The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
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Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#2Is there some reason data centers can't/don't use a closed loop cooling system?
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#3We really need to figure out ways to get big fat data pipes to places that are naturally cold. Like imagine if we could get big pipes to Antarctica and then build data centers there. Plenty of fresh water and cold enough that you could almost just cool it with outside air, and you can exhaust the water right back outside to freeze back up. You could also use the exhaust heat to warm up the living spaces nearby.
The only question would be, would it create so much heat in one spot that it would actually warm up the environment too much?
The main thing stopping this now is lack of high throughput low latency data to the continent.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#4Is there some reason data centers can't/don't use a closed loop cooling system?
It's expensive to build out and maintain. You also have to deal with leaks.
But actually a lot of newer spaces are moving to closed loop because it's the only way to get enough cooling for the GPUs. The newest NVIDA GPUs require it.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#5We really need to figure out ways to get big fat data pipes to places that are naturally cold. Like imagine if we could get big pipes to Antarctica and then build data centers there. Plenty of fresh water and cold enough that you could almost just cool it with outside air, and you can exhaust the water right back outside to freeze back up. You could also use the exhaust heat to warm up the living spaces nearby. The o…
This is how the first chapter would start in a book where somebody builds a death ray in Antarctica.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#6We really need to figure out ways to get big fat data pipes to places that are naturally cold. Like imagine if we could get big pipes to Antarctica and then build data centers there. Plenty of fresh water and cold enough that you could almost just cool it with outside air, and you can exhaust the water right back outside to freeze back up. You could also use the exhaust heat to warm up the living spaces nearby. The o…
Minor detail: The myriad megajoules of heat which any major DC has got to breathe out...were previously inhaled as electrical energy. And multi-megawatt electrical service is quite difficult to source in most extremely cold places.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#7This article largely ignores the fact that there are common data center designs that use closed-loop cooling, and consume no more water on a daily basis than a barber shop.
It's not even hard to build them that way.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#8We really need to figure out ways to get big fat data pipes to places that are naturally cold. Like imagine if we could get big pipes to Antarctica and then build data centers there. Plenty of fresh water and cold enough that you could almost just cool it with outside air, and you can exhaust the water right back outside to freeze back up. You could also use the exhaust heat to warm up the living spaces nearby. The o…
Isn't Antarctica melting already? We need to slow down damn it.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#9> Large data centers are resource hogs, using as much as 5 million gallons of water a day.
While this is a lot of water, but as a point of comparison typical golf course uses about 100-200 million gallons of water a year. It's still a drop in the bucket compared to agriculture.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#10We really need to figure out ways to get big fat data pipes to places that are naturally cold. Like imagine if we could get big pipes to Antarctica and then build data centers there. Plenty of fresh water and cold enough that you could almost just cool it with outside air, and you can exhaust the water right back outside to freeze back up. You could also use the exhaust heat to warm up the living spaces nearby. The o…
>The only question would be, would it create so much heat in one spot that it would actually warm up the environment too much?
I doubt it, the bigger issue would be Global Warming, but
What you said makes sense on paper, but the center will sink into the ice quickly. I remember reading that a base down there had to be moved due to it sinking.