3 ms·

There's a limit to that buffering ... and if they can vent outside in the Spring and Summer, wouldn't that be even more efficient in the Winter?

• DanBC 12y ago
  I've always found it odd that heat from servers is hot enough to be a problem but not hot enough to be useful. This scheme takes hot air and either gives it some use - heating a room - or dumps it. Burying pipes to get heat from the ground is quite popular. This is just a version of that. I'm not sure it's as bad as the "green washing" that many companies do.
  • TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
    It's at least useful as the input to a heat exchanger.
  • chrisseaton 12y ago
    > I've always found it odd that heat from servers is hot enough to be a problem but not hot enough to be useful. I've always wondered the same thing about cooling towers in power stations. Why are they cooling the water coming out of the plant? The whole point of the plant is to make it hot and then convert that to electricity - why on earth are they venting the energy like that? Apparently it's to do with cooling it fast enough to create a vacuum to draw through more water.
    • rhino369 12y ago
      The turbine works because there is a pressure gradient across it. The hot steam rushes faster if the other end is colder.