[dead]
The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
31–40 of 59 posts
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#32We 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…
Building on permafrost is actually tricky with just residential levels of heat - houses are sometimes built on stilts in order to avoid melting the ground under them and making it unstable. But I like where your head is at. Maybe an offshore platform? Alternatively, there are lots of places that aren't permafrost-cold which are nonetheless quite cool underground year round. I wonder how big a geothermal system would…
> I wonder how big a geothermal system would have to be to be an effective heat sink for a data center.
Ah. 500 feet of pipe per 3.5 kW. That might be why they don't do it that way. XD
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
You switched from gal/day to gal/year, converting shows golf courses using a roughly 10th of the same amount of water in a day ~500,000 gal.
I'm fully aware. But I'm quoting the article and golf courses don't use a consistent amount of water day to day, so I am trusting readers to do the math.
Presumably the demand for golf courses isn’t growing at the same rate as datacenters.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#34Why not used a closed loop system? Maybe something with geothermal cooling.
Presumably because it’s cheaper to use evaporative cooling
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building on permafrost is actually tricky with just residential levels of heat - houses are sometimes built on stilts in order to avoid melting the ground under them and making it unstable. But I like where your head is at. Maybe an offshore platform? Alternatively, there are lots of places that aren't permafrost-cold which are nonetheless quite cool underground year round. I wonder how big a geothermal system would…
> I wonder how big a geothermal system would have to be to be an effective heat sink for a data center. Ah. 500 feet of pipe per 3.5 kW. That might be why they don't do it that way. XD
Oh! Or when they do, it involves a 35 acre lake.
https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/showcase-pr...
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#36Can't they use saltwater? Or grey water? What do coastline nuclear plants do?
I imagine the additional costs of cleaning/replacing tubing when contaminants accumulate from less-than-potable water outweigh the benefits (from the datacenter's perspective).
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#37And here I am paying for energy to heat my house like a sucker, would be neat if we co-located data centers in cities and then captured/transported the heat to homes/buildings
Facebook's data centre in Denmark does this.
https://www.ramboll.com/extract-heat-from-data-centres/large...
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#38From the linked study: [1]
Total operational water "footprint" of data centers in 2018: 5.13 * 10^8 m^3. Of that, indirect consumption through electricity generation: 3.83 * 10^8 m^3, or 74.7%. And indirect consumption related to water and wastewater utilities (non-electicity production): 4.50 * 10^5 m^3, or 0.09%.
The study then does a reasonable job of discussing the concerns of building data centers in water-stressed places.
This article seems to be another "didn't read the study, saw big number" thing.
[1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfba1 (PDF page 7, section 3.1)
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#39> 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.
Not defending the water usage of golf courses, but 5 million a day is a lot more water than 100-200 million per year. I guess you could say data centers provide a tangible utility while golf courses do not.
In fairness, golf courses help replenish aquifers in their area, and not all of them are sourced from “fossil water”. My city in the SE USA gets its water from a surface supply, so as long as the river through town is flowing, we’re good. The best golf course in the area backs up to said river; I don’t know for sure where they get their water, but since it’s essentially agricultural use, there’s no need to treat it prior to use. I would be surprised if they don’t just pump it directly from the river to the course.
It’s all going to end up in the same river after the fact anyway. Not all of us live in near-deserts.
Re: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not defending the water usage of golf courses, but 5 million a day is a lot more water than 100-200 million per year. I guess you could say data centers provide a tangible utility while golf courses do not.
In fairness, golf courses help replenish aquifers in their area, and not all of them are sourced from “fossil water”. My city in the SE USA gets its water from a surface supply, so as long as the river through town is flowing, we’re good. The best golf course in the area backs up to said river; I don’t know for sure where they get their water, but since it’s essentially agricultural use, there’s no need to treat it p…
[deleted]