Confluence: Industrial water use still a ‘relatively minor’ piece of the pie

BOULDER — While artificial intelligence changes the world, some worry it also is using up our water. But before you get out your pitchforks, it’s worth knowing that any water use at it relates to chip processing and data centers for AI is negligible at best.

At BizWest’s Confluence Colorado Water Summit and Net Zero Cities conference Thursday at the Embassy Suites, panelists from throughout Colorado dove deep into the water and energy topics of the day, including intense industrial uses, which is growing with AI.

Many in the West think of oil and gas as a main industrial use of water, but data centers have become a new target for concerns of water overuse as the U.S. works to onshore manufacturing of the chips used to power our electronic devices on the market today, and the data centers that provide the bandwidth to AI.

“Microsoft opens three data centers a week,” said James Eklund, a Denver water attorney who was the architect of the Colorado Water Plan, and moderator of the Water-Intensive Industries panel Thursday. “To keep pace with all your ChatGPT searching in the U.S. West, we’re looking at 600,000 acre-feet being consumed by data centers in 2024. That’s 200 billion gallons of water.” By way of comparison, 1 acre foot of water is enough water for two to three families to live off of in a year.

For the data centers that help feed that technology, that energy use for the most part comes in the form of evaporative water cooling to ensure equipment doesn’t overheat.

In Colorado, the most prevalent use of water is in the agriculture sector, followed by municipal use. Industrial uses, such as data centers, oil and gas, beverage manufacturing, also are at play. Data centers aren’t as intense in Colorado as other states, mainly because of state policies and taxation. But, data centers are prevalent in Cheyenne and other parts of the Rocky Mountain west.

Additionally, with the U.S. working to bring chip manufacturing onshore, that’s a bit more water usage.

Eklund pointed to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. that is expanding in Phoenix after being open just a couple of years. “That plant alone uses 10,000 to 40,000 gallons of water per year to make their chips,” he said.

“That means the people who pay attention to water and energy footprints and the artificial intelligence those chips enable, people in this room are going to need to pay attention to where this plant is going, whose water supply they’re relying on, and if that is sustainable,”

Adam Jokerst, Rocky Mountain regional director for WestWater Research in Fort Collins, said that water usage needs to be put into perspective.

“It has been in the news about how much water is projected to go to these water intensive industries, but it’s important to bear in mind, industrial water use is pretty minor in the West and Colorado,” Jokerst said.

He explained that in Colorado, the consumptive water use is at 5.3 million acre-feet, and industrial use is only 4 percent of that.

“That’s relatively minor as an overall piece,” Jokerst said. “But that 4 percent is 200,000 acre feet, which is what Denver Water provides. It’s a large amount locally, but statewide it’s fairly minor.”

He said two-thirds of all water transacted in Colorado is sourced from agriculture; 83 percent is being purchased for municipal uses.

Perhaps more visible is the amount of water used in the oil and gas industry. Operators use millions of gallons of high-pressed water per well to fracture the rock and release the oil and gas locked within.

“While the visible uses may seem extreme, it is one of least (water intensive) of the uses,” said Grant Tupper, Select Water Solutions Inc. (NASDQ: WTTR) director of operations and business development for the Rocky Mountain Region. “We don’t use as much water as many other spaces, but that is not the message that comes across because of the high visibility of what we do. When we do need water, we need a decent portion of it for” a quick amount of time.

The industry, however, has really dialed in the technology to repurpose the water; clean it up and find other uses (other than consumption). In many cases, that water can be used as dust control, or other ag uses besides growing crops.

Like the oil and gas industry, innovation has a way of creating solutions. For example, geothermal cooling for data centers is an alternative to evaporative cooling, but users may just be trading one form of energy for another.

“Any chance to get free cooling from the ground, like geothermal cooling, is a good opportunity and should be pitched,” Jokerst said. “I’m aware of a few data centers using that. It comes down to the cost of that relative to evaporative cooling and dry cooling.”