Demystifying Data Centers

A Practitioner's Briefing · Restricted Access

A Practitioner's Briefing

Demystifying
Data Centers.

For public officials, planning commissions, and community stakeholders.
Greg Farhat  ·  linkedin.com/in/gregoryfarhat
Views expressed are solely my own and do not reflect those of my employer, employees, or any affiliated organization. Non-deliberative training. No decisions on pending matters. No financial interest in any project before this body.

Before We Begin

Purpose & Presenter

Educational briefing on data centers. Not advocacy. Not legal advice.

I have designed, built, and operated data centers. The goal here is to give you the vocabulary and proportions so the right questions surface faster — not to advocate for or against any specific project.

01 — What

What is a data center?

A building full of computers that run the internet.

Every email, every stream, every bank transaction, every medical record sits on a server in a room somewhere. A data center is that room, purpose-built. Racks, cooling, backup power, security, fast network.

Same concept as a power plant or water treatment facility — just for information.

02 — Why

Why do we have them?

Because they power the world we live in.

Purpose-built data centers run at 90%+ utilization with best-in-class cooling and redundant power. Centralizing compute into purpose-built facilities reduced total energy use, reduced total water use, and raised reliability.

One hyperscale facility does the work of thousands of distributed server rooms — and does it more efficiently.

03 — When

Why are they news now?

The industry didn't suddenly become a problem. It suddenly became visible.

1960s
First data centers for mainframe computers
2000s
Hyperscale era begins with cloud infrastructure
Now
AI drove an unprecedented build-out. The buildings got too big to hide.

04 — Who

Who uses them?

Everyone. The real question is who doesn't.

Your Phone
Every app, every ping.
Your Bank
Your balance lives in a data center.
Your Doctor
Medical records, prescriptions, imaging.
Your GPS
Maps, traffic, navigation.
Your Streaming
Netflix, Spotify, YouTube.
Your Car
Software updates arrive from a data center.

If you use electricity, water, or roads — you use data centers at the same level of dependency.

05 — Where

Where should they go?

Four criteria that actually matter.

  • 01
    Power
    Near existing generation or clean build-out capacity.
  • 02
    Water
    Appropriate supply, or no water needed. Closed-loop or air cooling in dry climates.
  • 03
    Zoning
    Industrial-zoned land. Right site, right infrastructure.
  • 04
    Benefit
    Real community benefit, with teeth.

"Not in my back yard" relocates the impact. It doesn't eliminate it.

The Efficiency Case

One 737 or eighty Cessnas?

Consolidation wins. It always has.

One 737
160 passengers · 2 pilots · 1 slot
Eighty Cessnas
160 passengers · 80 pilots · 80 slots

Nobody proposes the Cessna option. Data centers work the same way.

The oldest idea in infrastructure

CentralizedReplaces
Power plant~40 diesel generators (MI avg. plant)
Apartment tower200 single-family homes, fraction of the land
Central warehouse~2,750 self-storage units
Municipal water treatment~2,000 private wells (MI avg. system)
Great Lakes freighter~12,500 cargo vans (mid-size laker)
Regional hospital~40 urgent care clinics (by throughput)

Centralized, regulated infrastructure at industrial scale beats distributed inefficiency every time. Data centers are the newest example.

Community Concerns

The fear is real.

And often misdirected. Officials will hear all of these at public comment.

  • AI & Job Security
    Same buildings powering ChatGPT might power what replaces someone's job.
  • Rate Hikes Already Happening
    Aging grids were driving bills up before data centers became news.
  • Loss of Control
    Critical infrastructure built around communities without their input.
  • Corporate Distrust
    None of the operators are beloved. The logos carry years of baggage.
  • Speed & Scale
    18-month builds in towns used to 5-year zoning debates.
  • Drought Trauma
    In water-stressed regions, any new industrial user hits a nerve.

The Water Reality Check

The headline vs. the number.

0.3–0.4%
Share of total U.S. daily water withdrawals used by every data center in America combined
~449 million gallons per day across the entire industry.

For scale

125B
Gallons — Agricultural irrigation withdrawn in Michigan, 2020
3.2
Gallons to grow one California almond
1.1T
Gallons — California almonds per year (~10% of state's total water supply)

Nobody is proposing to ban almonds.

National averages hide local pain

40%
Of U.S. data centers sit in water-stressed regions

In those places the local impact is real. The answer is siting discipline and cooling technology — not a moratorium.

The Geography Problem

The workload doesn't disappear. It relocates.

Every data center pushed out of one community gets built in another — usually one with less leverage to negotiate terms.

The honest questions

  1. Is the site appropriate for power and water?
  2. Are the tax abatements fair, or giveaways?
  3. Is water and energy disclosure required?
  4. Does the community benefit agreement have teeth?
  5. Who pays for grid upgrades — the operator, or the ratepayers?

Tools Available to Local Government

You already have leverage.

Works best when used early and used together.

  • Zoning Authority
  • Water Withdrawal Permits
  • Tax Abatement Negotiation
  • Utility Rate Case Intervention
  • Community Benefit Agreements
  • Disclosure Requirements
  • Environmental Review
  • Public Comment Periods

Where the Technology Is Going

The curve bends down.

Only if policy rewards it.

Closed-Loop Liquid Cooling
Nearly eliminates operational water use. I've built them.
Air Cooling in Cold Climates
Free cooling for much of the year. No water needed.
Non-Potable & Recycled Water
Reclaimed wastewater replacing drinking water supply.
Direct-to-Chip Cooling
High-density AI workloads cooled at the source.

The Takeaway

If you use the internet,
you live next to a data center.

The only question is whose back yard it's in, and whether that community got a fair deal.

Appendix — Technical Reference

Appendix

How do data centers use water?

Managing heat. Not consuming water.

Servers generate heat constantly — measured in megawatts. Cooling systems strip that heat using chilled water loops circulating through the facility. Cooling towers exhaust that heat outdoors by evaporating water into the air. The evaporated water is the "water use."

Modern facilities measure this as WUE — Water Usage Effectiveness — typically 0.5 to 1.5 liters per kilowatt-hour of IT load.

Closed-loop liquid cooling and air cooling skip evaporation entirely — zero water consumed in operation. The technology exists. The question is whether policy requires it.