OK, can we actually cool data centers with our pee?
In a bold, irreverent marketing stunt, beverage brand Liquid Death has partnered with former Philadelphia Eagles icon Jason Kelce to tackle a very serious issue: the staggering environmental footprint of AI data centers. These massive facilities require millions of gallons of water to keep their high-performance servers from melting down.
“AI data centers waste millions of gallons of water,” Kelce quips in the campaign video. “That’s why Liquid Death and Garage Beer have teamed up. We want your pee to cool these data centers.” The ad features a crowd marching through a field, singing in harmony about using human waste to save the planet. While the commercial is clearly designed for laughs, it has inadvertently sparked a legitimate conversation about the future of industrial cooling.
The Science Behind the Joke
While Kelce’s suggestion is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, he has stumbled upon a genuine, albeit more sophisticated, industry practice.
“The Liquid Death commercial is funny and tongue-in-cheek,” noted Michael Obradovitch, vice president of Data Center Global Accounts at Ecolab. “But in reality, there is a fair amount of alternative water sources already being used to a similar extent to cool these data centers.”
The industry is increasingly turning to recycled water—wastewater and sewage that has been treated to be safe for industrial reuse. Because human urine is a component of the sewage stream, the concept isn't entirely detached from reality. However, experts emphasize that you cannot simply pipe raw urine into a cooling tower.
“Pee contains all sorts of stuff. It contains salts, it contains urea, bacteria, organic matter of all sorts that can leave mineral deposits. If you just put that into a cooling tower or something else, it would require constant cleaning,” explained Bruno Pigott, executive director of the WateReuse Association.
If one were to attempt to use raw urine for evaporative cooling—a process where heat is removed by passing air through water—the result would be a maintenance nightmare and a significant olfactory issue.
How Wastewater Becomes Industrial Coolant
To make water viable for cooling, it must undergo rigorous treatment. Facilities utilize advanced technologies to scrub the water clean, including:
- Membrane bioreactors to filter out biological contaminants.
- Reverse osmosis to remove dissolved salts and minerals.
- Ultraviolet light to neutralize remaining pathogens.
These processes ensure the water is clean enough for industrial use, and in some advanced cases, even safe enough to drink. Dr. Greta Zornes, a practice leader for water reuse at the engineering firm CDM Smith, notes that this is not a new concept. “We use recycled water for cooling for all kinds of industries, and we have for decades,” she said. “So this is only one application, but definitely, there’s been a boom in recycled water for data center cooling.”
The Infrastructure Hurdle
While the technology exists, the primary barrier to widespread adoption is geography and infrastructure. Recycled water is only a viable solution if the data center is located near a sufficiently large wastewater treatment plant.
“You have to be somewhat near a wastewater treatment facility that’s sizable enough that you have enough water to use,” Zornes explained. “So when data centers go out into rural areas, a lot of times the wastewater treatment plants just aren’t big enough.”
This is a major issue in hubs like Loudoun County, Virginia, which serves as a massive nexus for the internet. As of 2025, the county’s data centers consume roughly 200 million gallons of recycled water daily. However, that only accounts for 43% of their total water consumption. The remaining 57%—roughly 260 million gallons—is still drawn from potable drinking water supplies.
Data Centers as Infrastructure Anchors
The sheer scale of the AI boom means that the tech industry may need to become a primary financier of water infrastructure. Companies like Meta are already beginning to step up, pledging hundreds of millions of dollars toward wastewater infrastructure projects near their facilities.
“That’s where data centers can actually come in and be anchors of water infrastructure,” Obradovitch said. “There’s a number of cases and examples where data centers, as part of their engagement with communities, have committed funding and capital to some of these municipalities to help in addressing some of those exact challenges.”
On the legislative front, experts like Pigott are pushing for policy changes, such as a 30% tax credit for industries that invest in scaling recycled water infrastructure. Such incentives could drastically accelerate the transition away from using precious drinking water for server cooling.
A Mainstream Wake-Up Call
The viral nature of the Liquid Death campaign highlights a growing public unease regarding the environmental cost of the AI revolution. Recent polling from Gallup indicates that roughly seven out of 10 Americans are opposed to the construction of data centers in their local communities.
As AI products become more deeply integrated into daily life, the backlash against their resource consumption is likely to intensify. While the idea of cooling servers with urine is crude, it serves as a powerful metaphor for the desperate need for sustainable innovation.
“I’m glad that people are concerned about water, and anything that raises awareness of water, however crude it may be, could actually be beneficial,” Pigott concluded. “It gives us a chance to educate the public about what we’re doing today.”
Ultimately, while we won't be seeing "pee-cooled" servers anytime soon, the conversation proves that the tech industry can no longer afford to ignore its water footprint. Whether through massive infrastructure investment or innovative recycling, the path toward a more sustainable digital future is becoming as clear as the water these companies are trying to save.