Turbines Ease the Power Bottleneck. 91 Billion Gallons Say Water Is Next.

Boom Supersonic just landed Crusoe Energy as the first customer for its 42 MW aeroderivative turbine at the Stargate campus in Abilene, part of a broader rush toward trailerized gas generation that delivers megawatts in weeks instead of years. The speed is real, but so is the upstream problem: Bluefield Research projects indirect water consumption from datacenter electricity generation will hit 91 billion gallons by 2030, nearly double today's levels, with 72% of total AI datacenter water use occurring off-site at power plants rather than in cooling towers. Texas is at the center of both trends. San Marcos just rejected a $1.5 billion, 380 MW campus over aquifer depletion, TCEQ cleared Fermi America's Amarillo air permits over coalition objections, and the GRID Act in Congress would force any datacenter above 20 MW to source power entirely off-grid. The generation bottleneck is loosening; the water and permitting bottlenecks are tightening.