Water Is Technology

When we think of high tech, we typically think about electricity. Fair enough. But power up a deeper search and you'll see how integral water is to the high tech world.

And given that real clouds are nearly magical collections of water vapor, it's both poetic and appropriate that today's virtual cloud is also buoyed by water.

Water is Energy

The water/technology connection is certainly not new. The engineers of the ancient world harnessed the power of water to drive grain mills, forge iron, spin wool, and more. Eventually, they learned to turn the spinning force of water from direct work into electricity that could power distant factories. And, of course, they tapped into the energy in steam to drive everything from trains to turbines. After all, Water Is Energy .

The darlings of today's tech are less about brute force work and more about calculations and controls. Of course, that takes electricity—an estimated 1% of the world's electricity for server farms alone worldwide and 2.7% of Europe's power, and that figure seems to be heading toward 3.2% by 2030 despite outstanding strides in energy efficiency. (A recent presentation calculated that as much as 20% of the world's electrical supply would be directed toward data centers by 2025.) As we just pointed out, electricity is generally linked to water for either generating or transferring the energy.

But the data farms that house and relay cloud-based commands—and the devices that process them locally—also rely even more directly on water.

Cooling Water is a Hot Topic

If electricity is what fires up data centers—the yang—water is the yin that cools them down. And not a little water. The typical data center uses 3 to 5 million gallons of water per day , the same amount as a city of 30,000 to 50,000 people. What's particularly worrisome is that at least 20%—1 in 5–of the data centers in the U.S. are located in areas that are under moderate to high water stress, according to a paper from Virginia Tech and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. That means our demand for online information is running into direct conflict with our environmental, agricultural, industrial and basic human needs for water.

Some municipalities and citizen groups are starting to push back against tech companies, demanding water plans or simply speaking out against siting data centers where water is already scarce. Google, Meta and Microsoft have all pledged to replace more water than they consume, according to National Public Radio . That's huge progress.

?Water on the Brain

The brains and bodies of smart phones, computers and other digital devices are constructed of mined materials. Of course, the key neuron in computer brains is the silicon chip, a product manufactured in plants that can use 2 to 4 million gallons of ultra-pure water per day. Another estimate, by author Steve Hoffman in Planet Water, is that one 6-inch silicon wafer requires 2,300 gallons of water to process.

And there's so much more. In fact, the average smart phone contains 60 different metals and mined materials. Water is deeply connected to mining, whether as a challenge to pump out of subterranean sites or as a key ingredient in the beneficiation (the separation of metal from ore) and refining process—the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources estimates that mining and processing a pound of copper requires up to 62.3 gallons of water. A large-scale surface gold mine consumes 16 to 26 million gallons per day, and glass requires water, too.

Demand Continues To Climb

The challenge continues to increase almost exponentially. According to Mytton (2019), 29.3 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2023, up from 18.4 billion in 2018. A group called IoT Analytics calculated a slower increase due to disruptions resulting from the global pandemic and supply chain interruptions, but not by much—its estimate is 27 billion devices just two years later, in 2025.???????????

Tech Needs Water; Water Needs Tech

Just as technology requires water, the drive for continual improvements in water efficiency relies on those computer brains and electrical grids.

Following on the adage that you can't manage what you can't measure, optical sensors that "see" water and its contaminants and electronic sensors that "taste" them, acoustic sensors that "hear" leaks, and state-of-the-art measuring devices allow us to calibrate the use and treatment of water in ways that would have been impossible to fathom for early technologists struggling with water wheels. With the modern miracles of control logic and sensing devices, our water circulatory systems and their cleansing organs now have brilliant brains. Entire systems can be designed with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling tools to lower construction costs, minimize risk, and precisely spec and place components.

The modeling benefits continue with "digital twin" modeling, which allows facility designers and operators to virtually test a wide range of variables on complex processes. It's the kind of technology that can reduce risk and save money, as well as lead to huge leaps in productivity and creative engineering. With deep data resources like those plumbed by organizations like the International Water Association and the analytical power of artificial intelligence (AI), the sky is the limit.

Watch Transcend, whose design tools tap a universe of water treatment plant data to streamline the design process, or 120Water, which similarly dives deep into water utility data for insight into quality questions, for a look at the future. It won't be too long before plant operators and managers slip on their virtual reality goggles to see the inner workings of their pumps and pipes, Fantastic Voyage-style. No longer is the human brain the limiting factor in designing and operating the next generation of water treatment facilities.

In short, water tech gives us powerful new tools to reduce waste, conduct predictive analysis, and build resiliency into our designs. We can make smart irrigation smarter than ever, improving carbon capture and producing more crop per drop. We can draw from satellite imagery and underground sensors, tapping a whole world of data to fine-tune our local water use.

In the end, it's the perfect illustration that Water Is Technology.

Next: Water Is Recreation