[thomastjeffery]

Because you don't pay for the water, you buy the rights. Water is treated like an infinite source with a limited flow rate, and the source itself is sold as property.

The solution is not to price water as a commodity, either. If we priced water high enough to disincentivize waste, we would create an incredible burden for regular people. Water should be as cheap as possible, and at the same time regulated to guarantee an amount of conservation. People who can afford to more than double a state's power grid capacity, all for a single data center, can afford more water than the populace can afford.

What we need is to regulate water use generally so that the watersheds and ecosystems we rely on can be reasonably conserved.

[criddell]

> Because you don't pay for the water, you buy the rights.

Is that true? I've only ever lived places where we pay for water by the gallon from a municipal system. I've always assumed that's how most non-agricultural consumers of water pay.

> we would create an incredible burden for regular people

Why do you think that? Google says the average household water bill is $48 to $70 / month. If you priced it on an exponential curve, the first gallons could be practically free and the millionth gallon could be crazy expensive. Data centers can use millions of gallons per day. That should be outrageously expensive in places where water is scarce.

[thomastjeffery]

I was glossing over that detail, yes. You can pay the municipality for filtered water, or dig a well.

If you dig a well, you probably own the lot, and also own associated water rights. Otherwise, you are paying for water processing and municipal reservoir management by the gallon. That's how it works for people in houses.

Your mistake is assuming a datacenter is more like that, and less like an agricultural consumer. It's the other way around. A data center and/or power plant handles its own water processing, which only involves water rights.

[criddell]

> A data center and/or power plant handles its own water processing, which only involves water rights.

I've looked for this information and all I've found so far are articles saying data centers primarily get water from municipal systems. Here's one example:

> Data centers get their water primarily from municipal or regional water utility companies. On average, alternative water sources contribute less than 5% of water used by the typical data center.

https://www.projectfinance.law/publications/data-centers-and...

[thomastjeffery]

Maybe that is the case. I'm definitely not an expert, just sharing my understanding of the situation.