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Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

datacenterdynamics.com

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Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#31

Post by robotnikman »

bob1029 wrote: post #4
sitkack wrote: post #2

Good for them. No groundwater for data centers! Data centers should be run closed loop, if they can't, they shouldn't exist. AZ should also make them generate at least 70% of their power onsite.

I think the most cursed aspect in all of this is the fact that regions where evaporative coolers work best tend to have the scarcest water resources. Evaporative cooling is unreasonably effective when water is happy to evaporate. You can cut the power consumption of a datacenter by 70-80% in these regions if you are willing to sacrifice water. I think in this case, solar energy is the best way to run the cooling syst…

Arizona has the perfect conditions for solar energy (sunny 99% of the time), they really should have taken advantage of that.

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#32

Post by jeffbee »

Mtinie wrote: post #30
ofcrpls wrote: post #16

Visited NOVA recently and after Loudon let them pass under the radar(right by use) for as long as they have, they've recently to tried to put the kibosh on it, or at least slow it down. https://virginiabusiness.com/loudoun-county-supervisors-shak... What was once a rural county outside of Fairfax, Loudon has seen tremendous development thanks to data center expansion. Now Prince William County( one county over, westw…

I’ve lived in Loudoun County for twenty-four years, so I’ve seen much of the development firsthand. The data center expansion, particularly in Ashburn and Sterling, has been amazing to watch. However, I’m puzzled by this portion of your comment: ‘…has seen tremendous development thanks to data center expansion.’ The major residential growth in Ashburn, Broadlands, Sterling, Lansdowne, and surrounding areas significan…

Yeah, it was only farms in 1985. Now it's 95% residential sprawl and 5% data centers.

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#33

Post by actionfromafar »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #27
hooverd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're doing large scale evap cooling in the Sonoran you're just removing water from an already stressed water table. I'd say put them somewhere cold and do district heating during the winter.

Does district heating actually work for heat from data centers? The exhaust temperature of computer equipment is only slightly above room temperature and the structures in need of heat would only be at slightly below room temperature when calling for heat. Heat distribution systems with tiny differentials like that tend to have poor efficiency, i.e. you're going to have consume a lot of energy on fans/pumps. Meanwhil…

That kind of district heating already exists and it uses heat pumps to raise the temps. Basically you run a huge AC somewhere and dump the hot side not into air but into district heating.

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#34

Post by actionfromafar »

joshuaheard wrote: post #25
sitkack wrote: post #2

Good for them. No groundwater for data centers! Data centers should be run closed loop, if they can't, they shouldn't exist. AZ should also make them generate at least 70% of their power onsite.

It was going to use 1% of the available recycled water. That's about the equivalent usage of a medium size farm.

per year? Day? Month? Microsecond?

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#35

Post by abnercoimbre »

> The data center has been under discussion by local officials since at least 2023, according to emails between county administrators and real estate investment firm Diamond Ventures. The county has been under a non-disclosure agreement since at least June 2024.

That is insane. An NDA that the county was forced to sign? No wonder residents were outraged. I’m surprised this is legal.

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#36

Post by dreamcompiler »

duped wrote: post #15
hooverd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're doing large scale evap cooling in the Sonoran you're just removing water from an already stressed water table. I'd say put them somewhere cold and do district heating during the winter.

I'm not a geologist but...does evaporation remove water from the water table? Where I live, my understanding is the answer is "no" because the vast majority of rain water is deposited in our groundwater. Things like agriculture are dangerous because the answer is "yes" - you're literally shopping the water away as an agricultural product. Another dumb question: why are we building projects that need tons of power and…

Depends on the aquifer. The assumption you're making is "natural precipitation recharges aquifers" and that assumption is not always true.

Sometimes it's true, but it takes 10,000 years so if you mean "recharges while our current civilization exists" then it's effectively false. This is the case for the Ogallala aquifer which supplies 27% of the irrigated land in the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

Sometimes it's just completely false because the groundwater exists as a sealed bubble of water put there during the last ice age. That glass of water you just drank? Congratulations! It's 25,000 years old, and we know this through isotopic analysis. Your drinking water was mined and once it's gone it's gone forever.

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

Sometimes recharge can happen but only via snowmelt at high altitudes (and of course Tucson doesn't get much snow).

Sometimes it's completely true. The Edwards aquifer in Texas gets recharged every time it rains.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_Aquifer

So it's complicated. Generally speaking, deeper groundwater sources take longer to recharge if they recharge at all. I don't know the particular groundwater situation around Tucson.

> why are we building projects that need tons of power and water in the Sonoran desert instead of next to the Great Lakes

Evaporative cooling is effective and cheap where humidity is low. It doesn't work well where humidity is high.

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#37

Post by mjmas »

actionfromafar wrote: post #34
joshuaheard wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was going to use 1% of the available recycled water. That's about the equivalent usage of a medium size farm.

per year? Day? Month? Microsecond?

the available water as volume per time is already in the correct units.

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#38

Post by seemaze »

bob1029 wrote: post #4
sitkack wrote: post #2

Good for them. No groundwater for data centers! Data centers should be run closed loop, if they can't, they shouldn't exist. AZ should also make them generate at least 70% of their power onsite.

I think the most cursed aspect in all of this is the fact that regions where evaporative coolers work best tend to have the scarcest water resources. Evaporative cooling is unreasonably effective when water is happy to evaporate. You can cut the power consumption of a datacenter by 70-80% in these regions if you are willing to sacrifice water. I think in this case, solar energy is the best way to run the cooling syst…

Isn't effective evaporative cooling a direct function of low water availability i the environment?

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#39

Post by seemaze »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #7
sitkack wrote: post #2

Good for them. No groundwater for data centers! Data centers should be run closed loop, if they can't, they shouldn't exist. AZ should also make them generate at least 70% of their power onsite.

What should water be used for then? They do large-scale agriculture in the same area, which uses several orders of magnitude more water while generating substantially less value.

The water should be conserved to address long term water security in the face of a decades long drought and ongoing Tier 1 shortage. Tucson exists in an Active Management Area that heavily regulates expanded water usage for agriculture beyond existing grandfathered rights.

If a datacenter is a more valuable proposition (it may be?) then should have the ability to acquire and redirect existing resources being used for agriculture.

Re: Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

#40

Post by tzs »

duped wrote: post #15
hooverd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're doing large scale evap cooling in the Sonoran you're just removing water from an already stressed water table. I'd say put them somewhere cold and do district heating during the winter.

I'm not a geologist but...does evaporation remove water from the water table? Where I live, my understanding is the answer is "no" because the vast majority of rain water is deposited in our groundwater. Things like agriculture are dangerous because the answer is "yes" - you're literally shopping the water away as an agricultural product. Another dumb question: why are we building projects that need tons of power and…

> Things like agriculture are dangerous because the answer is "yes" - you're literally shopping the water away as an agricultural product

Very little of the water used to grow the product actually ends up shipped. For example with alfalfa (a major Arizona crop) only 0.005% of the water used to grow it end up in the alfalfa. The rest of it first ends up in the ground near the plants or in the atmosphere near the plants.

This is also the case for most high water use industries. For example making integrated circuits uses a large amount of water but very little if any actually ends up in the chips themselves.

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