3 ms·
Millions of acre-feet of water, far more than all of the data centers use in the United States combined for evaporative cooling, are used to flood irrigate alfa
by quickthrowman 2mo ago
Millions of acre-feet of water, far more than all of the data centers use in the United States combined for evaporative cooling, are used to flood irrigate alfalfa crops in California and Arizona to feed cows. 5% of this is exported. It’s orders of magnitude more water.
All of the irrigated golf courses combined use more water than all of the US data centers combined.
- insane_dreamer 2mo agoif we were seeing a big increase in building new golf courses in those areas, we'd have the same protests same if increasing alfalfa farming was increasing significantly it's harder to stop something that already exists (shutting down existing golf courses or alfalfa farms has consequences for the local communities) than to stop something from coming into existence in the first place
- testerteert000a 2mo agoThe problem, while your data is probably accurate enough conceptually, is that DCs showed up too late to the scene - the water isn't accounted for. DCs, new golf, new homes, new alfalfa, new ranching - the math isn't there. Tech people saying ignore the water problems are saying implicitly that AI, despite showing up late in line for access to a resource that's an old, old problem in the western US, is more important than hearth and home considerations fighting for the same dwindling resource. The average western farmer/rancher, their own judgement and contributions to this problem aside, definitely love coastal tech people sniping their pre-colorado compact water rights via all that goes into getting water rights like that.