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Im a bit clueless on this subject but I've been wondering why isn't this heat used productively to, say, generate electricity. Why aren't AI datacenters for exa

Im a bit clueless on this subject but I've been wondering why isn't this heat used productively to, say, generate electricity. Why aren't AI datacenters for example use the heat to provide the municipality with hot water for example?

jandrewrogers 1y ago
Electricity from heat is generated by temperature differences. Large differences are much more efficient than small differences and data centers are "small differences" for these purposes. Unless you can use the heat directly, it won't be worth it to convert it into electricity.
- foepys 1y ago
  Using heatpumps you only need a little electricity to heat quite a few homes with district heating. But there probably is no nearby district to be heated.
  - delfinom 1y ago
    And you only need heating for at the very most, 6 months of the year in the US. Though that's shrunk depending on region in recent years.
    - foepys 1y ago
      True for heating but warm water is in demand all the time.
- coredog64 1y ago
  The limits are described by Carnot's theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot%27s_theorem_(thermodynamics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot%27s_theorem_(thermodyna... Also important to remember when calculating this for yourself that the temperatures must be represented using an absolute scale (i.e. Kelvins or degrees Rankine).
cyprien_g 1y ago
There are already some datacenters doing this: https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/tip/Data-center-heat-reuse-How-to-make-the-most-of-excess-heat https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/tip/Data-center-... But for now, it's still the exception, probably because of the cost of such systems.
deleted 1y ago
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