THE GRID
SECTION 13
ISSUE 001
Water Budgets Shape Model Placement
Projection: DOE-LBNL and the IEA place data-center growth inside broader resource and power-system planning. Cooling-water availability and basin stress may become explicit variables in training and inference placement. The forecast requires transparent site-level water accounting and evidence that routing or design choices materially change withdrawals without exporting the burden elsewhere.
Why this idea is here
What the evidence establishes.
DOE and LBNL project substantial U.S. datacenter load growth through 2028 and describe power-system planning measures for that growth; The IEA models datacenter electricity demand, projects the energy sources needed to supply it, and analyzes implications for security, emissions, innovation, and affordability. These are source-backed premises for this projection; they do not by themselves prove broad adoption or the eventual outcome.
Source ledger
Read the sources.
- S01DOE Report on U.S. Data Center Energy Use
government research release / published 2024-12-20 / retrieved 2026-07-09
- S02Energy and AI
intergovernmental research report / published 2025-04-10 / retrieved 2026-07-09