How data centers fooled everyone for so many years

It is always a sign of danger when there is an obsession with one metric. It is always a sign that, behind the scenes, something nefarious is going on. Our environment is immensely complex and interconnected. We must always seek to calculate the true and total costs of our actions.

For many years, the data center industry paraded around like some virtuous environmentally conscious citizen. It had the perfect tech fantasy cover story about electrical efficiency and innovation. Even though data was exploding as the 2010s progressed, the amount of electricity consumed was not rising nearly as fast. It aggressively sold the story of electrical efficiency to the point where many were claiming this mythical decoupling and dematerialization. Data was no longer physical. Because of the genius of the tech bros, we would be able to keep expanding the quantity of data without any serious material impacts. All eyes on electrical usage, please.

What about water? Water is irrelevant, they said. Water might as well be free, so it’s not an issue. But water was always an issue. These data centers were getting increasingly hot and it was quickly discovered that water was much better and cheaper than