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45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

blogs.nvidia.com

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Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#271

Post by newsclues »

DanielHB wrote: post #260
FridgeSeal wrote: post #228

> In the right geography — somewhere with reliably cool outdoor air Aaahh, there’s the catch. “Save resources on cooling by building your data centre somewhere cold, and pollute the surrounding environment by dumping your waste heat wholesale into that!” Good job Nvidia, I almost thought we had something good there.

Datacenter waste heat even a problem? I only ever heard of nuclear power plants waste heat being a problem when the cooling water is dumped directly into rivers (instead of the ocean).

Waste heat is a problem for cities, why not a large DC?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#272

Post by kukkamario »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #257
mschuster91 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Main problem is that it wouldn't work with buildings designed for higher heating temperature so it is limited to new builds. That's no longer the case with modern, multi-stage high temperature heat pumps [1]. These consume more electricity, yes, but still achieve far better efficiency than straight burning fuel or resistive heaters. [1] https://www.buderus.de/de/waermepumpe/hochtemperatur

I guess technically you could put heat pump at destination but that significantly eats into "free heat" part

And that is why existing installations put the heat pump to production side and then just pipe the high temperature water to district heating network.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#273

Post by krupan »

randallsquared wrote: post #252

It was already near zero compared to various other uses. It's always depressing to me to see a lot of effort put in to "solve a problem" (with subsequent fanfare) which is only a PR or image problem in the first place.

"compared to various other uses"

You realize how that vague and open ended clause completely undermines any point you are trying to make, right?

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#274

Post by zulban »

newsclues wrote: post #271
DanielHB wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Datacenter waste heat even a problem? I only ever heard of nuclear power plants waste heat being a problem when the cooling water is dumped directly into rivers (instead of the ocean).

Waste heat is a problem for cities, why not a large DC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island

Even the largest DC doesn't have anywhere near the waste heat of a city.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#275

Post by eru »

YokoZar wrote: post #238
eru wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. You are not wrong, but the whole issue is a bit silly: there should be legal ways for data centres (and other commercial operations) to just send a few million dollars a year to whichever community they need to convince; instead of having to dress it up as free heating.

That means is called property taxes. Datacenters pay a lot of them, and in Loudon county specifically residential property taxes have fallen as a result.

You mean they have dropped rates, or you mean that residential property values have fallen, and thus they pay less property taxes?

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#276

Post by thinkingtoilet »

DanielHB wrote: post #260
FridgeSeal wrote: post #228

> In the right geography — somewhere with reliably cool outdoor air Aaahh, there’s the catch. “Save resources on cooling by building your data centre somewhere cold, and pollute the surrounding environment by dumping your waste heat wholesale into that!” Good job Nvidia, I almost thought we had something good there.

Datacenter waste heat even a problem? I only ever heard of nuclear power plants waste heat being a problem when the cooling water is dumped directly into rivers (instead of the ocean).

Yes. The hot water the datacenters dump destroys local ecosystems.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#277

Post by eru »

verve_rat wrote: post #194
eru wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. You are not wrong, but the whole issue is a bit silly: there should be legal ways for data centres (and other commercial operations) to just send a few million dollars a year to whichever community they need to convince; instead of having to dress it up as free heating.

But paying the money is less resource efficient than using the waste heat for a productive use. As a general rule we should probably insensitvise good use of resources that benefit the general population.

Using waste heat like this only makes sense in some places some of the time.

And when it does, people should obviously go for it. Work out a deal, when there's some surplus to share.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#278

Post by prmoustache »

joxdosba wrote: post #258
sidibe wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has also one of the arguments against AC in France, shame on you for wanting to moving the hot air from inside to outside.

It’s pretty incredible, especially given that the free education in France is actually rather decent.

A few AC is one thing.

Many AC in a limited space covered in concrete with almost zero tree in the area is another thing.

We need to be more specific about what we are talking about.

Anyway ACs are not enough in a city. ideally you also want streets with a significant amount of trees and greenery so that there is significant shade and heat from sunlight doesn't radiate too much from concrete/pavement.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#279

Post by eru »

chii wrote: post #191
eru wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. You are not wrong, but the whole issue is a bit silly: there should be legal ways for data centres (and other commercial operations) to just send a few million dollars a year to whichever community they need to convince; instead of having to dress it up as free heating.

the datacenter doesn't have a few million dollars to spare. The heat is waste heat. If it cannot be recovered as a profitable source of energy, the datacenter won't be able to pay that few million dollars.

> the datacenter doesn't have a few million dollars to spare.

What makes you think so? Datacentres are already very expensive, and getting permissions quicker (or at all) might be worth a couple million dollars.

> The heat is waste heat. If it cannot be recovered as a profitable source of energy, [...]

Yes, they should make all deals that make sense for both parties, definitely. But it's only viable in some places some of the time.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#280

Post by eru »

mschuster91 wrote: post #227
chii wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the datacenter doesn't have a few million dollars to spare. The heat is waste heat. If it cannot be recovered as a profitable source of energy, the datacenter won't be able to pay that few million dollars.

Recovery isn't the issue, the issue is that district heating systems are pretty much a rarity across the world for a number of reasons. Recovering waste heat - no matter if from datacenters, industrial processes or eve wastewater/sewage - is trivial, but getting the heat to somewhere it still can have a productive "secondary usage" is a massive and expensive problem.

Yes. There's eg combined power plants that use waste heat from power plants to heat houses. The problem is that this tends to make the power plants less efficient at electricity generation.

So this waste heat recycling should only be done where and when it makes sense.

(But that's pretty easy: absent any legal requirements, the involved parties have all the right incentives already. It's all internalised between the parties.)

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