Talking about wasteful. There 16,000 golf courses that use 312,000 gallons a day[1]. Thats 1.82 trillion gallons annually. Only 28 million people play golf course on a course. Google's MAU is 90%+ of US population, beef or milk consumptions i would guess that 90% of population consumes it at least once a month. We're focusing on things that everyone uses but the things that less than 10% of the populations partake in. Why do we have golf courses in arid regions that have severe water shortages? Before places like LA county spends $8 billion on a toilet to tap system[2], maybe shut down the golf courses first.

1. https://www.npr.org/2008/06/11/91363837/water-thirsty-golf-c...

2. https://www.mwdh2o.com/building-local-supplies/pure-water-so...

It’s a great example of using large numbers without context to scare people.

Say “6.4 billion gallons” in isolation and people will be horrified. Put it in context relative to something like alfalfa farming and it doesn’t even appear on the same scale.

And most of that alfalfa is owned by a Saudi conglomerate that then exports it to the other side of the planet to feed its dairy cattle

You are overlooking location. The ideal place to grow crops is a place with great soil, good weather, a long growing season, and abundant water, but there aren't a lot of those. Of those four things, water is the only one that can be reasonably transported.

Data centers have fewer constraints. It should be possible to place more or all of them in places where water is abundant.

Water is not evenly distributed.aData centers are not bieng located where there is excess water, they are bieng located in areas where they have access to the critical infrastucture they need,and the use of domestic potable water supplys to cool there operations is done as it reduces there land and infrastructure requirements, is quick, and they care nothing about the costs of electricity and water, while they drive up costs for the people who live in the surounding areas. People NEED water, data does not. People NEED agriculture, they do not NEED data. conflating the water uses of things to people is false.

Solar powered desalination seems like a no brainer in places like California.