\n
This story is a part of <\/em>MIT Technology Review\u2019s series \u201cPower Hungry: AI and our energy future<\/a>,\u201d on the energy demands and carbon costs of the artificial-intelligence revolution.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Meanwhile, Microsoft acquired more than 225 acres of undeveloped property within the center and an even larger plot in nearby Silver Springs, Nevada. Apple is expanding<\/a> its data center, located just across the Truckee River from the industrial park. OpenAI has said<\/a> it\u2019s considering building a data center in Nevada as well.<\/p>\n The corporate race to amass computing resources to train and run artificial intelligence models<\/a> and store information in the cloud has sparked a data center boom in the desert\u2014just far enough away from Nevada\u2019s communities to elude wide notice and, some fear, adequate scrutiny.\u00a0<\/p>\n The full scale and potential environmental impacts of the developments aren\u2019t known, because the footprint, energy needs, and water requirements are often closely guarded corporate secrets. Most of the companies didn\u2019t respond to inquiries from MIT Technology Review<\/em>, or declined to provide additional information about the projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n But there\u2019s \u201ca whole lot of construction going on,\u201d says Kris Thompson, who served as the longtime project manager for the industrial center before stepping down late last year. \u201cThe last number I heard was 13 million square feet under construction right now, which is massive.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, it\u2019s the equivalent of almost five Empire State Buildings<\/a> laid out flat. In addition, public filings from NV Energy, the state\u2019s near-monopoly utility, reveal that a dozen data-center projects, mostly in this area, have requested nearly six gigawatts of electricity capacity within the next decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n That would make the greater Reno area\u2014the biggest little city in the world\u2014one of the largest<\/a> data-center markets around the globe.<\/p>\n It would also require expanding the state\u2019s power sector by about 40%, all for a single industry in an explosive growth stage that may, or may not, prove sustainable. The energy needs, in turn, suggest those projects could consume billions of gallons of water per year, according to an analysis conducted for this story.\u00a0<\/p>\n The build-out of a dense cluster of energy and water-hungry data centers in a small stretch of the nation\u2019s driest state<\/a>, where climate change is driving up temperatures faster than anywhere else in the country, has begun to raise alarms among water experts, environmental groups, and residents. That includes members of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, whose namesake water body lies within their reservation and marks the end point of the Truckee River, the region\u2019s main source of water.<\/p>\n Much of Nevada has suffered through severe drought conditions for years, farmers and communities are drawing down<\/a> many of the state\u2019s groundwater reservoirs faster than they can be refilled, and global warming is sucking more and more moisture out of the region\u2019s streams, shrubs, and soils.<\/p>\n \u201cTelling entities that they can come in and stick more straws in the ground for data centers is raising a lot of questions about sound management,\u201d says Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, a nonprofit that works to protect water resources throughout Nevada and Utah.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe just don\u2019t want to be in a situation where the tail is wagging the dog,\u201d he later added, \u201cwhere this demand for data centers is driving water policy.\u201d<\/p>\n In the late 1850s, the mountains southeast of Reno began enticing prospectors from across the country, who hoped to strike silver or gold in the famed Comstock Lode. But Storey County had few residents or economic prospects by the late 1990s, around the time when Don Roger Norman, a media-shy real estate speculator<\/a>, spotted a new opportunity in the sagebrush-covered hills.\u00a0<\/p>\n He began buying up<\/a> tens of thousands of acres of land for tens of millions of dollars and lining up development approvals to lure industrial projects to what became the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center<\/a>. His partners included Lance Gilman, a cowboy-hat-wearing real estate broker<\/a>, who later bought<\/a> the nearby Mustang Ranch brothel and won a seat<\/a> as a county commissioner. <\/p>\n In 1999, the county passed an ordinance that preapproves companies to develop most types of commercial and industrial projects across the business park, cutting months to years off the development process. That helped cinch deals with a flock of tenants looking to build big projects fast, including Walmart, Tesla, and Redwood Materials. Now the promise of fast permits is helping to draw data centers by the gigawatt.<\/p>\n On a clear, cool January afternoon, Brian Armon, a commercial real estate broker who leads the industrial practices group at NAI Alliance, takes me on a tour of the projects around the region, which mostly entails driving around the business center.<\/p>\n After pulling off Interstate 80 onto USA Parkway, he points out the cranes, earthmovers, and riprap foundations, where a variety of data centers are under construction. Deeper into the industrial park, Armon pulls up near Switch\u2019s long, low, arched-roof facility, which sits on a terrace above cement walls and security gates. The Las Vegas\u2013based company says<\/a> the first phase of its data center campus encompasses more than a million square feet, and that the full build-out will cover seven times that space.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the next hill, we turn around in Google\u2019s parking lot. Cranes, tents, framing, and construction equipment extend behind the company\u2019s existing data center, filling much of the 1,210-acre lot that the search engine giant acquired in 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last August, during an event at the University of Nevada, Reno, the company announced<\/a> it would spend $400 million to expand the data center campus along with another one in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n Thompson says that the development company, Tahoe Reno Industrial LLC, has now sold off every parcel of developable land within the park (although several lots are available for resale following the failed gamble<\/a> of one crypto tenant).<\/p>\n When I ask Armon what\u2019s attracting all the data centers here, he starts with the fast approvals but cites a list of other lures as well: The inexpensive land. NV Energy\u2019s willingness to strike deals to supply relatively low-cost electricity. Cool nighttime and winter temperatures, as far as American deserts go, which reduce the energy and water needs. The proximity to tech hubs such as Silicon Valley, which cuts latency for applications in which milliseconds matter. And the lack of natural disasters that could shut down the facilities, at least for the most part<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are high in seismic activity,\u201d he says. \u201cBut everything else is good. We\u2019re not going to have a tornado or flood or a devastating wildfire.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the generous tax policies.<\/p>\n Nevada doesn\u2019t charge<\/a> corporate income tax, and it <\/a>has also enacted<\/a> deep tax cuts specifically for data centers that set up shop in the state. That includes abatements of up to 75% on property tax for a decade or two\u2014and nearly as much of a bargain on the sales and use taxes applied to equipment purchased for the facilities.<\/p>\n Data centers don\u2019t require many permanent workers to run the operations, but the projects have created thousands of construction jobs. They\u2019re also helping to diversify the region\u2019s economy beyond casinos and generating tax windfalls for the state, counties, and cities, says Jeff Sutich, executive director of the Northern Nevada Development Authority. Indeed, just three data-center projects, developed by Apple<\/a>, Google<\/a>, and Vantage<\/a>, will produce nearly half a billion dollars in tax revenue for Nevada, even with those generous abatements, according to the Nevada Governor\u2019s Office of Economic Development.<\/p>\n The question is whether the benefits of data centers are worth the tradeoffs for Nevadans, given the public health costs<\/a>, greenhouse-gas emissions, energy demands, and water strains<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Sierra Nevada\u2019s granite peaks trace the eastern edge of California, forcing Pacific Ocean winds to rise and cool. That converts water vapor in the air into the rain and snow that fill the range\u2019s tributaries, rivers, and lakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the same meteorological phenomenon casts a rain shadow over much of neighboring Nevada, forming an arid expanse known as the Great Basin Desert. The state receives about 10 inches of precipitation<\/a> a year, about a third of the national average.<\/p>\n The Truckee River draws from the melting Sierra snowpack at the edge of Lake Tahoe, cascades down the range, and snakes through the flatlands of Reno and Sparks. It forks at the Derby Dam, a Reclamation Act project a few miles from the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, which diverts water to a farming region further east while allowing the rest to continue north toward Pyramid Lake.\u00a0<\/p>\n Along the way, an engineered system of reservoirs, canals, and treatment plants divert, store, and release water from the river, supplying businesses, cities, towns, and native tribes across the region. But Nevada\u2019s population and economy are expanding, creating more demands on these resources even as they become more constrained.\u00a0<\/p>\n Throughout much of the 2020s the state has suffered through<\/a> one of the hottest and most widespread droughts on record, extending two decades of abnormally dry conditions across the American West. Some scientists fear it may constitute an emerging megadrought<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n About 50% of Nevada currently faces moderate to exceptional drought<\/a> conditions. In addition, more than half of the state\u2019s hundreds of groundwater basins are already \u201cover-appropriated,\u201d<\/a> meaning the water rights on paper exceed the levels believed to be underground.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear if climate change will increase or decrease the state\u2019s rainfall levels, on balance. But precipitation patterns are expected to become more erratic, whiplashing between short periods of intense rainfall and more-frequent, extended, or severe droughts.\u00a0<\/p>\n In addition, more precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow, shortening the Sierra snow season by weeks to months<\/a> over the coming decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the extreme case, at the end of the century, that\u2019s pretty much all of winter,\u201d says Sean McKenna, executive director of hydrologic sciences at the Desert Research Institute, a research division of the Nevada System of Higher Education.<\/p>\n That loss will undermine an essential function of the Sierra snowpack: reliably delivering water to farmers and cities when it\u2019s most needed in the spring and summer, across both Nevada and California.\u00a0<\/p>\n These shifting conditions will require the region to develop better ways to store, preserve, and recycle the water it does get, McKenna says. Northern Nevada\u2019s cities, towns, and agencies will also need to carefully evaluate and plan for the collective impacts of continuing growth and development on the interconnected water system, particularly when it comes to water-hungry projects like data centers, he adds.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t consider each of these as a one-off, without considering that there may be tens or dozens of these in the next 15 years,\u201d McKenna says.<\/p>\n Data centers suck up water in two main ways.<\/p>\n As giant rooms of server racks process information and consume energy, they generate heat that must be shunted away to prevent malfunctions and damage to the equipment. The processing units optimized for training and running AI models often draw more electricity and, in turn, produce more heat.<\/p>\n To keep things cool, more and more data centers have turned to liquid cooling systems that don\u2019t need as much electricity as fan cooling or air-conditioning.<\/p>\n These often rely on water to absorb heat and transfer it to outdoor cooling towers, where much of the moisture evaporates. Microsoft\u2019s US data centers, for instance, could have directly evaporated nearly 185,000 gallons of \u201cclean freshwater\u201d in the course of training OpenAI\u2019s GPT-3 large language model, according to a 2023 preprint study<\/a> led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside. (The research has since been peer-reviewed and is awaiting publication.)<\/p>\n What\u2019s less appreciated, however, is that the larger data-center drain on water generally occurs indirectly, at the power plants generating extra electricity for the turbocharged AI sector. These facilities, in turn, require more water to cool down equipment, among other purposes. <\/p>\n You have to add up both uses \u201cto reflect the true water cost of data centers,\u201d says Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside and coauthor of the study.<\/p>\n Ren estimates that the 12 data-center projects listed in NV Energy\u2019s report would directly consume between 860 million gallons and 5.7 billion gallons a year, based on the requested electricity capacity. (\u201cConsumed\u201d here means the water is evaporated, not merely withdrawn and returned to the engineered water system.) The indirect water drain associated with electricity generation for those operations could add up to 15.5 billion gallons, based on the average consumption<\/a> of the regional grid.<\/p>\n The exact water figures would depend on shifting climate conditions, the type of cooling systems each data center uses, and the mix of power sources that supply the facilities.<\/p>\n Solar power, which provides roughly a quarter of Nevada\u2019s power, requires relatively little water to operate, for instance. But natural-gas plants, which generate about 56%, withdraw 2,803 gallons per megawatt-hour on average, according to the Energy Information Administration<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Geothermal plants, which produce about 10%<\/a> of the state\u2019s electricity by cycling water through hot rocks, generally consume less water than fossil fuel plants do but often require more water than other renewables, according to some research<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n But here too, the water usage varies depending on the type of geothermal plant in question. Google has lined up<\/a> several deals<\/a> to partially power its data centers through Fervo Energy, which has helped to commercialize an emerging approach that injects water under high pressure<\/a> to fracture rock and form wells deep below the surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n The company stresses that it doesn\u2019t evaporate water for cooling and that it relies on brackish groundwater, not fresh water, to develop and run its plants. In a recent post<\/a>, Fervo noted that its facilities consume significantly less water per megawatt-hour than coal, nuclear, or natural-gas plants do.<\/p>\n Part of NV Energy\u2019s proposed plan<\/a> to meet growing electricity demands in Nevada includes developing several natural-gas peaking units, adding more than one gigawatt of solar power and installing another gigawatt of battery storage. It\u2019s also forging ahead with a more than $4 billion transmission project<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the company didn\u2019t respond to questions concerning how it will supply all of the gigawatts of additional electricity requested by data centers, if the construction of those power plants will increase consumer rates, or how much water those facilities are expected to consume.<\/p>\n \u201cNV Energy teams work diligently on our long-term planning to make investments in our infrastructure to serve new customers and the continued growth in the state without putting existing customers at risk,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n An added challenge is that data centers need to run around the clock. That will often compel utilities to develop new electricity-generating sources that can run nonstop as well, as natural-gas, geothermal, or nuclear plants do, says Emily Grubert, an associate professor of sustainable energy policy at the University of Notre Dame, who has studied<\/a> the relative water consumption of electricity sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou end up with the water-intensive resources looking more important,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n Even if NV Energy and the companies developing data centers do strive to power them through sources with relatively low water needs, \u201cwe only have so much ability to add six gigawatts to Nevada\u2019s grid,\u201d Grubert explains. \u201cWhat you do will never be system-neutral, because it\u2019s such a big number.\u201d<\/p>\n On a mid-February morning, I meet TRI\u2019s Thompson and Don Gilman, Lance Gilman\u2019s son<\/a>, at the Storey County offices, located within the industrial center.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just a country boy who sells dirt,\u201d Gilman, also a real estate broker<\/a>, says by way of introduction.\u00a0<\/p>\n We climb into his large SUV and drive to a reservoir in the heart of the industrial park, filled nearly to the lip.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thompson explains that much of the water comes from an on-site treatment facility that filters waste fluids from companies in the park. In addition, tens of millions of gallons of treated effluent will also likely flow into the tank this year from the Truckee Meadows Water Authority Reclamation Facility, near the border of Reno and Sparks. That\u2019s thanks to a 16-mile pipeline<\/a> that the developers<\/a>, the water authority, several tenants, and various local cities and agencies partnered to build, through a project that began in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOur general improvement district is furnishing that water to tech companies here in the park as we speak,\u201d Thompson says. \u201cThat helps preserve the precious groundwater, so that is an environmental feather in the cap for these data centers. They are focused on environmental excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n But data centers often need drinking-quality water\u2014not wastewater merely treated to<\/a> irrigation standards\u2014for evaporative cooling, \u201cto avoid pipe clogs and\/or bacterial growth,\u201d the UC Riverside study notes. For instance, Google says<\/a> its data centers withdrew about 7.7 billion gallons of water in 2023, and nearly 6 billion of those gallons were potable.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tenants in the industrial park can potentially obtain access to water from the ground and the Truckee River, as well. From early on, the master developers worked hard to secure permits to water sources, since they are nearly as precious as development entitlements to companies hoping to build projects in the desert.<\/p>\n Initially, the development company controlled a private business, the TRI Water and Sewer Company, that provided those services to the business park\u2019s tenants, according to public documents<\/a>. The company set up wells, a water tank, distribution lines, and a sewer disposal system.\u00a0<\/p>\n But in 2000, the board of county commissioners established a general improvement district, a legal mechanism for providing municipal services<\/a> in certain parts of the state, to manage electricity and then water within the center. It, in turn, hired<\/a> TRI Water and Sewer as the operating company.<\/p>\n As of its 2020<\/a> service plan, the general improvement district held permits for nearly 5,300 acre-feet of groundwater, \u201cwhich can be pumped from well fields within the service area and used for new growth as it occurs.\u201d The document lists another 2,000 acre-feet per year available from the on-site treatment facility, 1,000 from the Truckee River, and 4,000 more from the effluent pipeline.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those figures haven\u2019t budged much since, according to Shari Whalen, general manager of the TRI General Improvement District. All told, they add up to more than 4 billion gallons of water per year for all the needs of the industrial park and the tenants there, data centers and otherwise.<\/p>\n Whalen says that the amount and quality of water required for any given data center depends on its design, and that those matters are worked out on a case-by-case basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked if the general improvement district is confident that it has adequate water resources to supply the needs of all the data centers under development, as well as other tenants at the industrial center, she says: \u201cThey can\u2019t just show up and build unless they have water resources designated for their projects. We wouldn\u2019t approve a project if it didn\u2019t have those water resources.\u201d<\/p>\n As the region\u2019s water sources have grown more constrained, lining up supplies<\/a> has become an increasingly high-stakes<\/a> and controversial business.<\/p>\n More than a century ago, the US federal government filed a lawsuit against an assortment of parties pulling water from the Truckee River. The suit would eventually establish that the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe\u2019s legal rights to water for irrigation superseded other claims. But the tribe has been fighting to protect those rights<\/a> and increase flows from the river ever since, arguing that increasing strains on the watershed from upstream cities and businesses threaten to draw away water reserved for reservation farming, decrease lake levels, and harm native fish.<\/p>\n The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe considers the water body and its fish, including the endangered cui-ui and threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout<\/a>, to be essential parts of its culture, identity, and way of life. The tribe was originally named Cui-ui Ticutta, which translates to cui-ui eaters. The lake continues to provide sustenance as well as business for the tribe and its members, a number of whom operate boat charters<\/a> and fishing guide services<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s completely tied into us as a people,\u201d says Steven Wadsworth, chairman of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is what has sustained us all this time,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s just who we are. It\u2019s part of our spiritual well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent decades, the tribe has sued the Nevada State Engineer, Washoe County, the federal government, and others for overallocating water rights and endangering the lake\u2019s fish. It also protested the TRI General Improvement District\u2019s applications to draw thousands of additional acre\u2011feet of groundwater from a basin near the business park. In 2019, the State Engineer\u2019s office rejected those requests, concluding that the basin was already fully appropriated.\u00a0<\/p>\n More recently, the tribe took issue with the plan to build the pipeline and divert effluent that would have flown into the Truckee, securing an agreement that required the Truckee Meadows Water Authority and other parties to add back several thousand acre\u2011feet of water to the river.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whalen says she\u2019s sensitive to Wadsworth\u2019s concerns. But she says that the pipeline promises to keep a growing amount of treated wastewater out of the river, where it could otherwise contribute to rising salt levels in the lake.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that the pipeline from [the Truckee Meadows Water Authority] to our system is good for water quality in the river,\u201d she says. \u201cI understand philosophically the concerns about data centers, but the general improvement district is dedicated to working with everyone on the river for regional water-resource planning\u2014and the tribe is no exception.\u201d<\/p>\n In an email, Thompson added that he has \u201cgreat respect and admiration,\u201d for the tribe and has visited the reservation several times in an effort to help bring industrial or commercial development there.<\/p>\n He stressed that all of the business park\u2019s groundwater was \u201cvalidated by the State Water Engineer,\u201d and that the rights to surface water and effluent were purchased \u201cfor fair market value.\u201d<\/p>\n During the earlier interview at the industrial center, he and Gilman had both expressed confidence that tenants in the park have adequate water supplies, and that the businesses won\u2019t draw water away from other areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in our own aquifer, our own water basin here,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cYou put a straw in the ground here, you\u2019re not going to pull water from Fernley or from Reno or from Silver Springs.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilman also stressed that data-center companies have gotten more water efficient in recent years, echoing a point others made as well.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the newer technology, it\u2019s not much of a worry,\u201d says Sutich, of the Northern Nevada Development Authority. \u201cThe technology has come a long way in the last 10 years, which is really giving these guys the opportunity to be good stewards of water usage.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Google\u2019s existing Storey County facility is air-cooled, according to the company\u2019s latest environmental report<\/a>. The data center withdrew 1.9 million gallons in 2023 but only consumed 200,000 gallons. The rest cycles back into the water system.<\/p>\n Google said all the data centers under construction on its campus will also \u201cutilize air-cooling technology.\u201d The company didn\u2019t respond to a question about the scale of its planned expansion in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, and referred a question about indirect water consumption to NV Energy.<\/p>\n The search giant has stressed that it strives to be water efficient across all of its data centers, and decides whether to use air or liquid cooling based on local supply and projected demand<\/a>, among other variables.<\/p>\n Four years ago, the company set a goal<\/a> of replenishing more water than it consumes by 2030. Locally, it also committed to provide half a million dollars to the National Forest Foundation to improve the Truckee River watershed and reduce wildfire risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Microsoft clearly suggested<\/a> in earlier news reports<\/a> that the Silver Springs land it purchased around the end of 2022 would be used for a data center. NAI Alliance\u2019s market real estate report identifies that lot, as well as the parcel Microsoft purchased within the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, as data center sites.<\/p>\n But the company now declines to specify what it intends to build in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the land purchase is public knowledge, we have not disclosed specific details [of] our plans for the land or potential development timelines,\u201d wrote Donna Whitehead, a Microsoft spokesperson, in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n Microsoft has also scaled down<\/a> its global data-center ambitions, backing away from several projects in recent months amid shifting economic conditions, according to various reports.<\/p>\n Whatever it ultimately does or doesn\u2019t build, the company stresses that it has made strides to reduce water consumption in its facilities. Late last year, the company announced<\/a> that it\u2019s using \u201cchip-level cooling solutions\u201d in data centers, which continually circulate water between the servers and chillers through a closed loop that the company claims doesn\u2019t lose any water to evaporation. It says the design requires only a \u201cnominal increase\u201d in energy compared to its data centers that rely on evaporative water cooling.<\/p>\n Others seem to be taking a similar approach. EdgeCore also said its 900,000-square-foot data center at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center will rely on an \u201cair-cooled closed-loop chiller\u201d that doesn\u2019t require water evaporation for cooling.\u00a0<\/p>\n But some of the companies seem to have taken steps to ensure access to significant amounts of water. Switch, for instance, took a lead role<\/a> in developing the effluent pipeline. In addition, Tract, which develops campuses on which third-party data centers can build their own facilities, has said<\/a> it lined up more than 1,100 acre-feet of water rights, the equivalent of nearly 360 million gallons a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Apple, Novva, Switch, Tract, and Vantage didn\u2019t respond to inquiries from MIT Technology Review<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The suggestion that companies aren\u2019t straining water supplies when they adopt air cooling is, in many cases, akin to saying they\u2019re not responsible for the greenhouse gas produced through their power use simply because it occurs outside of their facilities. In fact, the additional water used at a power plant to meet the increased electricity needs of air cooling may exceed any gains at the data center, Ren, of UC Riverside, says.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s actually very likely, because it uses a lot more energy,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n That means that some of the companies developing data centers in and around Storey County may simply hand off their water challenges to other parts of Nevada or neighboring states across the drying American West<\/a>, depending on where and how the power is generated, Ren says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Google has said<\/a> its air-cooled facilities require about 10% more electricity, and its environmental report notes that the Storey County facility is one of its two least-energy-efficient data centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some fear there\u2019s also a growing mismatch between what Nevada\u2019s water permits allow, what\u2019s actually in the ground, and what nature will provide as climate conditions shift. Notably, the groundwater committed to all parties from the Tracy Segment basin\u2014a long-fought-over resource that partially supplies the TRI General Improvement District\u2014already exceeds the \u201cperennial yield<\/a>.\u201d That refers to the maximum amount that can be drawn out every year without depleting the reservoir over the long term.<\/p>\n \u201cIf pumping does ultimately exceed the available supply, that means there will be conflict among users,\u201d Roerink, of the Great Basin Water Network, said in an email. \u201cSo I have to wonder: Who could be suing whom? Who could be buying out whom? How will the tribe\u2019s rights be defended?\u201d<\/p>\n The Truckee Meadows Water Authority, the community-owned utility that manages the water system for Reno and Sparks, said it is planning carefully for the future and remains confident there will be \u201csufficient resources for decades to come,\u201d at least within its territory east of the industrial center.<\/p>\n Storey County, the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, and the State Engineer\u2019s office didn\u2019t respond to questions or accept interview requests.\u00a0<\/p>\n As data center proposals have begun shifting into Northern Nevada\u2019s cities, more local residents and organizations have begun to take notice and express concerns. The regional division of the Sierra Club, for instance, recently sought to overturn<\/a> the approval of Reno\u2019s first data center, about 20 miles west of the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club\u2019s Toiyabe Chapter, says the environmental organization was shocked by the projected electricity demands from data centers highlighted in NV Energy\u2019s filings.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have increasing interest in understanding the impact that data centers will have to our climate goals, to our grid as a whole, and certainly to our water resources,\u201d she says. \u201cThe demands are extraordinary, and we don\u2019t have that amount of water to toy around with.\u201d<\/p>\n During a city hall hearing in January that stretched late into the evening, she and a line of residents raised concerns about the water, energy, climate, and employment impacts of AI data centers. At the end, though, the city council upheld the planning department\u2019s approval of the project, on a 5-2 vote.<\/p>\n \u201cWelcome to Reno,\u201d Kathleen Taylor, Reno\u2019s vice mayor, said<\/a> before casting her vote. \u201cWe\u2019re open for business.\u201d<\/p>\n In late March, I walk alongside Chairman Wadsworth, of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, on the shores of Pyramid Lake, watching a row of fly-fishers in waders cast their lines into the cold waters.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lake is the largest remnant of Lake Lahontan, an Ice Age inland sea that once stretched across western Nevada and would have submerged present-day Reno<\/a>. But as the climate warmed, the lapping waters retreated, etching erosional terraces into the mountainsides and exposing<\/a> tufa deposits around the lake, large formations of porous rock made of calcium-carbonate. That includes the pyramid-shaped island on the eastern shore that inspired the lake\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
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Luring data centers<\/h3>\n
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The rain shadow<\/h3>\n
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Thirsty data centers<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_March_USAPKWY_Najera_048.jpg?w=2999\")
Securing supplies<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_March_USAPKWY_Najera_045.jpg?w=2999\")
Water <\/strong>battles<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_March_USAPKWY_Najera_010-crop.jpg?w=1350\")
Water efficiency\u00a0<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/usa-sparks-davidson-2024-0161.jpg?w=2667\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_March_USAPKWY_Najera_057.jpg?w=2999\")
Coming conflicts\u00a0<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/usa-sparks-davidson-2024-0753.jpg?w=3000\")
Open for business<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_March_USAPKWY_Najera_003.jpg?w=3000\")
Where the river ends<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2024_March_USAPKWY_Najera_023.jpg?w=3000\")