this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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Why does the article make it sound like cooling a data center results in constant water loss? Is this not a closed loop system?
I’m imagining a giant reservoir heat sink that runs throughout a complex to pull heat out of the surrounding environment where some liquid evaporates and needs to be replenished. But first of all we have more efficient liquid coolants, and second that would be a very lazy solution.
I wonder if they’ve considered geothermal for new data centers. You can run a geothermal loop in reverse and use the earth as a giant heat sink. It’s not water in the loop, it’s refrigerant, and it only needs to be replaced when you find the efficiency dropping, which can take decades.
Yes, the vast majority are closed loop systems and the water isn't really used up, like a lot of these headlines imply.
That's not to say the energy being used can't be put to better uses, though.
Not used up per se but sequestered. It's water that nobody will ever get to drink or use for crops, etc.
It could be used for other things like district heating at least.
Datacenters are usually not located where this would be useful. They're placed where space and energy are cheap, because everything they do only needs Internet access. At most they'd heat the rest of the building for whatever office space there is.