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.

This was the most comprehensive list I’ve seen about the negative aspects of LLM/datacentres use. Very informative.

https://lemmy.cafe/comment/16350045