Comrade Clayton likes to tell everyone we are running out of water next week (we aren’t). He throws around how many MILLIONS of gallons data centers use. As if EVERY industry didn’t use billions of gallons also.
Since he is a moron, he never thinks to compare data centers to anything else. Like golf courses, almond orchards, steel production, etc.
Here are some numbers. Feel free to check their veracity:
Data centers in Texas consume a collective 68 to 134 millions of gallons per day. This accounts for roughly 25 to 49 billion gallons annually, which represents about 0.4% of all the water used in the state.
Yes, you read that correctly. That less than HALF of 1% of water used. That is what Comrade Clayton is shitting his diapers over.
Next is cotton….
Texas cotton farmers use an estimated 3 to 4 TRILLION gallons of water annually for irrigation. Because irrigation needs heavily depend on unpredictable rainfall and fluctuating crop yields, actual usage can vary by hundreds of billions of gallons from year to year.
Last I checked, 50 billion is FAR less than “3 to 4 trillion.” But in Comrade Clayton’s mildewy pea brain, the noble farmer (who generates about 1% of Texas economic footprint) automatically gets first dibs on all water, land, power, tax incentives, welfare, hot chicks, meal specials, and seats on a plane while everyone else can pound sand. This is because Clayton is a pretend farmer and not a pretend steel worker or pretend oil worker. So he naturally puts himself at the front of the line.
How about general manufacturing??
Manufacturing in Texas uses approximately 260 billion gallons of water per year, according to the Texas Water Development Board, the manufacturing sector accounts for about 8% of the state’s total water withdrawals, making it the third-largest water-use category behind municipal use and irrigation.
How about those almond orchards??
Almond orchards use roughly 3 to 4 acre-feet of water annually (approximately 968,000 to 1.3 million gallons per acre). By volume, this translates to about 1 to 3 gallons of water to produce a single almond. Sounds pretty wasteful to me, but the almond guy is kind of a farmer, so Comrade gives him a pass.
Ooooh – how about golf courses??
Texas has over 900 golf courses, ranking it among the top states in the country for total course count. All golf courses in Texas combined use an estimated 118 billion gallons per year!
Hmmm…WAY more than data centers, too!
Here are the facts: agriculture is by far the largest consumer of water in the state, accounting for roughly half to three-quarters of all water withdrawals depending on the year. That’s 50% to 75% of the water VERSUS less than one half of one percent.
Put more clearly, in deference to Potato Head Fitzharris:
Farmers: 50% to 75%
Data centers: 0.40%
THAT is what Comrade Clayton Tucker is having a hissy fit over.
Furthermore, direct farm production accounts for around 1% of Texas’s total economic footprint. Tech? Closer to 19%…and the jobs are FAR higher paying, as we well know from all of Comrade Clayton’s bellyaching about the shitty income from his own ‘farm.’
So I guess the REAL gist of all of Comrade Clayton’s statements about water SHOULD be: “greedy farmers, who already steal 50% to 75% of Texas water, are now trying to steal the meager 0.4% of the pie that data centers use as they generate high-paying jobs.”