11 ms·

This opens up an interesting synergy: district heating. 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, and a data center might be able to make a nic

by amluto 4mo ago

This opens up an interesting synergy: district heating. 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, and a data center might be able to make a nice pitch to a community if the data center offers to provide heat to a district heating system for free. This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. Summer is still an issue, but fun solutions are possible. With the right geology, I think it’s possible to heat an underground volume in the summer and recapture (some of) that heat in the winter. In many, many climates, annual heating costs are far higher than cooling costs, at least if people aren’t stupid with skylights. [0] [0] As a back-of-the-envelope heuristic, heating or cooling load due to conduction and air exchange is proportional to the difference between indoor and outdoor temperature. Outdoor temperatures of -10F to 30F are not unusual in the winter and are 40-80F away from an indoor temp of 70F. But outdoor temperatures in these climates rarely exceed 95F and are mostly lower in the summer, so that’s 15-25F of cooling. And heat pumps are more efficient at smaller temperature differences. Radiative heating is an entirely different story.

ramon156 4mo ago
Do you live near a datacenter? Property value goes down, constant humming.. the way we heat up the earth right now, i don't think you have to worry about heating
- rokkamokka 4mo ago
  Couldn't imagine living with the ~55dBA noise literally all the time
- skybrian 4mo ago
  It sounds like with this liquid cooling, they won’t need the fans?
  - michaelt 4mo ago
    Some systems use liquid cooling for the GPU and CPU, but air cooling for the PSU, RAM and SSDs. With that said, by the standards of industrial sites data centres are quiet, low traffic and smell free. An industrial area that can’t build a data centre certainly can’t build a steelworks or oil refinery or leather tannery.
  - zie 4mo ago
    They almost certainly need fans on the outside of the building to cool the 55C water back down to 45C. But correct, no fans on the servers themselves or even in the building. Except perhaps for the humans, so they can stand to work inside the building, when needed.
  - energy123 4mo ago
    The humming are the gas turbines which also damages your health.
  - stubish 4mo ago
    If the outdoor temperature is cool enough (maybe 30C?), you just pipe the liquid outside through a large enough loop or heat exchanger to get it back down to under 45C. Even better if you can put the loop in a lake and dump the heat there (maybe not better from an ecological POV though). The pumps moving all that liquid becomes the noisiest component.
- xattt 4mo ago
  Noise is a design choice and could likely be legislated away. Reject heat is different than heating from greenhouse gas effects that are “heating the planet”. No one bats an eye when an air conditioner runs.
  - dgellow 4mo ago
    > No one bats an eye when an air conditioner runs. In the US
    - xattt 4mo ago
      Now do heat pumps in the winter.
  - bethekidyouwant 4mo ago
    Data centres aren’t loud it’s the gas power generating stations next to them that are loud.
  - Marsymars 4mo ago
    > No one bats an eye when an air conditioner runs. I find their noise pretty obnoxious. Out of respect for my neighbours, when I get around to installing one, I'll be getting the absolute quietest model available.
- amluto 4mo ago
  I’ve been to datacenters, but not the huuuge ones people seem to talk about in the context of AI. They are noisy inside (due to air cooling, which is largely avoided by the tech in the OP), but they’re entirely unremarkable outside compared to any other commercial or industrial building. Computers are not inherently loud, nor is power conversion. Power plants are all over, even in populated areas. They’re not so bad either (except perhaps coal). There is no fundamental reason that datacenters need to be especially unpleasant to their neighbors.
  - wolvoleo 4mo ago
    It depends a lot on things like geology and some people are a lot more sensitive. It is really an issue. I don't have any datacenters near me but I can hear some heavy hums from the washing machine 3 floors up when it put my head on my pillow, for some reason it just propagates through the building physically. When I walk around I don't hear it. Datacenter noise can be the same. IMO they should be put away from habitation, there's no reason for them to be near there anyway
    - thewebguyd 4mo ago
      > IMO they should be put away from habitation, there's no reason for them to be near there anyway I agree, but that's a hard problem (in the US anyway). Unless you're plopping data centers in the middle of national parks, or in the middle of the desert where water is going to be a problem, you are nearly always going to be within some small mile radius of civilization. Plus the cost of trenching new fiber out in the middle of nowhere. The same reasons humans want to concentrate in a particular area (access to jobs, infrastructure) are the same things that data centers need. Once water-less cooling tech like this improves then yeah, just plopping them in the middle of the unpopulated desert becomes viable (assuming you can get the fiber out there and latency is tolerable), so long as they generate their own power.
      - dgoldstein0 4mo ago
        The climate requirements to run at this hotter temperature still probably means it'll require more active cooling in the desert during daytime /summers. Assuming we're talking about hotter desert environments like US southwest. That might make your proposal not as economical. Imo we should just solve the problems with data centers being near cities. Manage/regulate the noise and any waste (heat included, it shouldn't drastically impact the neighbors) and make them pay for any utility capacity/reliability upgrades needed. If this article is right and water usage can be nearly eliminated then it seems like the rest should be solvable? Especially if we can take the extra heat and use it for local power or heating needs.
- tucnak 4mo ago
  > the way we heat up the earth right now, i don't think you have to worry about heating So what, winters would be no more? Snow will disappear, no more ice-men and christmas trees, and subzero conditions in general, too?
  - reaperducer 4mo ago
    And no more food. Or at least not enough of it to feed very many people. You do eat, don't you?
    - SamPatt 4mo ago
      As the earth has warmed over the last century, has food production increased or decreased? If production increased (dramatically) while temperatures increased in the past, could this trend continue?
    - tucnak 4mo ago
      Christmas food?
- abc42 4mo ago
  Coldest month average temperature where I live is around -7C, with peaks of -35C. Climate change is not going to increase that average, more like decrease. Typically, of course, electricity price is the highest during that month too. I think we are going to need heating.
- joe_mamba 4mo ago
  >Do you live near a datacenter? Property value goes down, constant humming I don't live next to one but I'd take constant humming over the constant stop/go traffic noise, honking, squeaky brakes, slamming doors and revving engines I now have on my western side of the apartment, thanks to the unemployment office the city opened on my street not too long ago. So how come constant humming is somehow an illegal nuisance, but we've been expected to put up with the much more annoying urban traffic noise for decades just fine? My parents apartment have constant humming anyway thanks to the HVAC system on the roof of the nearby supermarket and white/brown noise is far more tolerable and easy to tune out than traffic noises.
  - energy123 4mo ago
    More noise categories should be illegal or fined in dense areas, not less
    - joe_mamba 4mo ago
      Agree, but data centers are no inside dense areas though.
      - energy123 4mo ago
        They're being built in the US next to people's houses with gas turbines https://xcancel.com/BrianEntin/status/2067930868191035474?s=20 https://xcancel.com/BrianEntin/status/2067930868191035474?s=...
        joe_mamba 4mo ago
        To me that only makes clear that gas turbines are the noise issues, no data centers. Surely there exists data centers that work off the main power grid and don't have a natural gas turbine as their own power source.
  - drnick1 4mo ago
    > we've been expected to put up with the much more annoying urban traffic noise for decades just fine? For one, there tends to be little traffic at night when most people want quiet in order to sleep. Driving is also something (nearly) everyone does and benefits directly from, so negative externalities are easier to accept. It is much harder to accept a new source of noise near your home you haven't asked for and don't directly benefit from.
- arjie 4mo ago
  Do you? I live at 4th and Brannan and there was one just off 3rd and Brannan in San Francisco. It was shut down when hosting.com sold it off but I didn't notice it while walking by then and I don't notice it while walking by now. My GPUs at Hurricane Electric in Fremont are also completely unnoticeable outside the building. Inside, when I'm working at the cabinets it's obviously deafening. Outside you wouldn't even know. Realistically, the predominant sounds at my home are from the traffic on the Bay Bridge so it's nice when there's congestion because it's quiet. Honestly, I wish there were more urban datacenters. It's getting quite annoying having to make a 1 hr trek to Fremont every time I want to rack a new server.
  - toast0 4mo ago
    > Honestly, I wish there were more urban datacenters. There's a lot of them in high rise buildings... but they come with high rise rent.
    - arjie 4mo ago
      Imagine if one of the amenities in a high-end residential building could be a cabinet haha! That would be amazing. Doesn't make economic sense, but I'd love it. Would love to explain that to my wife. "I know that one has the pool, but we can rack my servers in this one if we live there".
      - jrnichols 4mo ago
        Something here about water usage, a small data center, and a swimming pool. Combining the three may either be awesome or tragic! I like this idea. A small cage in an apartment complex would be a huge selling point. Or even a La La Land on the corner, urban DC in the back. Winning across the board.
        jmalicki 4mo ago
        > water usage, a small data center, and a swimming pool Swimming pool? The cooling can be for a hot tub!
- SamPatt 4mo ago
  >the way we heat up the earth right now, i don't think you have to worry about heating Nearly 10x more people die from the cold than from the heat. "...9.43% of global deaths were attributable to non-optimal temperatures, with 8.52% from cold and 0.91% from heat." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196%2821%2900081-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...
  - ryan_lane 4mo ago
    This study doesn't factor in droughts, floods, crop death (and starvation), and other non-direct effects. It also doesn't consider wet-bulb events, because it's looking at average ambient temperatures. I don't think this is climate change propaganda, but your application of this study by evoking it in a discussion about climate change feels like it.
    - SamPatt 4mo ago
      Deaths from all natural disasters have dramatically decreased over the last century. I won't bother sharing the source because you'll find some reason to dismiss it I'm sure. It's interesting you claim my comment is propaganda when I cite a scientific source and yet have nothing to say about the parent comment which claims we no longer need to worry about heating due to climate change. Which of those comments seems more propagandistic?
      - ryan_lane 4mo ago
        > no longer need to worry about heating due to climate change I'm nearly positive that was sarcasm. > Deaths from all natural disasters have dramatically decreased over the last century. Because of our ability to predict them, and due to advances in scientific knowledge that allows us to more safely handle them. It's not because they've become less deadly. They're also becoming more frequent, and deaths alone isn't their only problem. They also drive loss of shelter, migrations, economic damage, etc. > you claim my comment is propaganda when I cite a scientific source Yes, plenty of science is propaganda. The study you cited wasn't propaganda, but the way in which you used it was, because it's not applicable to the way you're using it. Direct exposure to ambient heat is only one of the many issues related to climate change, and one of the least deadly. As I pointed out, the study didn't include wet bulb events, so even direct heat exposure wasn't properly covered in the study in terms of climate change.
- annzabelle 4mo ago
  I grew up in Northern Virginia, (of AWS US-East-1, MAE-East, and Equinix fame), where there are more data centers than anywhere else in the world, and I never heard organized opposition to them until the last couple of years. They were mainly viewed as a way for Loudoun County to build their industrial tax base without the downsides of having industrial workers, and allowed them to consistently lower property taxes while having excellent schools. Data centers are unsightly and use electricity and water, but so does literally any kind of industrial facility. They are also pretty quiet, if you exclude the ones using on site gas turbines for electricity. Property values have consistently gone up in that region for decades, and are up to $6 million an acre if there's enough contiguous land to put another data center on. Many of the people complaining about datacenters would also complain about literally any kind of development.
  - majormajor 4mo ago
    The new gen of AI-boom-construction datacenters seem to be substantially different than the ones I used to go when working at companies whose software ran inside them. Those were running air-cooled rack servers, which is a whole different world from these things. The couple of the new gen I've seen have been much larger and much more turbine-happy.
  - juneyi 4mo ago
    i'm confused on the humming part, i've driven by them many times and they're just...large, sorta ugly, buildings. but that's really it. i wonder if i walked up to a building i'd hear the humming. quite surprised to learn that they emit a humming that bothers nearby folks
    - audunw 4mo ago
      Maybe those complaints are for datacenters using gas turbines for power. I think some of the recent ones (xAIs?) was built without sufficient power from the grid.
      - mukbangpervert 4mo ago
lrasinen 4mo ago
Microsoft's already building data centers hooked up to district heating (Espoo and Kirkkonummi, Finland). Heatpumps are amazing. (Seasonal heat storage is also a thing, Espoo's neighbours have tens of GWh of storage, with a new 90 GWh cavern in the works. Not sure if the systems are interlinked.)
- hiAndrewQuinn 4mo ago
  Don't forget XTX Markets in Kajaani! At least last I heard. Free heating for an entire city in exchange for being allowed to build out a data center is a pretty good deal.
  - lrasinen 4mo ago
    Nice! Apparently the local supercomputer cluster in Kajaani has also been hooked up in 2021 and is responsible for a fifth of heating.
badpun 4mo ago
European cities are doing it already.
- marcus_holmes 4mo ago
  Blew my mind living in a Berlin apartment, that the heating & hot water was managed centrally for the entire block (not the apartment block, the whole city block). Too used to Anglo cities where everyone does for themselves.
  - dzhiurgis 4mo ago
    My parents city in eastern Europe just recently switched from burning russian oil to biomass. Even then prices are constantly increasing while converting entire building to heat pump would drop prices by half. However it’s near impossible due to bureaucracy.
  - PunchyHamster 4mo ago
    It makes a lot of sense when there is waste heat. But in places where there isn't, having per house or per apartment block heating unit is preferable because you cut on transmission losses and infrastructure cost
    - marcus_holmes 4mo ago
      As I understand it, it's about economies of scale. It's cheaper to heat enough for the whole block in one big unit than it is to have a couple dozen smaller unit doing their own heating. I haven't really studied it. I'm sure the Germans have, efficiency is a whole cultural value with them ;)
    - kukkamario 4mo ago
      It still makes sense. If heat is produced by a burning something, it is is more efficient to do that in one dedicated place. It makes it easier to pipe exhaust away from apartments and efficiency can be higher. Also gas pipes to every home isn't a thing in many countries.
    - 4mo ago
uberex 4mo ago
45 is the cool temp so they could send the community a higher temp water to their heat exchanger? Then 45 or below is sent back on the return.
- matt-p 4mo ago
  Yes, but the heat will still likely need boosting by about a further 10 degrees either at the source or end user. DC inlet is 45°C, outlet is 55°C assuming a 10°C ΔT. By the time that's travelled 500m–1km through pipework you've lost a few degrees, so you're arriving at the HIU at maybe 50–52°C. The home radiator circuit then takes that down by around say 12°C, returning ~38°C. Factor in pipe losses on the return leg and you're back at the data centre with maybe 35°C inlet rather than 45°C — meaning the DC output is now only 45°C rather than 55°C, and the whole system gradually degrades each cycle. You could address this by mixing some hot output back into the return to keep the DC inlet stable at 45°C, but eh.
  - superluserdo 4mo ago
    >Factor in pipe losses on the return leg and you're back at the data centre with maybe 35°C inlet rather than 45°C Surely having the input fluid being colder is a benefit, not a problem? Just run the fluid more slowly through the system?
    - matt-p 4mo ago
      In essence you can't really because slower flow rate makes the heat transfer less efficient. You'd be halfing the flow rate in that example.
      - gooseh 4mo ago
        But a larger delta-T makes it more efficient?
        matt-p 4mo ago
        [dead]
shagie 4mo ago
Of old... https://web.archive.org/web/20210115152829/https://www.nrel.gov/hpc/cool.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210115152829/https://www.nrel.... It's got a "heat energy to/from campus" exchange in there. That's a link in March and the air temperature was 31°F. https://web.archive.org/web/20210708150410/https://www.nrel.gov/hpc/cool.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210708150410/https://www.nrel.... is later with air temperature of 68°F.
- w4der 4mo ago
  The diagram you shared has an open loop chiller, are those still needed as a backup?
  - shagie 4mo ago
    Possibly. I was trying to find one with capture in the summer or early fall when it was a lot warmer out. https://web.archive.org/web/20210708150410/https://www.nrel.gov/hpc/cool.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210708150410/https://www.nrel.... The thermosyphon took it from 90.2°F to 70.8°F ... and then it went to the counterflow cooling towers which took it from 69.8°F to 64.8°F. If that thermosyphon did the majority of the work and there's not too much more in the cooling towers... and that was only rejecting 375kW of heat through evaporation. Note one of the parameters with it in the dashboard: dry bulb temperature. https://web.archive.org/web/20251207023030/https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73644.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20251207023030/https://docs.nrel... for more info on the thermosyphon. I'm disappointed that the dashboard isn't available anymore. It was rather neat to look at. Some older articles about it: https://www.nlr.gov/news/detail/program/2023/a-decade-of-greener-computing-blooms-inside-nrels-data-center https://www.nlr.gov/news/detail/program/2023/a-decade-of-gre... https://www.nlr.gov/computational-science/data-center-cooling-system https://www.nlr.gov/computational-science/data-center-coolin... (click through these) When possible, heat energy from the energy recovery loop is transferred to the building process hot water loop, which provides heat for the office and laboratory spaces within the building. The energy recovery heat exchanger (6) transfers heat from the ERW loop to the process hot water loop. After re-use potential is exhausted, warm ERW water flows to the fourth floor mechanical room. When temperatures permit, heat is dissipated through a thermosyphon (7), which is an advanced dry cooler that uses refrigerant in a passive cycle to dissipate heat. Remaining heat is transferred from the ERW loop to a tower water open loop via the cooling tower heat exchanger (8). Cooling towers (9) cool the tower water loop by cascading that water across fill material while drawing ambient air across the fill material. This provides a very energy-efficient way to cool water with sensible (heat dissipated to air without evaporation) and latent (heat dissipated with evaporation) heat transfer. However, this evaporative cooling process requires a continuous source of water. --- https://www.nlr.gov/computational-science/reducing-water-usage https://www.nlr.gov/computational-science/reducing-water-usa... In August 2016, a prototype thermosyphon cooler—an advanced dry cooler that uses refrigerant in a passive cycle to dissipate heat—was installed. The thermosyphon was placed upstream of the HPC Data Center cooling towers at the ESIF to create a hybrid cooling system. The system coordinates the operation for optimum water and operating cost efficiency—using wet cooling when it's hot and dry cooling when it's not.
SkyPuncher 4mo ago
Heat pumps can effectively bring that temp up higher. The problem is really how much energy is actually available.
normie3000 4mo ago
What's the problem with skylights?
- MobiusHorizons 4mo ago
  Windows are harder to insulate than walls anyway, but the most important insulation is in the roof because heat rises, so skylights would leak even more heat than normal windows already do.
  - bbor 4mo ago
    Your logic is solid, but their usage kinda implies the opposite (that skylights would make summers worse, not winters). That seems possible given the obvious dynamics of increasing the amount of direct sunlight, but based on a quick Kagi the overall effect is actually good for both summer and winter if used instead of windows rather than in addition to windows: Introducing skylights allows the total fenestration area (windows plus skylights) to be reduced from a maximum 20% of floor area to as low as 12% of floor area while achieving the same baseline average daylight factor target of 5%, and reduces annual heating and cooling energy use and costs in all but two of the 108 models with skylights analyzed. In other words, when different combinations of skylights and windows are used to achieve the same target daylight factor, the heating and cooling energy cost savings are almost always greater when equivalent daylight comes from top‐lighting (skylights) rather than side‐lighting (windows). https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/asset/document/VELUX%20America%20-%202012%20Energy%20Impact%20Report.pdf https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/asset/documen...
    - normie3000 4mo ago
      Probably less good if you want to enjoy the view horizontally.
      - BenjiWiebe 4mo ago
        Cameras and screens. /s mostly
one33seven 4mo ago
The value of an AI data center in your area is negative, not near zero. Pollution, water use, heat, infrasound (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo) and so much more... But at least we may get some cheap heat in the future
- bbor 4mo ago
  Heat is not a cost -- no one is physically cooking because they live within miles of a building with computers in it. Water usage is not a cost with this new technology -- that is what the article is about. Infrasound is terrifically understudied and should not be discussed definitively based on the findings of a highly-biased amateur, but regardless: fan sound is not a cost with this new technology -- that is what the article is about. Re:pollution, I suppose all buildings are kinda inherently polluting just by existing. So you've got them on that point! Most importantly, actually: the person above clearly knows about all this, and was just discussing the benefits on their own. I love me some pedantry (really!) but this attempt seems counterproductive, sorry.
  - sysguest 4mo ago
    > Heat is not a cost hmm? maybe it differs from time to time? on summer, it IS cost (nearby need to run AC)
    - one33seven 4mo ago
      also ecological and medical problems
- JimDabell 4mo ago
  That infrasound video is nonsense: https://blog.andymasley.com/p/contra-benn-jordan-data-center-and https://blog.andymasley.com/p/contra-benn-jordan-data-center...
eru 4mo ago
> This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. You are not wrong, but the whole issue is a bit silly: there should be legal ways for data centres (and other commercial operations) to just send a few million dollars a year to whichever community they need to convince; instead of having to dress it up as free heating.
- chii 4mo ago
  the datacenter doesn't have a few million dollars to spare. The heat is waste heat. If it cannot be recovered as a profitable source of energy, the datacenter won't be able to pay that few million dollars.
  - mschuster91 4mo ago
    Recovery isn't the issue, the issue is that district heating systems are pretty much a rarity across the world for a number of reasons. Recovering waste heat - no matter if from datacenters, industrial processes or eve wastewater/sewage - is trivial, but getting the heat to somewhere it still can have a productive "secondary usage" is a massive and expensive problem.
    - eru 4mo ago
      Yes. There's eg combined power plants that use waste heat from power plants to heat houses. The problem is that this tends to make the power plants less efficient at electricity generation. So this waste heat recycling should only be done where and when it makes sense. (But that's pretty easy: absent any legal requirements, the involved parties have all the right incentives already. It's all internalised between the parties.)
      - mschuster91 4mo ago
        > The problem is that this tends to make the power plants less efficient at electricity generation. Huh what? Never heard of that one before. > absent any legal requirements, the involved parties have all the right incentives already Well... that's the problem, they don't. Sure, datacenter operators could go and offer to install district heating, waste heat recyclers and whatnot, and it would likely be profitable. But, and here it gets annoying, it's not profitable enough.
guyomes 4mo ago
The data centers can also be used to heat swimming pools [1]. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64939558 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64939558
- annagio_ 4mo ago
  Can we also make a jaccuzi? with bubbles? that would be funny.
spockz 4mo ago
In the Netherlands we are already transporting “waste energy” in the form of heat to greenhouses to warm them in winter. Also interesting that the article states that this engineering problem hadn’t been solved before. Google pioneered running chips hotter than before. Moreover, we have had water cooling in consumer setups for ages. (At least 30 years.) So what is new is that all chips have been attached to the loop. I couldn’t find what they did with PSU though.
- ACCount37 4mo ago
  High end server PSUs also have liquid cooling now. I'm not quite sure of what temp ranges they run in though.
  - spockz 4mo ago
    Apparently SuperMicro also has an existing solution. They are stating very similar numbers: https://www.supermicro.com/en/solutions/liquid-cooling https://www.supermicro.com/en/solutions/liquid-cooling
- whateverboat 4mo ago
  I think Nvidia are being a little disingenuous here. If I understand correctly, Bull/Eviden has already solved this problem and is in production in JUPITER.
  - kergonath 4mo ago
    If I am not mistaken, Bull's warm water cooling requires water at ~30°C, so 45°C is still an improvement.
PunchyHamster 4mo ago
> 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, *55C is on the output, read article first pls Main problem is that it wouldn't work with buildings designed for higher heating temperature so it is limited to new builds. And it is not limited just to replacing heaters, hot water system is also designed to work with higher temperatures so heat exchanger used would have to be significantly larger Another one is that load is not constant on both sides and not exactly something that can be increased on demand (unless you're fine with burning cycles just to electrically heat, but that's massively inefficient)
- mschuster91 4mo ago
  > Main problem is that it wouldn't work with buildings designed for higher heating temperature so it is limited to new builds. That's no longer the case with modern, multi-stage high temperature heat pumps [1]. These consume more electricity, yes, but still achieve far better efficiency than straight burning fuel or resistive heaters. [1] https://www.buderus.de/de/waermepumpe/hochtemperatur https://www.buderus.de/de/waermepumpe/hochtemperatur
  - PunchyHamster 4mo ago
    I guess technically you could put heat pump at destination but that significantly eats into "free heat" part
    - kukkamario 4mo ago
      And that is why existing installations put the heat pump to production side and then just pipe the high temperature water to district heating network.
helsinkiandrew 4mo ago
In Finland the datacentre heat is boosted to 60–90°C for district heating (new builds tend to use heat pumps) [1] A 75-MW data center in Mäntsälä has provided 2/3 of the heat for the town (2,500 homes) for a decade [2] 1. https://www.creatingsustainablecities.org.uk/post/case-study-how-finland-is-turning-excess-heat-from-data-centres-into-neighbourhood-heating-programm https://www.creatingsustainablecities.org.uk/post/case-study... 2. https://www.sustainabilitymenews.com/waste-management/how-finland-is-turning-data-centres-into-urban-heat-engines https://www.sustainabilitymenews.com/waste-management/how-fi...
abc123abc123 4mo ago
Already done and in use in the nordics. Most likely in most dc:s in the northern hemisphere with cold winters.
tmaly 4mo ago
It would be interesting if we had a way to turn heat into stored energy like a type of capacitor.

by amluto 4mo ago

ramon156 4mo ago

Do you live near a datacenter? Property value goes down, constant humming.. the way we heat up the earth right now, i don't think you have to worry about heating

rokkamokka 4mo ago
Couldn't imagine living with the ~55dBA noise literally all the time
skybrian 4mo ago
It sounds like with this liquid cooling, they won’t need the fans?
- michaelt 4mo ago
  Some systems use liquid cooling for the GPU and CPU, but air cooling for the PSU, RAM and SSDs. With that said, by the standards of industrial sites data centres are quiet, low traffic and smell free. An industrial area that can’t build a data centre certainly can’t build a steelworks or oil refinery or leather tannery.
- zie 4mo ago
  They almost certainly need fans on the outside of the building to cool the 55C water back down to 45C. But correct, no fans on the servers themselves or even in the building. Except perhaps for the humans, so they can stand to work inside the building, when needed.
- energy123 4mo ago
  The humming are the gas turbines which also damages your health.
- stubish 4mo ago
  If the outdoor temperature is cool enough (maybe 30C?), you just pipe the liquid outside through a large enough loop or heat exchanger to get it back down to under 45C. Even better if you can put the loop in a lake and dump the heat there (maybe not better from an ecological POV though). The pumps moving all that liquid becomes the noisiest component.
xattt 4mo ago
Noise is a design choice and could likely be legislated away. Reject heat is different than heating from greenhouse gas effects that are “heating the planet”. No one bats an eye when an air conditioner runs.
- dgellow 4mo ago
  > No one bats an eye when an air conditioner runs. In the US
  - xattt 4mo ago
    Now do heat pumps in the winter.
- bethekidyouwant 4mo ago
  Data centres aren’t loud it’s the gas power generating stations next to them that are loud.
- Marsymars 4mo ago
  > No one bats an eye when an air conditioner runs. I find their noise pretty obnoxious. Out of respect for my neighbours, when I get around to installing one, I'll be getting the absolute quietest model available.
amluto 4mo ago
I’ve been to datacenters, but not the huuuge ones people seem to talk about in the context of AI. They are noisy inside (due to air cooling, which is largely avoided by the tech in the OP), but they’re entirely unremarkable outside compared to any other commercial or industrial building. Computers are not inherently loud, nor is power conversion. Power plants are all over, even in populated areas. They’re not so bad either (except perhaps coal). There is no fundamental reason that datacenters need to be especially unpleasant to their neighbors.
- wolvoleo 4mo ago
  It depends a lot on things like geology and some people are a lot more sensitive. It is really an issue. I don't have any datacenters near me but I can hear some heavy hums from the washing machine 3 floors up when it put my head on my pillow, for some reason it just propagates through the building physically. When I walk around I don't hear it. Datacenter noise can be the same. IMO they should be put away from habitation, there's no reason for them to be near there anyway
  - thewebguyd 4mo ago
    > IMO they should be put away from habitation, there's no reason for them to be near there anyway I agree, but that's a hard problem (in the US anyway). Unless you're plopping data centers in the middle of national parks, or in the middle of the desert where water is going to be a problem, you are nearly always going to be within some small mile radius of civilization. Plus the cost of trenching new fiber out in the middle of nowhere. The same reasons humans want to concentrate in a particular area (access to jobs, infrastructure) are the same things that data centers need. Once water-less cooling tech like this improves then yeah, just plopping them in the middle of the unpopulated desert becomes viable (assuming you can get the fiber out there and latency is tolerable), so long as they generate their own power.
    - dgoldstein0 4mo ago
      The climate requirements to run at this hotter temperature still probably means it'll require more active cooling in the desert during daytime /summers. Assuming we're talking about hotter desert environments like US southwest. That might make your proposal not as economical. Imo we should just solve the problems with data centers being near cities. Manage/regulate the noise and any waste (heat included, it shouldn't drastically impact the neighbors) and make them pay for any utility capacity/reliability upgrades needed. If this article is right and water usage can be nearly eliminated then it seems like the rest should be solvable? Especially if we can take the extra heat and use it for local power or heating needs.
tucnak 4mo ago
> the way we heat up the earth right now, i don't think you have to worry about heating So what, winters would be no more? Snow will disappear, no more ice-men and christmas trees, and subzero conditions in general, too?
- reaperducer 4mo ago
  And no more food. Or at least not enough of it to feed very many people. You do eat, don't you?
  - SamPatt 4mo ago
    As the earth has warmed over the last century, has food production increased or decreased? If production increased (dramatically) while temperatures increased in the past, could this trend continue?
  - tucnak 4mo ago
    Christmas food?
abc42 4mo ago
Coldest month average temperature where I live is around -7C, with peaks of -35C. Climate change is not going to increase that average, more like decrease. Typically, of course, electricity price is the highest during that month too. I think we are going to need heating.
joe_mamba 4mo ago
>Do you live near a datacenter? Property value goes down, constant humming I don't live next to one but I'd take constant humming over the constant stop/go traffic noise, honking, squeaky brakes, slamming doors and revving engines I now have on my western side of the apartment, thanks to the unemployment office the city opened on my street not too long ago. So how come constant humming is somehow an illegal nuisance, but we've been expected to put up with the much more annoying urban traffic noise for decades just fine? My parents apartment have constant humming anyway thanks to the HVAC system on the roof of the nearby supermarket and white/brown noise is far more tolerable and easy to tune out than traffic noises.
- energy123 4mo ago
  More noise categories should be illegal or fined in dense areas, not less
  - joe_mamba 4mo ago
    Agree, but data centers are no inside dense areas though.
    - energy123 4mo ago
      They're being built in the US next to people's houses with gas turbines https://xcancel.com/BrianEntin/status/2067930868191035474?s=20 https://xcancel.com/BrianEntin/status/2067930868191035474?s=...
      - joe_mamba 4mo ago
        To me that only makes clear that gas turbines are the noise issues, no data centers. Surely there exists data centers that work off the main power grid and don't have a natural gas turbine as their own power source.
- drnick1 4mo ago
  > we've been expected to put up with the much more annoying urban traffic noise for decades just fine? For one, there tends to be little traffic at night when most people want quiet in order to sleep. Driving is also something (nearly) everyone does and benefits directly from, so negative externalities are easier to accept. It is much harder to accept a new source of noise near your home you haven't asked for and don't directly benefit from.
arjie 4mo ago
Do you? I live at 4th and Brannan and there was one just off 3rd and Brannan in San Francisco. It was shut down when hosting.com sold it off but I didn't notice it while walking by then and I don't notice it while walking by now. My GPUs at Hurricane Electric in Fremont are also completely unnoticeable outside the building. Inside, when I'm working at the cabinets it's obviously deafening. Outside you wouldn't even know. Realistically, the predominant sounds at my home are from the traffic on the Bay Bridge so it's nice when there's congestion because it's quiet. Honestly, I wish there were more urban datacenters. It's getting quite annoying having to make a 1 hr trek to Fremont every time I want to rack a new server.
- toast0 4mo ago
  > Honestly, I wish there were more urban datacenters. There's a lot of them in high rise buildings... but they come with high rise rent.
  - arjie 4mo ago
    Imagine if one of the amenities in a high-end residential building could be a cabinet haha! That would be amazing. Doesn't make economic sense, but I'd love it. Would love to explain that to my wife. "I know that one has the pool, but we can rack my servers in this one if we live there".
    - jrnichols 4mo ago
      Something here about water usage, a small data center, and a swimming pool. Combining the three may either be awesome or tragic! I like this idea. A small cage in an apartment complex would be a huge selling point. Or even a La La Land on the corner, urban DC in the back. Winning across the board.
      - jmalicki 4mo ago
        > water usage, a small data center, and a swimming pool Swimming pool? The cooling can be for a hot tub!
SamPatt 4mo ago
>the way we heat up the earth right now, i don't think you have to worry about heating Nearly 10x more people die from the cold than from the heat. "...9.43% of global deaths were attributable to non-optimal temperatures, with 8.52% from cold and 0.91% from heat." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196%2821%2900081-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...
- ryan_lane 4mo ago
  This study doesn't factor in droughts, floods, crop death (and starvation), and other non-direct effects. It also doesn't consider wet-bulb events, because it's looking at average ambient temperatures. I don't think this is climate change propaganda, but your application of this study by evoking it in a discussion about climate change feels like it.
  - SamPatt 4mo ago
    Deaths from all natural disasters have dramatically decreased over the last century. I won't bother sharing the source because you'll find some reason to dismiss it I'm sure. It's interesting you claim my comment is propaganda when I cite a scientific source and yet have nothing to say about the parent comment which claims we no longer need to worry about heating due to climate change. Which of those comments seems more propagandistic?
    - ryan_lane 4mo ago
      > no longer need to worry about heating due to climate change I'm nearly positive that was sarcasm. > Deaths from all natural disasters have dramatically decreased over the last century. Because of our ability to predict them, and due to advances in scientific knowledge that allows us to more safely handle them. It's not because they've become less deadly. They're also becoming more frequent, and deaths alone isn't their only problem. They also drive loss of shelter, migrations, economic damage, etc. > you claim my comment is propaganda when I cite a scientific source Yes, plenty of science is propaganda. The study you cited wasn't propaganda, but the way in which you used it was, because it's not applicable to the way you're using it. Direct exposure to ambient heat is only one of the many issues related to climate change, and one of the least deadly. As I pointed out, the study didn't include wet bulb events, so even direct heat exposure wasn't properly covered in the study in terms of climate change.
annzabelle 4mo ago
I grew up in Northern Virginia, (of AWS US-East-1, MAE-East, and Equinix fame), where there are more data centers than anywhere else in the world, and I never heard organized opposition to them until the last couple of years. They were mainly viewed as a way for Loudoun County to build their industrial tax base without the downsides of having industrial workers, and allowed them to consistently lower property taxes while having excellent schools. Data centers are unsightly and use electricity and water, but so does literally any kind of industrial facility. They are also pretty quiet, if you exclude the ones using on site gas turbines for electricity. Property values have consistently gone up in that region for decades, and are up to $6 million an acre if there's enough contiguous land to put another data center on. Many of the people complaining about datacenters would also complain about literally any kind of development.
- majormajor 4mo ago
  The new gen of AI-boom-construction datacenters seem to be substantially different than the ones I used to go when working at companies whose software ran inside them. Those were running air-cooled rack servers, which is a whole different world from these things. The couple of the new gen I've seen have been much larger and much more turbine-happy.
- juneyi 4mo ago
  i'm confused on the humming part, i've driven by them many times and they're just...large, sorta ugly, buildings. but that's really it. i wonder if i walked up to a building i'd hear the humming. quite surprised to learn that they emit a humming that bothers nearby folks
  - audunw 4mo ago
    Maybe those complaints are for datacenters using gas turbines for power. I think some of the recent ones (xAIs?) was built without sufficient power from the grid.
    - mukbangpervert 4mo ago

lrasinen 4mo ago

Microsoft's already building data centers hooked up to district heating (Espoo and Kirkkonummi, Finland). Heatpumps are amazing. (Seasonal heat storage is also a thing, Espoo's neighbours have tens of GWh of storage, with a new 90 GWh cavern in the works. Not sure if the systems are interlinked.)

hiAndrewQuinn 4mo ago
Don't forget XTX Markets in Kajaani! At least last I heard. Free heating for an entire city in exchange for being allowed to build out a data center is a pretty good deal.
- lrasinen 4mo ago
  Nice! Apparently the local supercomputer cluster in Kajaani has also been hooked up in 2021 and is responsible for a fifth of heating.

badpun 4mo ago

European cities are doing it already.

marcus_holmes 4mo ago
Blew my mind living in a Berlin apartment, that the heating & hot water was managed centrally for the entire block (not the apartment block, the whole city block). Too used to Anglo cities where everyone does for themselves.
- dzhiurgis 4mo ago
  My parents city in eastern Europe just recently switched from burning russian oil to biomass. Even then prices are constantly increasing while converting entire building to heat pump would drop prices by half. However it’s near impossible due to bureaucracy.
- PunchyHamster 4mo ago
  It makes a lot of sense when there is waste heat. But in places where there isn't, having per house or per apartment block heating unit is preferable because you cut on transmission losses and infrastructure cost
  - marcus_holmes 4mo ago
    As I understand it, it's about economies of scale. It's cheaper to heat enough for the whole block in one big unit than it is to have a couple dozen smaller unit doing their own heating. I haven't really studied it. I'm sure the Germans have, efficiency is a whole cultural value with them ;)
  - kukkamario 4mo ago
    It still makes sense. If heat is produced by a burning something, it is is more efficient to do that in one dedicated place. It makes it easier to pipe exhaust away from apartments and efficiency can be higher. Also gas pipes to every home isn't a thing in many countries.
  - 4mo ago

uberex 4mo ago

45 is the cool temp so they could send the community a higher temp water to their heat exchanger? Then 45 or below is sent back on the return.

matt-p 4mo ago
Yes, but the heat will still likely need boosting by about a further 10 degrees either at the source or end user. DC inlet is 45°C, outlet is 55°C assuming a 10°C ΔT. By the time that's travelled 500m–1km through pipework you've lost a few degrees, so you're arriving at the HIU at maybe 50–52°C. The home radiator circuit then takes that down by around say 12°C, returning ~38°C. Factor in pipe losses on the return leg and you're back at the data centre with maybe 35°C inlet rather than 45°C — meaning the DC output is now only 45°C rather than 55°C, and the whole system gradually degrades each cycle. You could address this by mixing some hot output back into the return to keep the DC inlet stable at 45°C, but eh.
- superluserdo 4mo ago
  >Factor in pipe losses on the return leg and you're back at the data centre with maybe 35°C inlet rather than 45°C Surely having the input fluid being colder is a benefit, not a problem? Just run the fluid more slowly through the system?
  - matt-p 4mo ago
    In essence you can't really because slower flow rate makes the heat transfer less efficient. You'd be halfing the flow rate in that example.
    - gooseh 4mo ago
      But a larger delta-T makes it more efficient?
      - matt-p 4mo ago
        [dead]

shagie 4mo ago

Of old... https://web.archive.org/web/20210115152829/https://www.nrel.gov/hpc/cool.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210115152829/https://www.nrel.... It's got a "heat energy to/from campus" exchange in there. That's a link in March and the air temperature was 31°F. https://web.archive.org/web/20210708150410/https://www.nrel.gov/hpc/cool.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210708150410/https://www.nrel.... is later with air temperature of 68°F.

w4der 4mo ago
The diagram you shared has an open loop chiller, are those still needed as a backup?
- shagie 4mo ago
  Possibly. I was trying to find one with capture in the summer or early fall when it was a lot warmer out. https://web.archive.org/web/20210708150410/https://www.nrel.gov/hpc/cool.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210708150410/https://www.nrel.... The thermosyphon took it from 90.2°F to 70.8°F ... and then it went to the counterflow cooling towers which took it from 69.8°F to 64.8°F. If that thermosyphon did the majority of the work and there's not too much more in the cooling towers... and that was only rejecting 375kW of heat through evaporation. Note one of the parameters with it in the dashboard: dry bulb temperature. https://web.archive.org/web/20251207023030/https://docs.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73644.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20251207023030/https://docs.nrel... for more info on the thermosyphon. I'm disappointed that the dashboard isn't available anymore. It was rather neat to look at. Some older articles about it: https://www.nlr.gov/news/detail/program/2023/a-decade-of-greener-computing-blooms-inside-nrels-data-center https://www.nlr.gov/news/detail/program/2023/a-decade-of-gre... https://www.nlr.gov/computational-science/data-center-cooling-system https://www.nlr.gov/computational-science/data-center-coolin... (click through these) When possible, heat energy from the energy recovery loop is transferred to the building process hot water loop, which provides heat for the office and laboratory spaces within the building. The energy recovery heat exchanger (6) transfers heat from the ERW loop to the process hot water loop. After re-use potential is exhausted, warm ERW water flows to the fourth floor mechanical room. When temperatures permit, heat is dissipated through a thermosyphon (7), which is an advanced dry cooler that uses refrigerant in a passive cycle to dissipate heat. Remaining heat is transferred from the ERW loop to a tower water open loop via the cooling tower heat exchanger (8). Cooling towers (9) cool the tower water loop by cascading that water across fill material while drawing ambient air across the fill material. This provides a very energy-efficient way to cool water with sensible (heat dissipated to air without evaporation) and latent (heat dissipated with evaporation) heat transfer. However, this evaporative cooling process requires a continuous source of water. --- https://www.nlr.gov/computational-science/reducing-water-usage https://www.nlr.gov/computational-science/reducing-water-usa... In August 2016, a prototype thermosyphon cooler—an advanced dry cooler that uses refrigerant in a passive cycle to dissipate heat—was installed. The thermosyphon was placed upstream of the HPC Data Center cooling towers at the ESIF to create a hybrid cooling system. The system coordinates the operation for optimum water and operating cost efficiency—using wet cooling when it's hot and dry cooling when it's not.

SkyPuncher 4mo ago

Heat pumps can effectively bring that temp up higher. The problem is really how much energy is actually available.

normie3000 4mo ago

What's the problem with skylights?

MobiusHorizons 4mo ago
Windows are harder to insulate than walls anyway, but the most important insulation is in the roof because heat rises, so skylights would leak even more heat than normal windows already do.
- bbor 4mo ago
  Your logic is solid, but their usage kinda implies the opposite (that skylights would make summers worse, not winters). That seems possible given the obvious dynamics of increasing the amount of direct sunlight, but based on a quick Kagi the overall effect is actually good for both summer and winter if used instead of windows rather than in addition to windows: Introducing skylights allows the total fenestration area (windows plus skylights) to be reduced from a maximum 20% of floor area to as low as 12% of floor area while achieving the same baseline average daylight factor target of 5%, and reduces annual heating and cooling energy use and costs in all but two of the 108 models with skylights analyzed. In other words, when different combinations of skylights and windows are used to achieve the same target daylight factor, the heating and cooling energy cost savings are almost always greater when equivalent daylight comes from top‐lighting (skylights) rather than side‐lighting (windows). https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/asset/document/VELUX%20America%20-%202012%20Energy%20Impact%20Report.pdf https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/asset/documen...
  - normie3000 4mo ago
    Probably less good if you want to enjoy the view horizontally.
    - BenjiWiebe 4mo ago
      Cameras and screens. /s mostly

one33seven 4mo ago

The value of an AI data center in your area is negative, not near zero. Pollution, water use, heat, infrasound (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo) and so much more... But at least we may get some cheap heat in the future

bbor 4mo ago
Heat is not a cost -- no one is physically cooking because they live within miles of a building with computers in it. Water usage is not a cost with this new technology -- that is what the article is about. Infrasound is terrifically understudied and should not be discussed definitively based on the findings of a highly-biased amateur, but regardless: fan sound is not a cost with this new technology -- that is what the article is about. Re:pollution, I suppose all buildings are kinda inherently polluting just by existing. So you've got them on that point! Most importantly, actually: the person above clearly knows about all this, and was just discussing the benefits on their own. I love me some pedantry (really!) but this attempt seems counterproductive, sorry.
- sysguest 4mo ago
  > Heat is not a cost hmm? maybe it differs from time to time? on summer, it IS cost (nearby need to run AC)
  - one33seven 4mo ago
    also ecological and medical problems
JimDabell 4mo ago
That infrasound video is nonsense: https://blog.andymasley.com/p/contra-benn-jordan-data-center-and https://blog.andymasley.com/p/contra-benn-jordan-data-center...

eru 4mo ago

> This brings the value to the local community of a nearby datacenter up from near zero to potentially a few million dollars per year. You are not wrong, but the whole issue is a bit silly: there should be legal ways for data centres (and other commercial operations) to just send a few million dollars a year to whichever community they need to convince; instead of having to dress it up as free heating.

chii 4mo ago
the datacenter doesn't have a few million dollars to spare. The heat is waste heat. If it cannot be recovered as a profitable source of energy, the datacenter won't be able to pay that few million dollars.
- mschuster91 4mo ago
  Recovery isn't the issue, the issue is that district heating systems are pretty much a rarity across the world for a number of reasons. Recovering waste heat - no matter if from datacenters, industrial processes or eve wastewater/sewage - is trivial, but getting the heat to somewhere it still can have a productive "secondary usage" is a massive and expensive problem.
  - eru 4mo ago
    Yes. There's eg combined power plants that use waste heat from power plants to heat houses. The problem is that this tends to make the power plants less efficient at electricity generation. So this waste heat recycling should only be done where and when it makes sense. (But that's pretty easy: absent any legal requirements, the involved parties have all the right incentives already. It's all internalised between the parties.)
    - mschuster91 4mo ago
      > The problem is that this tends to make the power plants less efficient at electricity generation. Huh what? Never heard of that one before. > absent any legal requirements, the involved parties have all the right incentives already Well... that's the problem, they don't. Sure, datacenter operators could go and offer to install district heating, waste heat recyclers and whatnot, and it would likely be profitable. But, and here it gets annoying, it's not profitable enough.

guyomes 4mo ago

The data centers can also be used to heat swimming pools [1]. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64939558 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64939558

annagio_ 4mo ago
Can we also make a jaccuzi? with bubbles? that would be funny.

spockz 4mo ago

In the Netherlands we are already transporting “waste energy” in the form of heat to greenhouses to warm them in winter. Also interesting that the article states that this engineering problem hadn’t been solved before. Google pioneered running chips hotter than before. Moreover, we have had water cooling in consumer setups for ages. (At least 30 years.) So what is new is that all chips have been attached to the loop. I couldn’t find what they did with PSU though.

ACCount37 4mo ago
High end server PSUs also have liquid cooling now. I'm not quite sure of what temp ranges they run in though.
- spockz 4mo ago
  Apparently SuperMicro also has an existing solution. They are stating very similar numbers: https://www.supermicro.com/en/solutions/liquid-cooling https://www.supermicro.com/en/solutions/liquid-cooling
whateverboat 4mo ago
I think Nvidia are being a little disingenuous here. If I understand correctly, Bull/Eviden has already solved this problem and is in production in JUPITER.
- kergonath 4mo ago
  If I am not mistaken, Bull's warm water cooling requires water at ~30°C, so 45°C is still an improvement.

PunchyHamster 4mo ago

> 45C is low but not unworkable for a district heating loop, *55C is on the output, read article first pls Main problem is that it wouldn't work with buildings designed for higher heating temperature so it is limited to new builds. And it is not limited just to replacing heaters, hot water system is also designed to work with higher temperatures so heat exchanger used would have to be significantly larger Another one is that load is not constant on both sides and not exactly something that can be increased on demand (unless you're fine with burning cycles just to electrically heat, but that's massively inefficient)

mschuster91 4mo ago
> Main problem is that it wouldn't work with buildings designed for higher heating temperature so it is limited to new builds. That's no longer the case with modern, multi-stage high temperature heat pumps [1]. These consume more electricity, yes, but still achieve far better efficiency than straight burning fuel or resistive heaters. [1] https://www.buderus.de/de/waermepumpe/hochtemperatur https://www.buderus.de/de/waermepumpe/hochtemperatur
- PunchyHamster 4mo ago
  I guess technically you could put heat pump at destination but that significantly eats into "free heat" part
  - kukkamario 4mo ago
    And that is why existing installations put the heat pump to production side and then just pipe the high temperature water to district heating network.

helsinkiandrew 4mo ago

In Finland the datacentre heat is boosted to 60–90°C for district heating (new builds tend to use heat pumps) [1] A 75-MW data center in Mäntsälä has provided 2/3 of the heat for the town (2,500 homes) for a decade [2] 1. https://www.creatingsustainablecities.org.uk/post/case-study-how-finland-is-turning-excess-heat-from-data-centres-into-neighbourhood-heating-programm https://www.creatingsustainablecities.org.uk/post/case-study... 2. https://www.sustainabilitymenews.com/waste-management/how-finland-is-turning-data-centres-into-urban-heat-engines https://www.sustainabilitymenews.com/waste-management/how-fi...

abc123abc123 4mo ago

Already done and in use in the nordics. Most likely in most dc:s in the northern hemisphere with cold winters.

tmaly 4mo ago

It would be interesting if we had a way to turn heat into stored energy like a type of capacitor.