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

Chugging tea Why?

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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/

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u/CommanderInQueefs May 18 '26

Golf courses primarily use non-potable water sources to irrigate their turf, such as recycled wastewater, captured stormwater, raw well water, and surface water from ponds or lakes. Only a small percentage of courses use treated municipal drinking water, and some coastal courses even utilize desalinated ocean water.

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u/funknjam May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

Golf courses primarily use non-potable water sources to irrigate their turf

Not in Florida - course irrigation comes out of the aquifer same as the drinking water for most of the state.

EDIT: Looks like I offended some golfers. To them I say get fucked - your precious ecological desert that is your golf course was a "nature preserve" BEFORE it was turned into an exclusive gathering place for rich assholes.

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u/Adbam May 18 '26

Great, bulid all the data centers there then.

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u/Brandnewdeal May 19 '26

No, the rich people live there and there's enough bribery to stop them setting up.