Our read: It depends. A modern closed-loop or dry-cooled build can use almost no water for cooling; an old-style evaporative build can use a lot. In Alberta, the licence rules also protect households first. The right question is not “how much water do data centres use?” but “how is this one cooled, and where does its water come from?”
The 30-second version
The worry
A data centre drains scarce water for cooling , in a semi-arid province, during drought , while households and farms go short.
What's actually true
There is no single Alberta number. A tower-cooled 100 MW site can use about 1.9 million litres a day 16; a closed-loop or dry-cooled design can cut that by up to 95% 16. Meta's Sturgeon County campus is designed for “no operational water use for cooling.” 19
The bottom line
The cooling design decides almost everything, and it is a choice. Alberta law puts households first and makes a new data-centre licence the most junior in its basin. 18 Demand the specifics of the project near you.
The numbers
Virginia is a much larger, wetter market than southern Alberta , useful for scale, not a direct read-across. 17
For vs. against
The case for
- Closed-loop and dry cooling recirculate the same water and can cut freshwater use dramatically. 16
- Some designs run on reclaimed, non-potable water instead of new withdrawals. 17
- Meta's Sturgeon campus is designed for no operational cooling-water use, and says it will publish its withdrawals. 19
- Alberta's licence system legally protects households and puts a data centre last in line during a shortage. 18
The concern
- “Closed-loop” is a design choice, not a guarantee , and it still needs make-up water.
- Chiller cooling trades water for a 20–25% energy penalty, which usually means more gas burned. 20
- Even a licensed draw can be contested: Wonder Valley's water licence is being litigated by the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation. 15
- Most southern-Alberta river basins have been closed to new surface-water licences since 2006, so new water is scarce to begin with. 18
The fix & the catch
Require closed-loop, dry, or direct-to-chip cooling, on reclaimed or non-potable water where possible, kept entirely off the town's drinking supply.
Low-water cooling usually costs more electricity (about 20–25% more 20), which can mean more on-site gas. And a design promise on paper is not a metered result , it has to be verified once the site is running.
What to ask for
Make each project disclose, in writing:
- its exact cooling design (closed-loop, dry, evaporative), and its expected annual water use;
- its water source , potable, reclaimed, or a specific licence , and a hard cap;
- a commitment to keep cooling off the potable supply, with independent metering once running;
- how a shortage would be handled, given First In Time, First In Right.
Every licence and application is a public record, and a statement of concern filed in the public-notice window preserves your right to appeal. 18
Go deeper
Almost every alarming water figure you have seen online describes an evaporative-cooled facility , one that boils water off to shed heat , often on another continent, in a hotter, drier place than Alberta. Those numbers are real, but they are not automatically the number for a project here.
The best independent, whole-industry dataset we have is Virginia's 2024 legislative audit. It found that in 2023 the state's data-centre industry used about 2.1 billion US gallons of water, but that just over a third of that was reclaimed water rather than new withdrawals, and that most individual data centres used about as much as a large office building , while a handful used far more. 17 Virginia is a much bigger and wetter market than southern Alberta, so treat it as scale, not a forecast.
Alberta's own framing leans on cold air: the province says its climate lets a facility do for free, much of the year, what warmer places burn power (and water) to do. 18 That is genuinely an advantage , but “how much” it removes at a real Alberta site is not yet a measured, public number. And the water-saving designs carry an energy cost: an industry analysis puts closed-loop chillers at roughly 20 to 25% more energy than evaporative cooling. 20
The strongest protection is legal, not technical. Under Alberta's First In Time, First In Right system, every drop needs a licence, the oldest licences are served first, and a new data-centre licence would be among the most junior in its basin , meaning it is curtailed before older users during a shortage. Household use needs no licence and is never curtailed. 18 But that system has not yet been tested against a large data centre in a real drought, and a licensed draw can still be challenged: the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation has gone to court over the Wonder Valley licence, arguing it was granted without consultation. 15 14
Sources for this page
- Bartow County, Georgia data-centre policy statement , 1.9M L/day, up to 95% less 16
- Virginia JLARC audit, 2024 , reclaimed share, per-facility comparison 17
- Government of Alberta, datacentres/water , First In Time, households protected 18
- Meta / Sturgeon County / Province release , closed-loop, no operational cooling water 19
- ITK Research , the 20–25% energy penalty 20
- Wonder Valley EIA + Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation litigation 14 15
Full list on Citations. Found a better source or an error? Tell us and we publish the change.