Tech companies are fleeing from blue states to places like Texas and West Virginia right now. The tech gurus cite the regulatory environment and lower taxes as the main reasons, but that’s only part of the picture. What the tech companies really want is resource extraction. They’re hoping that Americans won’t realize that they were never really part of the MAGA movement before 2024, and they’ll get their foot in the door before anyone realizes they are our enemies. New projections indicate that AI data centers in Texas will require the equivalent of 40% of the state’s total municipal water supply by 2030.
There’s been a lot of reporting on how much electricity these data centers will be drawing from the grid in the coming years. There hasn’t been nearly enough discussion about how much water extraction is required for them. It takes a tremendous amount of water to cool the servers used to power AI systems.
California is such a dump that residents aren’t allowed to water their lawns as often as they want. That state was never going to be able to handle the demands of AI. So, the tech overlords needed a solution. Why not take over some red states with their sh*tlib values and technology, before anyone realizes what’s happening?
AI data centers are expected to increase tenfold in Texas by 2031. In 2024, the Texas power grid generated 85 gigawatts of power. To power all those data centers, the state will need to figure out a way to generate 218 GW per year in the next six years. That’s probably achievable if Texas quickly brings several nuclear power plants online.
The water supply, on the other hand, is difficult to increase above what’s already available.
The Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) estimates that by 2030, AI data centers in Texas will require 399 billion gallons of water per year for cooling. That’s equivalent to 14% of all agricultural output in the state, and 40 percent of residential households.
The AI industry, which is in full mass-marketing spin mode right now, claims that this isn’t really a big deal. They note that their cooling systems operate on a closed evaporative system and claim that projections about water usage are exaggerated. This is a lie, of course.
In evaporative cooling systems, the water becomes unusable after four or five cycles, and then it gets dumped into the sewer system. A large data center requires 4.5 million gallons of water per day to operate.
“Any of these communities that are allowing data centers in their community are gambling against being able to get new water from future State Water Plans, from future funding cycles,” says Margaret Cook, vice president of HARC. “They’re using up the water that was allocated to their population for the future.”
In West Virginia, residents in the western part of the state don’t have access to clean water as it is. What happens when the state’s politicians allow these companies to come in and take the already-strained resources? West Virginia also lacks a robust water infrastructure planning system. Meanwhile, Republicans in the state legislature are considering a bill to bypass the Public Service Commission, allowing tech companies to build as many data centers as they want. To hell with the power grid and the water supply for the people.
None of the companies or people pushing this AI technology have honorable intentions. They openly talk about using the technology to summon a demon that they hope will replace Christianity.
People think I’m joking when I talk about this. Google’s AI system is called “Gemini.” That’s the Americanized name of Nergal, a Babylonian demon who rose from the underworld to bring death, famine, and disease to the world. Anthropic’s popular AI system is called “Claude.” That’s the Americanized name of Jorogumo, the Japanese “spider whore” demon who eats men’s heads when they’re captivated by her beauty. Lots to unpack in that metaphor for AI!
It’s bad enough that the Chinese are buying up the water supply in towns in New Hampshire and other states. Now we have to worry about the tech overlords gobbling up water resources that were meant for future generations in red states.