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Trying not to be daft here, but what does it mean for a Bitcoin transaction (or AI server farm, or whatever) to "consume x amount of fresh water"? What makes it unusable to downstream users?

As an analogy, power stations also use fresh water for cooling, which they return it to the waterways. It's warmer (to the detriment of local ecology) and presumably not quite as clean, but the news doesn't seem especially bothered. Is this a grudge in the reporting or is there something else I'm missing?