• WxFisch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    781·
    11 hours ago

    It evaporates, that’s how it cools. The water is sprayed over a heat exchanger and gets turned to essentially steam and then new water is pumped in and thus the water is “gone”. It will fall as rain somewhere but likely not near where it was taken from.

    A closed loop system could be used but they are more expensive and require more maintenance so large data centers don’t usually use them unless required to.

    • troybot@piefed.socialEnglish
      18·
      9 hours ago

      Ok so what you’re telling me is power plants generate electricity by burning fossil fuels which power a turbine with steam, then the data center uses all that electricity to produce even more steam?

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
      361·
      11 hours ago

      I am still learning. Thank you for your educational comment.

      I loathe AI anyways, I just wanna better understand why I loathe AI…

      • qupada@fedia.io
        11·
        10 hours ago

        Further to this, as well as the source of the water often being the local city’s drinking water supply (as we’ve found this puts a strain on that supply), evaporative cooling systems concentrate the minerals / contaminants in the water, meaning a smaller (relative to what is evaporated) of now highly-concentrated runoff water also has to be constantly disposed of. This likely is also going into the city’s wastewater systems.

        Radiators for closed-loop systems do also occupy more space (for the same cooling capacity) versus evaporative cooling towers, and are more limited in the range of climates they can be deployed in.

        On balance though, the closed-loop cooling should always be the first choice; if it works for the deployment it will never be the wrong choice on a long-term / total cost of ownership basis.