The electricity comparison is accurate and, in isolation, reassuring — but it has become a way to close a conversation that should be widening. The arXiv figures are real, and positioning AI against Bitcoin's proof-of-work draw or video gaming's rendering load is a legitimate framing device. What it cannot do is address water, because water is not interchangeable with electrons. A grid can be decarbonized; drought cannot be substituted away. The 170% water projection is the number that compliance teams and infrastructure planners need to be stress-testing against,…