Google's water fix: Buy golf courses, teach birdwatching
Simon Willison proposes a tongue-in-cheek solution to Google's data center water consumption: acquire roughly 40 of the Coachella Valley's 120 golf courses, convert them to public parks, and fund birdwatching programs for displaced golfers.
The math checks out: Google consumed 10.9 billion gallons in 2025 (about 30 million per day); those 40 courses currently use approximately 750,000 gallons daily combined—a 2.5% offset, not a silver bullet, but concrete enough to highlight the scale mismatch between data center demand and regional water budgets.