Parched Idaho Can’t Afford AI Data Centers

Idaho is dry.  January has been a month when we’ve seen very little moisture.  Here in the south-central part of the state, the high desert climate isn’t known for a lot of rain, and snowfall is generally under two feet a year.  Or, at least in the river valley.  Now comes a report from England and the BBC that warns AI data centers are going to suck up even more water than we feared.  And it needs to be filtered water.  Anyone who uses a CPAP knows that if you use anything but distilled water in the reservoir, you get a nasty mineral buildup.

One Search Fills a Teaspoon

Where is all the water going to come from?  According to the BBC story, every AI search uses a spoonful of water.  How many searches are there every day by everyone served by a center?  You begin to get the idea that something has to give way.

The climate is already dry across much of the American West, but politicians like data centers for the short-term gain.  They can promise “jobs” and insist we need the facilities, or otherwise we’ll be left behind.  By the time the note gets called, they’ll be in retirement in some lush southern climate.

We Don't Have Water to Spare

We get droughts in this part of the country.  I need to eat to live.  I can live without a Google search.  If the climate is getting drier, naturally or because of man-made activity, then we have a looming crisis.  My experience with the tree-hugging left is that they spend a lot of their time staring at screens and doing searches.  You can’t have your granola and eat it, too.