Margaret Cook

September 2, 2026

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Fermi Cleared 6 GW Air in 205 Days; Denied ROW Still Cuts Jupiter's 2.45 GW

August 5, 2026

The KUT reporting exposes the structural gap under the pause: Texas has no statewide mandate requiring developers to disclose facility size or cooling technology at permitting, the two variables that determine water draw, per Margaret Cook of the Houston Advanced Research Center.

May 30, 2026

In Waco Thursday, Houston Advanced Research Center's Margaret Cook told 180 attendees that Texas data centers could climb from 0.4% of state water use to 2.7% on top of a structural 4.8 million acre-foot deficit by 2030.

March 17, 2026

HARC researcher Margaret Cook noted concentrated demand in small communities can overwhelm local water infrastructure even when statewide aggregates look modest.

March 9, 2026

The PUCT plans to launch a survey this spring to collect actual datacenter water usage data, a move HARC's Margaret Cook called essential for informed planning.

March 3, 2026

Margaret Cook, HARC's VP for water and community resilience, put it plainly: communities investing in new pipelines and wells for these facilities risk absorbing costs operators should bear.

February 19, 2026

Margaret Cook, VP of Water and Community Resilience at Houston Advanced Research Center, warned that communities permitting datacenters are "gambling against being able to get new water from future State Water Plans."

February 13, 2026

But HARC's Margaret Cook flagged a critical gap: the survey covers existing operations and doesn't require projections from the massive pipeline of facilities under construction.