Bottled water plants and data centers consume water differently: one sells it, one evaporates it
AryHHAry · x · 2026-09-30
Responding to the claim that bottled water plants consume far more water than data centers, the author argues the two aren't apples-to-apples: bottling plants extract water as a commodity and ship it elsewhere, while data center cooling towers evaporate water into the atmosphere as latent heat that can't be recovered.
The "multiple times more" figures are broad aggregate balances, but residents' wells fail locally, seasonally, depending on who got permits first. So the real question isn't factory vs data center — it's whether the water is sold away or evaporated.
Related event: Indonesian netizen unpacks AI data center water use debate(5 posts)→
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