Skeptics of the proposed hyperscale data center in Box Elder County are sweating about a lot more than its energy demands and potential toll on water supplies.
I mean when you heat up a lake, it starts evaporating faster. Also some have switched to using evaporative cooling instead of AC. That’s why they’re building them in deserts. You can save a lot of energy, but need to waste water. In the desert that might piss off people living nearby.
But yes, the power plant water use is actually bigger than direct use. If it’s a lossy thermal plant.
Thanks, looks like I was wrong. I looked into the evaporative cooling. It looks like this kicks in if it’s hot outside, otherwise the cooling units operate in a “dry” mode.
Although, none of that is directly heating up a lake, it looks like the water just flows into something like an A/C unit. Are there datacenters that are piping heat directly into lakes?
Are there datacenters that are piping heat directly into lakes?
Yes, Equinix is one company building them. Of course they’ll tell you that this results in zero water loss, but it can’t be good for the long term health of the lake to use it as a heatsink.
In cold climates with distance heating, though, it’s possible to make efficient use of the heated water in the cold months by using it for residential heating. Not very useful in the summer though.
This is the reason. Deserts are hotter, but also dryer, so it makes evaporative chillers ridiculously efficient. That’s how and why they build datacenters out here. Go look at any DC facility in the state and you’ll see evapco equipment being used.
I mean when you heat up a lake, it starts evaporating faster. Also some have switched to using evaporative cooling instead of AC. That’s why they’re building them in deserts. You can save a lot of energy, but need to waste water. In the desert that might piss off people living nearby.
But yes, the power plant water use is actually bigger than direct use. If it’s a lossy thermal plant.
Thanks, looks like I was wrong. I looked into the evaporative cooling. It looks like this kicks in if it’s hot outside, otherwise the cooling units operate in a “dry” mode.
Although, none of that is directly heating up a lake, it looks like the water just flows into something like an A/C unit. Are there datacenters that are piping heat directly into lakes?
Yes, Equinix is one company building them. Of course they’ll tell you that this results in zero water loss, but it can’t be good for the long term health of the lake to use it as a heatsink.
In cold climates with distance heating, though, it’s possible to make efficient use of the heated water in the cold months by using it for residential heating. Not very useful in the summer though.
This is the reason. Deserts are hotter, but also dryer, so it makes evaporative chillers ridiculously efficient. That’s how and why they build datacenters out here. Go look at any DC facility in the state and you’ll see evapco equipment being used.