many data centers get built out one number that really struck me was in a recent report uh that there was 580 billion invested globally in ai in 2025 and data centers that's more than the 540 billion spent on developing the global oil supply so this year we spent more on data centers than the oil supply wow"

Casey Crownheart highlights the immense and growing scale of data center construction for AI. She points out that data centers' share of global electricity consumption is projected to double by 2030, and that investment in AI data centers in 2025 is expected to surpass the global investment in oil supply. This indicates a significant shift in energy demand towards digital infrastructure.

"yes so since we you know came up with our own estimates working with leading researchers in this area a couple of companies have come out with estimates of you know how much energy each query or each kind of question you ask to one of its models will use and it turns out we were kind of in the right region so google came out with an estimate that says that you know the average query to its gemini model uses about 0 24 watt hours of electricity um that you know and i like to put things in microwave seconds so that's about the same as a second in the microwave um chatgpt openai came out with its own estimate it's kind of in the same range about 0 34 watt hours so basically the the individual queries are kind of individual questions you're asking it's an not insignificant amount of energy but it's kind of small but they don't say the total energy used for all of its ai activities right exactly"

Casey Crownheart explains that while individual AI queries consume a relatively small amount of energy (comparable to a second in a microwave), the cumulative effect of billions of daily queries is substantial. She notes that companies are beginning to release estimates for individual queries, but this data does not provide a complete picture of the total energy consumption for all AI activities. This suggests that the overall energy footprint of AI is significantly larger than what per-query estimates might imply.

"two thirds of new data centers that are in development since 2022 are in these kind of water stressed areas yeah and how much of this is is drinking water here what you know and what happens to that water after it's used for cooling the servers it depends on what the water is being used for so when we're talking about water consumption for ai a lot of it is actually what's called indirect use so the water that's used at the power plants that are actually running the data centers you know some estimates say that over 60 of the water consumed when we're talking about ai is is from power plants so it kind of depends on what segment of this you're talking about you know some power plants are able to use treated water or something um but when it comes to the actual data centers and the water that they're using to keep their machines cool a lot of them do need to use drinking quality water because when they're you know doing this evaporative cooling they want to avoid like clogging their pipes bacterial growth it's you know very sensitive equipment"

Casey Crownheart details the significant water usage associated with data centers, particularly in water-stressed regions. She clarifies that a large portion of this water consumption is indirect, occurring at power plants that supply electricity to data centers. However, she also points out that data centers themselves often require drinking-quality water for cooling to prevent equipment damage from clogging or bacterial growth.

"so today a lot of data centers are cooled with what's called evaporative cooling and so basically you know you just let the water evaporate and that cools down the equipment that obviously you lose a lot of the water that you're kind of pulling out of the resources um so there are other techniques so something like direct liquid cooling where you know you have a coolant kind of circulating directly through the servers -- there's also immersion cooling where servers are submerged in some sort of fluid to help keep them cool so there's a lot of interesting alternatives some of them at least right now tend to have some sort of downside so they're either more expensive in some cases they're also more electricity intensive so you know might use as much as 10 more energy as compared to evaporative cooling so it's kind of a trade off but we are seeing you know a lot of companies are sensitive to this especially as we've seen this public outcry"

Casey Crownheart discusses alternative cooling methods for data centers beyond traditional evaporative cooling, which leads to significant water loss. She mentions direct liquid cooling and immersion cooling as potential solutions. However, Crownheart notes that these alternatives can be more expensive or require more electricity, presenting a trade-off. She also observes that companies are becoming more responsive to public concerns about resource usage.

"i think that you know as people continue to see prices go up across the board i think there's you know even more sensitivity to this and so we're seeing a lot of projects blocked one one recent report from data center watch found that from just march to june about 93 billion worth of projects were either delayed or canceled because of community pushback what happened to all those climate pledges that google and microsoft and others were promising a few years back yeah that this is a great question"

Casey Crownheart connects rising utility costs to increased community pushback against data center construction. She cites a report indicating that billions of dollars in data center projects have been delayed or canceled due to this opposition. Crownheart also raises the question of how these developments align with previous climate pledges made by major tech companies, suggesting a potential conflict between ambitious environmental goals and the practical demands of AI infrastructure expansion.

"i think that this is overall a systems conversation that we need to be having rather than you know talking about personal choices and personal use good point casey you always bring good stuff to us thank you for taking time to be with us today thanks so much for having me"

Casey Crownheart emphasizes that the impact of AI on resource consumption, such as electricity and water, should be viewed as a systemic issue rather than a matter of individual choices. She suggests that AI is becoming integrated into digital infrastructure, influencing everything from search results to advertisements, making it a collective challenge. This framing shifts the focus from personal usage to broader societal and infrastructural considerations.