Speaking of DCs, is there evidence that they are sucking up water? What about deteriorating air quality around the buildings? Could they be causing major environmental issues? It seems they mostly have closed loop systems a la CPU coolers and they consume a lot of electricity that's already been earmarked for them. What about air quality and air humidity?
I worked at Google datacenters for over a decade. It was a huge ordeal to request running generators because our entire ECS (environment control services) team was geared towards NOT having to run them. I know AWS and Microsoft both have a similar situation. The referenced article just seems like senseless fear mongering.
What research have you done so far? I assume you’re being downvoted because those questions are fairly easily answered, there is a lot of reports and data on DCs resource usage
There have been suggestions that the DC operators themselves have been astroturfing articles about water use to steer discussions away from the other issues.
The overwhelming, #1 issue should be the fossil fuel use. So maybe I can understand them promoting the water issue as a limited hangout (a sacrificial topic to act as a lightning rod to hide the other topic)
That sounds backwards to me. Fossil fuel use being the main issue is also mighty hypocritical for a society tarrifing cheap electric cars and solar panels.
Most data centers are closed-loop, like your air conditioner. Does your air conditioner use water?
Presumably there are some data centers that use water cooling. I think google and amazon's big ones do. But even then, they're not "polluting", they're using them as heat sinks.
There was a lame rolling stone article that claimed amazon was "polluting" in Eastern Oregon, but what Amazon was doing was taking brined water from an aquifer and putting more concentrated brined water back into the water table. Air conditioning doesn't really add brine, so even the premise is ridiculous. I know that article has been referenced a lot by the "Data Centers Pollute The Water" folks.
I'm not convinced that most DC use closed loop cooling. The recent discussions had a lot of water and power permitting topics.
Secondly drawing brine water from the aquifer to then putting the stronger brine back is essentially water consumption. I would also say it's externalising environmental cost of the stronger brine impact.
Yes, it does. As far as water is concerned, air conditioners are open loop. Air conditioners make water from condensation forming on the inside (cool) coils. Modern window air conditioners then splash that water on the outside hot coils, to benefit from evaporative cooling. I haven't looked into the details about data center water usage, but I would guess the cited usage is from evaporative cooling.
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Presumably there are some data centers that use water cooling. I think google and amazon's big ones do. But even then, they're not "polluting", they're using them as heat sinks.
There was a lame rolling stone article that claimed amazon was "polluting" in Eastern Oregon, but what Amazon was doing was taking brined water from an aquifer and putting more concentrated brined water back into the water table. Air conditioning doesn't really add brine, so even the premise is ridiculous. I know that article has been referenced a lot by the "Data Centers Pollute The Water" folks.
seb1204 · · focus · HN ↗
Secondly drawing brine water from the aquifer to then putting the stronger brine back is essentially water consumption. I would also say it's externalising environmental cost of the stronger brine impact.
mindslight · · focus · HN ↗
Yes, it does. As far as water is concerned, air conditioners are open loop. Air conditioners make water from condensation forming on the inside (cool) coils. Modern window air conditioners then splash that water on the outside hot coils, to benefit from evaporative cooling. I haven't looked into the details about data center water usage, but I would guess the cited usage is from evaporative cooling.