400 Arizona golf courses use 42 billion gallons yearly.
Mike Solana#492
Data centers aren’t stealing your water.
Even if the total water draw of data centers triples by 2030, they’d require just 8% of the water consumed by American golf courses.
@dodgeblake interviewed @AndyMasley, the man who’s been debunking AI water doomerism. Full story 👇
The latest IQ test involves data centers and water.
Many users attacked defenses of AI data centers' low water use compared to golf courses as propaganda and responded with insults, while others welcomed the statistics for countering environmental scare stories.
No Digg Deeper questions have been answered for this story yet.
Greg Brockman explains how the public story about AI data center water use is partly wrong.
Because the cooling-systems use a closed-loop design that circulates the same stored water instead of constantly pulling fresh water.
i.e. it works less like a running tap and more like a sealed pool, where water absorbs heat from servers, moves through cooling equipment, then returns to the same circuit.
The argument here is not that AI infrastructure has no resource cost, but that public debate often mixes up different cooling designs and treats every data center as if it burns through water the same way.
The important distinction is water withdrawal versus water consumption, because a site can hold a large amount of water inside its pipes while using far less new water day to day.
OpenAI's official blog on Stargate project also says the same thing:
"Water is one area where details matter. Like many data centers, the Abilene site uses closed-loop cooling rather than traditional evaporative cooling towers. Once the system is filled, water continuously moves through sealed pipes and is recirculated rather than consumed.
For Abilene, the one-time initial fill for each building is equal to roughly two Olympic-sized swimming pools. After that, annual water use for the entire cooling system at full buildout is expected to be comparable to a medium-sized office building, or about four average households."
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From 'The Knowledge Project Podcast' YT channel (link in comment)
The latest IQ test involves data centers and water.
@PirateWires @Indian_Bronson @dodgeblake @AndyMasley True
Data centers aren’t stealing your water.
Even if the total water draw of data centers triples by 2030, they’d require just 8% of the water consumed by American golf courses.
@dodgeblake interviewed @AndyMasley, the man who’s been debunking AI water doomerism. Full story 👇
The latest IQ test involves data centers and water.
There are 400 golf courses in the Arizona desert alone. They use 42 billion gallons annually, more than 300,000 families.
STFU with the data center propaganda when we are racing the world for Space and AGI.
5 gallons of water = → $132 from data centers → 2¢ from almonds
One powers AI, auto safety, space exploration, medical research, banking, and innovation.
The other is a mostly exported (75%) snack from drought-prone California fields.
Resource allocation in one chart.
@elonmusk @PirateWires @Indian_Bronson @dodgeblake @AndyMasley California almond production consumes substantially more water annually than all U.S. data centers combined.
Golf courses aren’t going to be used to build a surveillance state.
Golf courses aren’t being rammed through city council votes against the requests of the people who live there.
Golf courses don’t get sweet heart land and energy deals.
Golf courses don’t raise electrical bills
@JohnLeFevre
@JohnLeFevre How many of those golf courses are working 24 seven to replace as many human jobs as possible?
Golf courses don't even register. 75% of all Arizona water goes to farming IN A FRIGGING DESERT!!! How stupid is that?!! What's worse, most farmers pay nothing. It's free water.
There is no water crisis. There's a political water distribution crisis. No one should confuse the two.
@USBornNRaised @PirateWires @dodgeblake @AndyMasley @grock is this true?
@PirateWires @dodgeblake @AndyMasley This is true. Why is China paying Democrat-aligned NGOs so much to convince us otherwise?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JoUcQ1qmAc
Greg Brockman explains how the public story about AI data center water use is partly wrong.
Because the cooling-systems use a closed-loop design that circulates the same stored water instead of constantly pulling fresh water.
i.e. it works less like a running tap and more like a sealed pool, where water absorbs heat from servers, moves through cooling equipment, then returns to the same circuit.
The argument here is not that AI infrastructure has no resource cost, but that public debate often mixes up different cooling designs and treats every data center as if it burns through water the same way.
The important distinction is water withdrawal versus water consumption, because a site can hold a large amount of water inside its pipes while using far less new water day to day.
OpenAI's official blog on Stargate project also says the same thing:
"Water is one area where details matter. Like many data centers, the Abilene site uses closed-loop cooling rather than traditional evaporative cooling towers. Once the system is filled, water continuously moves through sealed pipes and is recirculated rather than consumed.
For Abilene, the one-time initial fill for each building is equal to roughly two Olympic-sized swimming pools. After that, annual water use for the entire cooling system at full buildout is expected to be comparable to a medium-sized office building, or about four average households."
---
From 'The Knowledge Project Podcast' YT channel (link in comment)
Golf courses aren’t going to be used to build a surveillance state.
Golf courses aren’t being rammed through city council votes against the requests of the people who live there.
Golf courses don’t get sweet heart land and energy deals.
Golf courses don’t raise electrical bills
@PirateWires @dodgeblake @AndyMasley These data centers are causing an increase of upwards of $122 per month per household in utility rates.
@PirateWires @dodgeblake @AndyMasley Case in point 😂
(This is a well funded social media campaign happening - you can see who’s being paid by whether they are an early disseminator)
@Dawn__Renee @PirateWires @dodgeblake @AndyMasley @grok apologize to this nice woman for stealing her water. (Don't hedge)
@elonmusk @PirateWires @Indian_Bronson @dodgeblake @AndyMasley Toasty Elon:)
@PirateWires @dodgeblake @AndyMasley i mean they've literally been caught stealing water though. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988
@elonmusk @PirateWires @Indian_Bronson @dodgeblake @AndyMasley And that gap will only shrink as cooling tech improves—air-cooled and closed-loop systems now use barely more water than an office building.
This post is giving the perspective of national numbers. Haven't read the article because the post is deceptive.
Take a localized instance where a data center is competing with the local community for fresh water and the data center has a high 75-80% consumptive loss. That can and is devastating for many communities.
@grok am I wrong?
