AI Can’t Drink First: The Real Problem of AI Datacenter Cooling

A Nuclear Approach That Gives Back More Than It Takes

Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure is spreading into communities nationwide, with hyperscale builds already underway in Texas, New York, New Mexico, Ohio, the Midwest, and Memphis, Tennessee. Towns see fast land purchases and quiet negotiations, but almost no clarity on what these facilities will demand from local water and power systems. Residents are beginning to ask whether these sites can operate without straining the resources real people rely on every day.

Communities fear two things: losing water and losing grid priority. Confidential utility deals between town councils and data centers convince residents that when supplies tighten, households will be cut first while industrial clients stay protected. The Dalles proved it, and Google talked about “helping millions find directions,” but when the Columbia River runs low, it’s the tens of thousands of locals who could face restrictions while machine workloads stay guaranteed; officials hear the PR, never the engineering reality, because the true water demand is massive, inflexible, and buried under non-disclosure agreements (NDA).

Why Nuclear Now?
Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology isn’t theoretical anymore. Finland’s district-energy research and the Czech Teplator program both show that nuclear heat can deliver stable base-load energy and pair naturally with closed-loop cooling. Unlike conventional data centers that only take from local infrastructure, an SMR can actually strengthen it. Excess heat or surplus power can be routed into community district-heating systems, grid-support services, or resilience infrastructure-turning the facility from a net burden into a potential contributor. AI data centers need long-duration, non-intermittent power, and SMRs deliver exactly that without stressing the grid.

Cooling Without Draining Communities
Residents worry about water shortages, rising electric bills, and being de-prioritized during grid stress. The Dalles case, backed by a lawsuit showing the city is fighting to keep Google’s water use secret, reinforced the belief that industry gets protected first. A nuclear-driven, closed-loop cooling system eliminates municipal draw entirely, removes seasonal vulnerability, and prevents a data center from competing with human households for water.

A Conceptual Design – The Tri-Loop Cooling System
Modern reactor-assisted cooling works by separating heat, conversion, and delivery into three independent loops. Each loop handles a different part of the thermal workload-the reactor’s heat output, the conversion of that heat into chilled capacity, and the final cooling delivered to the data center. By isolating these stages, the system stays stable, closed, and completely independent of municipal water. It works like a home HVAC system with separate units-the furnace, condenser, and duct-work, each isolated but working together.

• Loop A – Reactor Heat Loop: The SMR provides electricity and controllable thermal output through a sealed primary loop.
• Loop B – Thermal-to-Cooling Loop: Finnish absorption-chiller models show how reactor heat drives high-efficiency chillers to generate coolant without evaporative losses.

• Loop C – Data-Center Cooling Loop: A fully closed chilled-fluid circuit cools server halls without tapping municipal water.

Conclusion
Communities are tired of data centers that drain water, strain grids, and hide their impact behind nondisclosure agreements. This design reverses that dynamic by removing municipal dependence entirely and creating a stable, reactor-driven system that can even contribute excess heat or power back into the community’s infrastructure. It gives residents something they’ve never had, an AI facility that protects local resources, strengthens local resilience, and answers every major fear instead of amplifying them.

References
1. Oregon Public Broadcasting: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/11/09/google-the-dalles-water-data-center/
2. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: https://www.rcfp.org/litigation/city-of-the-dalles-v-rogoway/
3. Lawsuit Filing: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21096544-dalles-suit/
4. Finnish absorption-chiller model: https://cris.vtt.fi/ws/portalfiles/portal/118859958/j.nucengdes.2025.114262.pdf
5. Teplator Program (Czech Republic): https://enen.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/1-Skoda-Templator.pdf

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