Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
Improper redaction in Google's Nebraska report reveals its water and electricity usage.
Nebraska requires data centers to submit annual reports to the Department of Water, Energy, and Environment, but companies such as Google claim their usage data is a trade secret. A reporter discovered that highlighting and copying redacted text boxes in Agate LLC's report reveals its Lincoln data center used 52.65 megawatts of peak electricity and 13.299 megagallons of water (about 13 million gallons) in the past year. The six reporting data centers used 765 million gallons of water. The same method also revealed expected 2025 tax refunds: $55.8 million for Agate LLC, $39.2 million for Fireball Group LLC, and $22.6 million for Westwood Solutions LLC.
What commenters are saying
Commenters largely dismissed the water usage as negligible, providing comparisons: 13 million gallons is about 0.27% of Lincoln's daily usage, and the 765 million gallons total is roughly 0.04% of what Nebraska's ethanol corn crop requires for irrigation. One commenter noted that a Papillion data center's 548 million gallons would be a much larger burden relative to its city's population. Others pointed out that evaporative cooling trades water for energy, and that the real concern should be electricity consumption, not water. A few argued that framing water as the issue distracts from more impactful problems.