A Golf Course Uses More Water Than This Data Center

A golf course in Mesa, Arizona uses more water than the Google data center across town. On paper, that's true. But a water comparison is only honest when it names the facility, the source, the year, and what was actually counted. In this video, I walk through the records: the golf course's state water allotment, Google's 2019 development agreement with the city of Mesa, the switch to air cooling, and the water nobody counts, the water used to make the electricity. That ledger runs back to power plant cooling towers, a nuclear plant cooled with treated wastewater, and the reservoirs on the Colorado River. Sources: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report (Shehabi et al., Dec. 2024) https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32d6... Macknick, Newmark, Heath & Hallett, "Operational water consumption and withdrawal factors for electricity generating technologies," Environmental Research Letters (NREL, 2012) https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/7/4... U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado River Mainstream Evaporation and Riparian Evapotranspiration Losses Report (2017 to 2021) https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/... University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center, Golf Course Water Use in Arizona (presentation, April 2023) https://wrrc.arizona.edu/sites/defaul... Arizona Department of Water Resources, Phoenix AMA Turf Facilities Management Plan presentation (Aug. 2020) https://www.azwater.gov/sites/default... Google Environmental Report 2026 https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-m...