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>Critics of the system point out that the system produces heat, but also wastes nearly 250,000 gallons of water per day, according to a 2015 story by CBS Bay Ar
by ginko 4y ago
>Critics of the system point out that the system produces heat, but also wastes nearly 250,000 gallons of water per day, according to a 2015 story by CBS Bay Area.
Any reason why they couldn't use ocean water?
- throwaway173738 4y agoSalt water ruins everything it comes in contact with.
- Scoundreller 4y agoAs someone that maintains two vehicles located in the rust belt/salt belt, I concur.
- PeterisP 4y agoSaltwater corrodes all the metal parts, and you simply can't use it for a steam cycle as the salt would pile up as the water turns to steam.
- donalhunt 4y agoGoogle's datacenter in Hamina, Finland uses salt water for one of the cooling loops. aiui it was not trivial to incorporate the salt water loop (corrosion was an issue) but they've made it work. https://www.wired.com/2012/08/google-finland-data-center/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/google-finland-data-center/
- jldugger 4y agoGoogle also has a 30 percent profit margin, even after accounting for boondoggles like that.
- mikeryan 4y agoBuilding a system from the ground up to use saltwater is a whole different ballgame then trying to retrofit an existing legacy network though. It would probably be cheaper to just convert to another heat source all together.
- toast0 4y agoWater in a datacenter cooling loop is almost certainly not heated to the same temperatures as water in a (steam) heating loop. Corrosion is temperature dependent.
- ville 4y agoAnd on top of that, the Google datacenter in Hamina doesn't use ocean water with 3.5% salinity, but water from the Baltic sea, which in that part of the Gulf of Finland only has roughly 0.3% salinity – a tenth of ocean water.
- Scoundreller 4y agoSounds like less of a Baltic sea thing, but more of being in a fjord or bay that's fed by fresh water keeping a lot of the salty sea water out.
- Etrnl_President 4y agoYou can get basalt-lined pipe, for chemical stability.
- justsomehnguy 4y agoEven without reading TFA it's surely not the loop what is actually cooling the hardware.