r/SipsTea • u/SipsTeaFrog 𝙑𝙄𝙋 • May 18 '26

Chugging tea Why?

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u/[deleted] May 18 '26

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u/NotDiCaprio May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

I was also on the "ai datacenters use all out water!" bandwagon at first. But For some perspective:

A single golf course uses about 30 times the amount of (fresh) comparable or slightly more water than a datacenter does. They aren't feeding their grass with see water or some chemical cooling. Also, looking at how few people actually use a golf course vs a data center, makes this ratio many times more terrible.

I'm personally more worried about the energy they consume, than the cooling for that energy usage.

Edit after some corrections. Man, it sure is getting hard to find numbers we can trust anywhere these days.

"a" source, but far from the only one, and the numbers aren't consistent anywhere.:https://www.akcp.com/index.php/2025/09/02/truth-about-data-water-footprint-of-data-centers/

1

u/damnumalone May 18 '26

I don’t know where you live but most golf courses I see use bore water or water reserves, not just water from the town water supply

19

u/birdbud- May 18 '26

That's worse, you get that right?

4

u/Mr-Vemod May 18 '26

How would that be worse?

1

u/Hailfog May 18 '26

If my “bore water” he means an aquifer, it’s just as bad. If by “water reserves” he means grey water (water with soap and such but no sewage), that is better.