NEW: How the push to ban data centre construction in Britain is based on sloppy research. One paper widely cited in the media and by the Green Party contains multiple howlers: - It claims that a single data centre will be responsible for 8% of the East of England's water shortfall. This is wrong by a factor of almost 100. - It suggests data centres are to blame for England's predicted 5bn litre daily water shortfall. Yet under the most water-hungry assumptions, new data centres would account for less than 3% of it. Under more realistic assumptions, it's just 0.5%. - It compares global AI water withdrawals with British household water consumption. But these are completely different things. Most withdrawn water is returned to its source. The comparison exaggerates AI's water footprint by around ten times. - It repeatedly uses worst-case estimates of data centre water consumption, ignoring that many data centres use little or no water for cooling. One of its sources is literally titled Overestimating AI's water footprint. The real cause of Britain's water shortages isn't data centres. It's our failure to build reservoirs. samdumitriu.com/p/will-data-…