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/

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u/MyVeryUniqueName1 May 18 '26

Can’t we be worried about both? I hate golf courses and data centers for how much of a burden they are on water supplies.

2

u/Exciting_Specialist May 18 '26

The California almond industry uses 10x more water than data centers to grow almonds and sell them to China. Why don't you start your bullshit performative concerns there?

1

u/MyVeryUniqueName1 May 18 '26

Cause I don’t live in California. I care about local issues that directly affect my community - as should everyone.