Water and energy usage
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Data centers house server farms that store our information, along with electrical equipment that gets hot, requiring 24/7 air cooling that annually uses millions of gallons of water as a refrigerant.
Yes, but: Their true water consumption is unknown, since most of them rely on municipal utilities, Volzer says.
Plus: Data centers also use a large amount of electricity, which requires generating water. However, water consumption is attributed to power plants rather than data centers, further obscuring their impact.
The big picture: Our world is growing increasingly digital, and the data needs to go somewhere.
- U.S. households had an average of 21 digital devices in 2023, per a Deloitte survey.
Zoom in: In Iowa, MidAmerican experienced 2.8% electricity demand growth in 2023 and 1.5% in 2024.
- That's expected to be higher in 2025, primarily due to data center growth, Geoff Greenwood, spokesperson for MidAmerican, said in an email.
- The company is proposing several projects to keep up with higher energy demands, particularly in the summers, including expanding its solar installations and constructing a natural gas-fired combustion turbine project in Adair County.
- If approved by the Iowa Utilities Commission, the projects could start generating energy as early as 2027.
Plus: MidAmerican will likely seek to add a small modular reactor to help meet long-term energy demands through the mid-2030s, Greenwood said.
What they're saying: Current energy usage and projected future usage are confidential, Greenwood said.