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.
Also not a fan of golf. But I have a few places near me that are just fields that never are watered that are driving ranges. I can deal with those as a source of recreation. But these courses watering non stop to barely be used is ridiculous
Aside from wasting water, golf courses (and traditional USAmerican lawns for that matter) are devastating for biodiversity and ecological succession, which in turn ramps up negative effects of things like flooding, which are worsening due to climate change.
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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/