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Some types of industrial cooling pull fresh water in and dump heated water back out as waste water. I don't know how Meta's datacenters are cooled, but such a t
by devmor 1y ago
Some types of industrial cooling pull fresh water in and dump heated water back out as waste water. I don't know how Meta's datacenters are cooled, but such a thing does exist.
Describing it as "gobbling" is definitely odd, in either case.
- haiku2077 1y agoSometimes the heated water is useful. I worked at a campus in a cold region where our on site DC's heated water was used to heat the floors.
- devmor 1y agoLinus of LTT/LMG has a tiny version of this kind of thing at his home where the water cooling loop for servers in his basement ultimately heat his in-ground swimming pool.
- cbm-vic-20 1y agoI've not "done the math", but venting slightly warmer water vapor from a tower seems less ecologically damaging than releasing warm water back into an ecosystem that can't handle it, by diluting the waste energy over a wider area. In the end it's about energy dissipation; that heat's got to go somewhere, and there's only so much you can recapture with cogeneration.
- toast0 1y agoDrawing on ground water and releasing it into the atmosphere isn't great if the demand exceeds the aquifer's ability to recharge. Discharging heated water into a retention pond might allow it to recharge the aquifer (although some would evaporate), and form a less open loop. Or, discharging it into sewers might offset fresh water needs at a downstream treatment plant, and the temperature differential may or may not be important. Sometimes, reclaimed water from treatment plants can be used for cooling as well, and that's better than pulling fresh water directly.