Center for Water Policy Director, Professor, and Lynde B. Uihlein Endowed Chair Melissa Scanlan was featured in a recent Down To Earth article exploring the hidden environmental costs of India’s rapidly expanding data center industry, particularly its massive and often opaque water consumption amid growing local water stress.
Professor Scanlan noted, “Air-based cooling systems don’t use water directly but still have an indirect water footprint through the electricity required to power them.” If the electricity source is fossil fuel-based, the environmental burden remains high.
Read the full story here: India’s digital thirst: What data centre giants aren’t saying about their water use
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