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Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

thestate.com

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Re: Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

#31

Post by jborichevskiy »

andrekandre wrote: post #25
londons_explore wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sewage (after treatment) can also be used to cool servers. Some big companies do this. I'd guess groundwater was cheaper than sewage in this specific location.

what about seawater? i know that san onofre used to be cooled that way... or do they require basically non saline water for this...

Microsoft has experimented/is experimenting with lowering a datacenter right into the ocean, at least in part for the ease of cooling it.

> In fact, Naval Group adapted a heat-exchange process commonly used for cooling submarines to the underwater datacenter. The system pipes seawater directly through the radiators on the back of each of the 12 server racks and back out into the ocean. Findings from phase 1 of Project Natick indicate water from the datacenter rapidly mixes and dissipates in the surrounding currents.

https://news.microsoft.com/features/under-the-sea-microsoft-...

Re: Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

#32

Post by LeifCarrotson »

userbinator wrote: post #26
tyingq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It evaporates in the chiller towers. https://intra.ece.ucr.edu/~sren/project/water/img/water_cool...

...and then comes down as rain somewhere else, eventually.

So it is being reused for irrigation!

Re: Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

#34

Post by igreulich »

swebs wrote: post #4

>...granted Google permission Wednesday to pump 549 million gallons of water out of the ground each year to cool servers at its sprawling plant in Berkeley County. >DHEC’s decision is the latest development in a bitter fight over whether the company should get state approval to withdraw from a major groundwater source that, critics say, is dwindling and in jeopardy of being further depleted. Just put the warmed water…

To the extant that the local news knows anything, it is being reported here that the water will be returned to circulation (for lack of a better word) via the sewer, and its treatment cycle.

Re: Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

#35

Post by zaroth »

igreulich wrote: post #34
swebs wrote: post #4

>...granted Google permission Wednesday to pump 549 million gallons of water out of the ground each year to cool servers at its sprawling plant in Berkeley County. >DHEC’s decision is the latest development in a bitter fight over whether the company should get state approval to withdraw from a major groundwater source that, critics say, is dwindling and in jeopardy of being further depleted. Just put the warmed water…

To the extant that the local news knows anything, it is being reported here that the water will be returned to circulation (for lack of a better word) via the sewer, and its treatment cycle.

As supposed to... were they anticipating Google would be breaking down the water into component hydrogen and oxygen?

Re: Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

#36

Post by adrianN »

userbinator wrote: post #26
tyingq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It evaporates in the chiller towers. https://intra.ece.ucr.edu/~sren/project/water/img/water_cool...

...and then comes down as rain somewhere else, eventually.

If that somewhere else is too far away it won't help refill South Carolina's aquifers.

Re: Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

#37

Post by cptskippy »

piker wrote: post #29
londons_explore wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This water will be used in evaporative coolers. There won't be warmed water to return. The water gets recycled 50-100 times, and each time a small percentage evaporates into a cloud. The cloud really does make clouds.

Evaporative coolers in low country South Carolina? Is there a more humid place on Earth?

There won't be as soon as this plant becomes operational.

Re: Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

#38

Post by dredmorbius »

andrekandre wrote: post #25
londons_explore wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sewage (after treatment) can also be used to cool servers. Some big companies do this. I'd guess groundwater was cheaper than sewage in this specific location.

what about seawater? i know that san onofre used to be cooled that way... or do they require basically non saline water for this...

Seawater is very hard and harsh to deal with.

The intakes tend to clog with marine growth -- everything from barnacles and oysters to algae. Pipes have to be corrosion-reistant (not iron or steel). If you're using evaporative cooling, you end up with saline concentrate. If you're using dual-cycle systems ("clean" inner cooling loop, "dirty" outer loop), you have the issue of dumping thermal load into the oceans, which can affect sea life. And to boot, east-coast US seawater isn't all that cold due to the Gulf Stream -- 22-26C (72-76F) off the coast of the Carolinas, though subsurface temps may be lower. California's coastal waters are far cooler, about 15C (60F) presently, and dropping toward 10C (50F) in winter.

Re: Google gets OK to siphon water for South Carolina plant

#40

Post by swebs »

igetspam wrote: post #30
reustle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary? This happens all the time, maybe not with hard cash but plenty of other methods

It does but Google has a very very strict policy about not greasing wheels. People have been fired over it and not reimbursed for the out of pocket expense. It made building infrastructure in India take exponentially longer than competitors who were willing to play according to the unspoken rules. Google can't be trusted but not everything they do or every way they operate is bad.

Google has spent $21,770,000 on lobbying in 2018.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00006782...

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