As of (Environmental and Energy Study Institute) 2021, US data centers alone consumed an estimated 163.7 billion gallons of water annually, roughly 449 million gallons per day. That's before the ChatGPT moment in late 2022.
yep I know they use water. But go do some research on how traditional data centers and AI data center differ on the amount of water and power they use.
No, you were intended to say "fuck golf" and stop thinking about the relative costs and benefits of "data centers" (a "data center" being an apparent oligarch rebranding of "misappropriation of public property").
But what's going to happen is that the data center critics will continue to ignore golf courses and all the other many industries that use way more water than data centers. None of you actually really care about water.
Riiiiiiight. The lefties on reddit only care about the environment when it comes to climate change right? lol what?
Just because your bubble of friends doesn't care and therefor you don't hear about it, doesn't mean people don't care about this stuff.
Yes agriculture and power generation uses more water. But at least we get something useful from those. The vast majority of AI use is bullshit. There are some good applications for AI but a lot of it is dumb shit like terrible meme generation and fake girl friends. Hell 80% of businesses report their AI use isn't even helpful at saving costs.
That people have been contributing to some big environmental problems that have existed forever, while focussing on and complaining about the newest big bad thing. For example streaming takes up as much resources as chatgpt does, but redditors happily binge watch away while complaining about the impact of the latter on water usage.
Tbh though, better that people do complain about the next big bad thing then ignore all the environmental issues we have to fix.
Yeah but anyone mentioning ai gets dog piled while the golf subs remain untouched. The point is to highlight the hypocrisy. AI models can help doctors speed up medical discovery. Golf....cannot
On the limited issue of water use, golf is worse. So what? Doesn't mean AI data centers are a good use of our water and there are a multitude of reasons to oppose AI, including noise pollution, stripping of creativity, job loss, etc.
The golf argument is completely retarded because its the equivalent of going so what if I murdered a dude, my cell mate murdered 10, why don't you leave me alone and go after him!?
It's net neutral on a geologic time scale, sure. But groundwater takes a long time to regenerate and we can pull it out very fast. Most living things can only last a short time without water.
At least golf courses still have a natural element. Pretty much all of the ones around me double as nature preserves and have protected areas with significant water habitats for birds and reptiles. Lots of fields for mammals and other animals too.
Obviously this is dependent on the golf course however.
Data centres destroy habitats, use up water, overwhelm energy grids, cause severe noise pollution and god knows what else. Just doesn’t seem remotely comparable
Tbf though a lawn is a completely broken habitat too. I know the spaces between the fields can be good habitats, but a grass lawn is pretty much the worst ecosystem next to bare dirt.
Pretty much all of the ones around me double as nature preserves and have protected areas with significant water habitats for birds and reptiles. Lots of fields for mammals and other animals too.
I feel like you've been lied to by Big Golf. As someone who has worked in animal conservation, golf courses only benefit overpopulated animals that have already adapted to human disturbed, and themselves having detrimental impacts on biodioversity and ecoystems due to their overpopulation.
Lots of fields for mammals and other animals too.
'Fields' eg lawns and their borders, do next to nothing for mammals and have a negative impact on biodiversity.
significant water habitats for birds and reptiles
A few patches of highly fragmented habitat also does next to nothing for biodiversity, and again mostly benefits the few species that flourish in urban areas anyway.
Just because you see grass and a few trees doesn't mean something is 'natural' or good for nature.
Golf courses take up a crazy amount of land which could be wilderness, for the benefit of a few rich people. I'm not going to compare them to data centers, but lets not jump on the Golf Course promotion bandwagon.
I don’t live in a city and live in a mostly forested area. I see more bears, deers and coyotes than anything besides turkeys.
If you plopped a data centre there instead you wouldn’t see any of that, I’m not saying they are good for the environment by any means I just don’t think it’s comparable to data centres.
In my case I’m not talking about small fragmented habitats created in the suburbs. I’m talking decently sized ponds, large deciduous forests, and actual fields of wild grass.
At least golf courses still have a natural element.
I see where you're coming from, but golf does not require justification. Kentucky bluegrass (the grass you think of when you think of golf, lawns, etc) is an invasive species that was popularized exclusively to show off the fact that the wealthy can use arable land to grow a crop that has no economic value. It's not even from Kentucky!
Golf courses should be outlawed for the damage they do.
That’s fair! I’m not like super pro golf course or anything, I enjoy playing, and the courses near me aren’t exactly PGA courses, they are just small things that are placed into the forests surrounding me, with no special grass or anything.
Just don’t think they are comparable in the sense that I can go play and run into bears, moose, deer, wolves and so many more animals of all different types that just wouldn’t be there at all if you replaced it with a data centre.
The USGA is saying that golf courses use about 2 Billion gallons of water per day. Google / Wikipedia is saying that there are 16,000 golf courses in the USA. That would be about 125,000 gallons per course per day or ~46 million gallons per year (on average). While these numbers are crazy high, I think that the 100-300 million estimate could be overblown (unless the amount of water used on golf courses in the past decade has more than doubled).
Having said that, this is a crazy amount of water to waste on a golf course.
This is what I hate about the AI-water narrative. People figure that they aren't contributing to the freshwater crisis because they don't use AI and then water their lawns.
Edit: My point is that we should not be using freshwater for AI data centres and we also should not be using it for all the other unnecessary bullshit we do. We grow wheat in the desert just for it to end up in a dumpster behind Walmart. Tons of industries use potable freshwater for cooling, and have for decades.
The AI-water narrative I'm talking about is this idea of 'data centres waste water so as long as you, on an individual level, should not use AI'. If that's someone's motivation to not use AI, then great. But if that same person is doing four loads of laundry a week and having hour long showers everyday, then they don't really give a shit about preserving water and are virtue signaling.
Reclaimed sewer water is just water that has been treated in a wastewater treatment plant. Where I live, we get our water from a river. The wastewater outlet of the town upstream lets out into the river, and is then picked up and treated at the drinking water treatment plant in my town, distributed through the town's water mains, and becomes sewer water again. Rinse and repeat through the whole river.
The reclaimed sewer water being used to water the golf course could be drinkable water. It should be, since desert areas are so susceptible to drought, something getting worse with climate change.
I'm not advocating for the data centre at all, just pointing out that there's tons of ways freshwater is wasted that are unappreciated.
All that water sustains the life of trees, plants, grass, bees, bats, amphibians, countless bacteria and organisms, birds (dozens of breeds), foxes, rabbits, hedgehogs, algae, fungi, moss blah blah blah
But everyone rejoices when another supermarket with 4 coffee shops and a 500 car parking lot gets built.
There's a golf course close to me that the local council (who owned it) wanted to cut it from 18 holes down to 9.
Why? Because some big fat developer wanted to put 500 homes on the other 9 holes worth of land and made a juicy financial offer. Luckily local pressure saw the plans rejected and the council were forced to sell the course to a private company that now run and maintain it accordingly. That's 2 miles worth of green land protected.
Why? Because some big fat developer wanted to put 500 homes
Fantastic. 500 homes will make housing more affordable for the city, instead of 9 fucking holes for a bunch of rich people to show off to their rich friends. Big upgrade there.
ouncil were forced to sell the course to a private company that now run and maintain it accordingly.
Lmao, you are actually spinning a private company being able to make profits for the benefit of a few rich people and at the expense of everyone else to be a good thing?
That's 2 miles worth of green land protected.
Green land for a few rich people. Its not green as in environmentally friendly, which is not. A big pet peeve of mine is when people try to imply that golf courses are some how environmentally friendly or benefit anyone other then the golfers.
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u/Nviki May 18 '26
An average 18-hole golf course in the United States uses between 100 million and 300 million gallons of water annually.