Data Centers and the Cost of Convenience: How the Internet Touches Our Wild Places

Picture credit: E&E News

The fight for community… a tale as old as time.

The world, and humans in particular, are in an incredible moment of progress. We’ve got nonstop entertainment, information on any topic, and the ability to sit in a house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and learn that someone sneezed in Bangladesh… all in microseconds.

It’s wild what a little device in your pocket can do.

But most people don’t think about the cost behind that convenience. Beyond the constant comparison game and the mental clutter, we’re also gulping down massive amounts of water and power to keep the internet machine running.

I’m talking about data centers.

Picture credit: The Hill

In the U.S., according to datacentermap.com, there are over 4,200 data centers and counting. Each one pulling electricity and water to store the endless stream of data we demand in 2025.

Pew Research reports that in 2023, U.S. data centers used around 17 billion gallons of water, with larger centers taking about 84% of the total. By 2028, that number could reach 33 billion gallons a year. And that doesn’t even include the water used to produce the electricity powering them.

When I dug into this, I planned to compare that number to total annual U.S. water regeneration… but guess what? I couldn’t find it. Not one clear source. I did find that America holds roughly 744 trillion gallons of freshwater.

Sounds like plenty… until you think about how much we actually use.

The EPA says the average American uses 29,000–36,500 gallons per year. With 342 million people, that’s about 12.5 trillion gallons annually.

Now take the projected 33 billion gallons for data centers in 2028. That means human water use outweighs data center use by a factor of 378. In simpler terms, this works out to about 100 gallons per person per year. A drop in the bucket compared to individual use, though more concentrated around the data center locations themselves.

I’m no hydrologist, but the numbers suggest water use might not be the biggest environmental hurdle here.

So let’s look at energy.

Picture Credit: BECIS

The U.S. averages 63 million BTUs of energy use per person each year, and households account for 12% of total consumption. Pew Research found that data centers used 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023. That seems small, especially when the energy production sector accounts for 60% of the grid, but half of that is lost in transmission.

I know numbers are boring, but hang with me… the details matter.

Current predictions show data centers could climb to 12% of total U.S. electricity use by 2030. Not great for a grid already stretched thin.

Where does that energy come from? Privately owned land generating fossil fuels and renewables like wind and solar… and from public land, too. Land that’s essential for producing clean water. (Read my article on our national forests to learn more about that connection.)

Water, energy, public land… it all overlaps. And yes, it gets complicated.

We need data centers, but they also create environmental roadblocks. The question is: how do we do this responsibly?

Across the country, communities are pushing back. For example, Saline, Michigan is trying to stop a proposed data center because of its huge energy requirements (about 1.4 gigawatts) which equals roughly 100 million LED bulbs running at once.

Is there a silver lining? I think so.

These projects require extensive reviews. They need to prove they’re responsible. But that only matters if the public shows up and speaks up.

That’s how this country works. Progress is good, but rushed progress is not. These companies need to slow down, consider every stakeholder, and answer every concern.

It starts with us. We speak up, we ask questions, and we make sure our wild places and our communities are part of the conversation.