Resources · The hall
Data-centre water, in a field of almonds
Lawrence Berkeley counted 17.4 billion gallons of on-site water at US data centres in 2023. A 2026 path toward the lab’s 38–73 billion-gallon 2028 range still sits near 28. California almonds, from USDA acres at 3.0 acre-feet, sit near 1,355. US golf applied 531 in 2024. The campus can dry a local aquifer. It does not move a national ledger.
- Almonds (CA)
- Pistachios (CA)
- Golf (US)
- Pools (US)
- Data centres
- CA almonds vs US data-centre on-site water, 2026 path
- 50×
- Billion gallons, US data centres on-site, 2023 (LBNL)
- 17.4
- Billion gallons, CA almonds, 2026
- 1,355
- Billion gallons, US golf applied, 2024 (GCSAA)
- 531
The political number is the small one
Open a county hearing about a new campus and you will hear that data centres drink rivers. Open Lawrence Berkeley’s 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report and you will read 17.4 billion gallons of on-site water in 2023 — about 160,000 American households on EPA WaterSense arithmetic, or Google’s Council Bluffs campus drinking 2.8 million gallons a day by itself. Both sentences are true. They are not the same sentence. On this chart the rack is the bottom line. California almonds, reconstructed from USDA bearing acres at a conservative 3.0 acre-feet, sit near 1,355 billion gallons. That is about fifty times the 2026 data-centre path, and about eighty times the 2023 print. US golf applied 1.63 million acre-feet in 2024: 531 billion gallons, still ~30 times the 2023 racks, and down 31% from 2005. Residential pools, the weakest series here, still clear 100 billion. The AI water crisis is real on a well in northern Virginia, in Mesa, in Council Bluffs. It is a rounding error on a national withdrawal ledger. A magazine that only prints the local fight will over-trade a drought. A magazine that only prints 17 billion gallons will miss the permit that kills the campus.
How the orchard and the fairway were rebuilt
This is not a copy of a consultant’s chart. Almonds: USDA NASS California bearing acres — 485,000 in 1999, 760,000 in 2011, 1.38 million in 2023, about 1.386 million in 2026 (Land IQ’s first decline in decades; USDA’s 2026 subjective still near 1.39 million). Times 3.0 acre-feet, the low end of applied irrigation in UC Cooperative Extension cost studies, times 325,851 gallons. A 4.0 AF district, or C-WIN’s 4.7–5.5 million acre-foot statewide claim, would lift the top line toward 1,800. We print the low end so the gap cannot be accused of being an almond scare. Pistachios: USDA ERS 488,000 bearing acres in 2024, a fivefold rise in two decades, 520,000-class in 2025, a 2026 path at 530,000 — same 3.0 AF. Golf: GCSAA and the USGA’s Golf Course Environmental Profile, peer-reviewed in HortTechnology. 2024 is a print (1.63 million acre-feet). 2020 is a print (1.68 million). 2005 and 2013 are derived from the stated 31% and 9% reductions. We will not publish a 655 billion-gallon 2026 golf figure; it sits about 23% above the last survey. Pools are a census times a top-off, and they should be read as a band. Applied water is not consumed evapotranspiration. A wet year, a cover, a recycled-water ordinance, and SGMA fallowing all move these lines more than a press release.
Seventeen billion on site, 211 billion at the power plant
The on-site number is what a cooling tower evaporates. LBNL’s same paper, and the 2026 policy wrap of it, put another ~211 billion gallons on the thermoelectric plants that made the electrons. That is the chart next to this one. Direct water is projected at 38–73 billion gallons by 2028; the total (direct plus power-plant) at 469–844. A 2026 on-site path of 28 billion gallons is the low case, not a yearbook. Hyperscalers are already the half of it. Google’s own 2025 environmental report: 6.1 billion gallons consumed at data centres in 2024, up from 4.3 in 2021, with Council Bluffs the largest withdrawer. Equinix consumed 1.2 billion of 1.4 billion withdrawn. Up to 85% of what a tower takes does not return to the creek. Closed-loop and liquid cooling trade water for electricity. Air economisers trade water for a climate that has enough free cooling. None of those switches show up if you only watch 17.4.
The long view is a well, not a continent
USGS last counted 322,000 million gallons a day of US freshwater withdrawals, most of it thermoelectric and irrigation. Data-centre on-site water in 2023 was on the order of 48 million gallons a day — 0.015% of that ledger. It is not 0.015% of Loudoun County’s aquifer, or of a desert city’s effluent. Water rights now gate model deployment as much as HBM. The investing error is a national short on ‘AI water’. The investing map is local: campuses that have a wastewater contract, a closed loop, or a wet climate; cooling and reuse vendors; utilities whose electrons are not themselves thirsty; and a very large, slow orchard complex in the San Joaquin that is already being repriced by SGMA. Own the permit and the loop. Do not own a 2026 slogan that the rack will drink California. The almonds already did, and they are flattening.
Investing lens
Horizon 5–15 years · Educational, not advice
Data-centre water is a local-scarcity and cooling-technology story, not a national withdrawal story. The scarce goods are wastewater contracts, closed-loop and liquid cooling, and power mixes that do not multiply on-site gallons by twelve at the plant. California tree nuts are a SGMA-and-export story running in parallel — flattening acres, not a 2010s planting boom.
Where the map points
- Liquid-cooling, dry-cooler, and water-reuse kit into hyperscale campuses
- Utilities and IPPs whose offtake is sited on wet or recycled-water systems
- Select California nut processors and land with senior water rights, sized for SGMA
- Avoid a national ‘AI will drain the West’ equity story with no well and no offtake
What can break it
- A single-county aquifer fight that strands a campus regardless of the national chart
- A 4.0 AF almond year, or a 73-billion-gallon 2028 high case, that re-opens the politics
- Confusing applied irrigation, consumed ET, on-site evaporation, and power-plant withdrawals
CHART does not recommend securities, funds or trades. Figures can be revised by their publishers. Do your own research and consider regulated advice before allocating capital.
Sources
Every headline number traces to a named publisher. Contextual sources inform the essay, not the key stat.
- 01PrimaryLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory2024-122024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report
Shehabi et al., LBNL-200163 / DOI 10.71468/P1WC7Q. On-site US data-centre water 17.4 bn gal in 2023; direct 38–73 bn gal by 2028. Indirect (power-plant) ~211 bn gal in 2023; total 469–844 bn gal by 2028.
- 02CorroboratedMOST Policy Initiative2026-04-08Data Center Water Use — Science Note
Wrap of Shehabi 2024: 17.4 bn gal on-site 2023 ≈ 160,000 households; 38–73 bn gal by 2028. Google 6.1 bn gal consumed 2024; Council Bluffs 2.8 million gal/day consumed.
- 03PrimaryGolf Course Superintendents Association of America / USGA2025-12-30Golf courses reduce water usage by 31 percent according to national survey
2024 print: 1.63 million acre-feet applied = 531 bn gal. −31% vs 2005, −3.2% vs 2020. Peer-reviewed in HortTechnology (Shaddox et al. 2025).
- 04CorroboratedGolf Course Superintendents Association of America2022-07Golf courses reduce water usage by 29 percent according to national survey
2020 print: 1.68 million acre-feet = 547 bn gal, −29% vs 2005, −9% vs 2013. Used to derive 2005 (771 bn gal) and 2013 (602 bn gal).
- 05PrimaryUSDA National Agricultural Statistics Service2026California Almond Acreage Reports
Bearing acres: 1999 485,000; 2003 550,000; 2007 615,000; 2011 760,000; 2015 890,000; 2019 1.17m; 2023 1.38m. 2026 Land IQ 1,385,870; USDA subjective ~1.39m.
- 06PrimaryUSDA Economic Research Service2025-03-31Pistachios crack walnuts’ long-standing spot in California’s tree-nut ranking
California pistachio bearing acres ~488,000 in 2024, +25,000 y/y; nearly fivefold in two decades. 2025 crop record; acreage ~520,000-class.
- 07ContextualUS Environmental Protection Agency, WaterSense2025How We Use Water
Household-equivalent arithmetic for LBNL’s 17.4 bn gal ≈ 160,000 homes. Pool top-off order of magnitude used to reconstruct the residential-pool series.
Keep reading
Forty-eight thousand, not seventeen
USGS last counted 48,525 billion gallons a year of thermoelectric withdrawals and 43,118 of irrigation. California almonds, on our reconstruction, are 1,355. US data-centre on-site water in 2023 was 17.4. The attached chart is true. It is also not the ledger.
0.04%
US data-centre on-site vs US irrigation
The other two hundred and eleven billion
On-site cooling is the political number: 17.4 billion gallons in 2023. The power plants that fed those racks used about 211 billion more. Data-centre water is mostly an electricity mix. Direct is the well. Indirect is the grid.
211
Billion gallons, US data-centre power-plant water, 2023
The power behind intelligence
Data centres used 485 TWh in 2025. The IEA’s base case still nearly doubles that by 2030 — and AI sites are growing three times as fast as the rest.
485 TWh
Data-centre electricity, 2025
2,500 gigawatts waiting for a wire
The IEA’s 2026 electricity report puts more than 2,500 GW of projects — renewables, batteries, data centres — in grid connection queues. The world spends $400 billion a year on grids and $1 trillion on generation. That is the distribution bottleneck.
2,500 GW
Projects stalled in grid queues, 2026
429 parts per million
NOAA: the air at Mauna Loa averaged 429.12 ppm of CO₂ in July 2026. In 1959, when the Keeling curve began in earnest, it was 316. Pre-industrial air was about 280. This is the most important number on the desk.
429.12
Mauna Loa CO₂, July 2026 (ppm)
Three companies, 63 percent of the cloud
Synergy Research, Q2 2026: Amazon Web Services 28%, Microsoft Azure 20%, Google Cloud 15%. The rest of the planet’s enterprise cloud is the other 37%. Intelligence infrastructure has a landlord.
63%
AWS + Azure + Google, Q2 2026