Hello all - I’m new here, so just let me know if this sort of post isn’t welcome.
I wrote an article describing why Iowa is likely to be more impacted by AI than almost all other states. I hope it’s ok to post it here. I’m in Ames but I think people around the State would be interested—-
I wrote an article on AI data center water use in Iowa. It’s long and I don’t expect anyone to read it, but some interesting facts I learned interviewing folks for background:
The huge Facebook data center in Altoona uses no more water than a similar sized residential neighborhood.
The pasta factory in Altoona uses more water than Facebook data centers there.
The 5 big Microsoft data centers in West Des Moines average only 0.3% of the total water used by the Central Iowa Water Works.
The newer data centers are using closed loop cooling rather than evaporative cooling and so need very little water.
Data centers had no bearing on the recent request for water customers to limit lawn watering.
Lawn watering is by far the largest use of water, often consuming 30-40% of all water use, many times more than data centers.
https://iowasaifuture.com/2026/05/30/data-centers-impact-on-iowas-water/