We don’t know how much water data centers use. We just know it’s a lot

  • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    That’s interesting, I’ve never thought of data centers using water before, but it sounds like they use it for evaporative cooling. Wouldn’t that mean the water’s not really “lost” so much as it’s returned to the environment?

    I saw a video recently about the trouble with desalination (turning salt water to fresh water) is that it takes a lot of energy to evaporate the water. Sounds like some smart people need to get together and start cooling data centers with salt water and turning it into fresh water as a byproduct.

    • jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Running salt water through any kind of cooling system is going to cause huge problems.

      Salt is corrosive. Metal will degrade rapidly from salt water running through it.

    • Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Screw data centers, I want to see desalination combined with nuclear power plants. They literally generate power by boiling water, it’s a match made in heaven.

      We just need a few more advances in technology to remove impurities from brine and we’d also corner the table salt market.