Elon Musk is a master of cost engineering. If it's cheaper to build a factory in Buffalo than to *desalinate water* or *drive it in trucks across the Rockies*, which it will be, he'll use the lower-cost solution.
And since it obviously isn't....
Farms buy water by the
acre foot. An acre of land covered a foot deep by water. 1,2 million litres. 326 thousand gallons The overwhelming majority of water in the desert southwest is
not used by people. It's used by farms. In Nevada you usually see prices like $10-35k per acre foot per year for water rights. $32,6k per acre foot - the upper end of the range is ten cents per gallon per year. Even if you pretend it was only used for 20 years, that's half a cent per gallon.
Tesla can buy water rights.
Brackish water can be desalinated. Why don't we desalinate water generally? Because it costs an order of magnitude more than freshwater. But look above at how much freshwater costs in bulk.
It's only too expensive relative to existing freshwater sources, and too expensive for farming. It's by no means too expensive for drinking. Current prices for desalination in the US are $2,50-$5 per... you're expecting the word "gallon", right? Nope.
Thousand gallons. A quarter of a cent to half a cent per gallon. There's a gigantic brackish lake (Pyramid Lake) just to their north. The salinity is only 1/6th that of seawater, so desalination would be far cheaper. Tesla could afford to divert water into three streams - freshwater to itself, freshwater back to the lake, and concentrated brine to dessication (potentially with mineral extraction) - and actually help
decrease the salinity of Pyramid Lake towards historic levels.
Tesla can afford desalination.
Freshwater needs can be averted by recycling gray water. This is a direct water offset; cleaned gray water can be used for washing, toilets, watering, etc (aka, the majority of a person's water usage), and every litre of greywater used in this way can replace a liter of drinking water. As a general rule, treating greywater is much cheaper than desalination.
Tesla can afford to pay for greywater treatment.
Tesla can displace water evaporation at reservoirs with floating solar (even if they don't make them themselves, many companies do). Tesla can pay farmers to allow them to install well-spaced solar panels as shade cloths, which not only saves water, but for some crops can even increase (not decrease) production. Tesla can install rooftop water collection on Gigafactory. There's literally hundreds of different ways Tesla can get water for fractions of a penny per gallon.
Do I really need to keep going?
Water is not and will not be an issue. Want me to get specific? Look downstream on the Truckee River, starting at Fernley, or upstream at Sparks. Note the farms on the river. Tesla could buy them with pocket change. Tesla replants native vegetation, and then gains the water rights from the Truckee River. And now Tesla has enough water for a small city. Because, to reiterate, farms use vastly more water than people. And simultaneously, fertilizer discharges into Pyramid Lake (a concern of the EPA) drop.
Yes, water costs more in desert areas. Anyone shocked? Obviously, anything that costs more is an additional expense on your budget sheet. But let's not act like it's the only one. Tesla wants to power manufacturing, for example, 100% with solar. January insolation in Sparks is several times higher than in Buffalo, and thus the panel costs would be several times higher in Buffalo. And I guarantee you, electricity costs for Tesla are
far higher than their water costs. Also, land is more expensive in Buffalo, and it's (obviously) far further from the Fremont plant.
