Data centers are massive consumers of water. There are closed loop designs that technically use less water but they: A) Make up less than 10% of data centers; B) Cost much more upfront; C) Require massive investment in waste water treatment. These designs still need to "bleed the lines" once a month and get rid of sludge that is now full of anti-freeze, anti-fungals, and PFAS
It is not at all inaccurate to say data center consumption of water is a huge concern. Too many on HN seem to be puppetting industry lines without realizing it. Closed loop systems are still uncommon and come with their own problems.
Wait, are you thinking this through carefully? Because your mitigating issue for golf courses, that they also use way more land, makes them worse, not better.
Agreed, golf courses and data centers need to be regulated and limited. Though data centers seem to use much more water per acre than golf courses. The number I pulled in the original post was global golf course water consumption not just the US. Golf courses also use 7x more pesticides than agricultural land. On the other hand data centers that try to do "closed loop" systems rely on heavy use of anti-freeze, anti-fungals, and anti-corrosives which eventually leads to a toxic sludge that is a massive problem to deal with. Especially since they build up with PFAS as well.
Both are massive environmental problems and the economic externalities have not been accounted for.
I'm not sure that follows from the GP's numbers. The average data center size seems to be around 120,000 sqft ~ 3 acre. That means data centers also occupy between 1 and 2.5 million acres of land.
It is not at all inaccurate to say data center consumption of water is a huge concern. Too many on HN seem to be puppetting industry lines without realizing it. Closed loop systems are still uncommon and come with their own problems.