2 ms·

> They are also called "forever chemicals", if you've heard that term. Yes, of course I've heard about PFAS before, but not that data centers were polluting pu

> They are also called "forever chemicals", if you've heard that term. Yes, of course I've heard about PFAS before, but not that data centers were polluting public water systems with PFAS, did you mean earlier that you've read stories about PFAS in general in your papers? That'd put your previous comment in another light, I thought you specifically talking about the "more than 11,000 U.S. public water systems alleging PFAS contamination" part, not PFAS' in general.

happytoexplain 8mo ago
I'm not the commenter you originally replied to. Regardless, I think you might have misinterpreted the article: 3M is a huge manufacturer in material sciences, probably best known for adhesives/tape. They were one of the high-profile sources of PFAS (Dupont is another that springs to mind). The affected population is global. The "11,000 U.S. public water systems alleging PFAS contamination" is part of that global impact, not something related to datacenters. They moved away from PFAS due to the lawsuits. The topic of this article is: One of the things 3M stopped producing was a large piece of the supply chain for the fluid cooling process in datacenters.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  > not something related to datacenters. Did you read the submission article? Seems they tried to use it for cooling data centers and were running a bunch of experiments, one example: > Intel ran proof-of-concept data center cooling with Novec 649. The technology worked beautifully. The chemistry underneath it was poisoning groundwater.
  - bondarchuk 8mo ago
    I'm just chiming in with the best of intentions to say that I also think you're misinterpreting some things in a way that would be much more effort to explain than you simply reading the article again with this in mind.
  - happytoexplain 8mo ago
    I did read the article. Just FYI, from the HN rules: "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article."

happytoexplain 8mo ago

I'm not the commenter you originally replied to. Regardless, I think you might have misinterpreted the article: 3M is a huge manufacturer in material sciences, probably best known for adhesives/tape. They were one of the high-profile sources of PFAS (Dupont is another that springs to mind). The affected population is global. The "11,000 U.S. public water systems alleging PFAS contamination" is part of that global impact, not something related to datacenters. They moved away from PFAS due to the lawsuits. The topic of this article is: One of the things 3M stopped producing was a large piece of the supply chain for the fluid cooling process in datacenters.

embedding-shape 8mo ago
> not something related to datacenters. Did you read the submission article? Seems they tried to use it for cooling data centers and were running a bunch of experiments, one example: > Intel ran proof-of-concept data center cooling with Novec 649. The technology worked beautifully. The chemistry underneath it was poisoning groundwater.
- bondarchuk 8mo ago
  I'm just chiming in with the best of intentions to say that I also think you're misinterpreting some things in a way that would be much more effort to explain than you simply reading the article again with this in mind.
- happytoexplain 8mo ago
  I did read the article. Just FYI, from the HN rules: "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article."