What's maddening about all of this is that there is no need to use evaporative cooling, it's just the cheapest. And while it's expensive to retrofit an existing center, there are modern designs...
What's maddening about all of this is that there is no need to use evaporative cooling, it's just the cheapest. And while it's expensive to retrofit an existing center, there are modern designs that are functionally cost-neutral, so this waste in fragile ecosystems is even more abhorrent in its lack of care.
People arguing against the idea that data centers have a (comparatively or absolute) high water usage often say that. But I'm not sure what "these days" means. Newly planned centers? Center coming...
People arguing against the idea that data centers have a (comparatively or absolute) high water usage often say that. But I'm not sure what "these days" means. Newly planned centers? Center coming online now?
The articles I'm seeing regarding ones being actively built now and running now are talking about evaporative cooling being used, and pointing out when households are under water restrictions already. (They don't use as much as a golf course or some other industries but they're generally adding to a strained system in many places.)
The Andes mountains frame what was once a wetland – now a stretch of dry, yellowed grass. Rodrigo Vallejos, a final-year law student, noticed the change five years ago while observing the Quilicura wetland, on the northern outskirts of Santiago. One of Chile’s largest swamps, spanning 468.4 hectares (about 1,200 acres) and partially protected, was drying up right before his eyes.
What's maddening about all of this is that there is no need to use evaporative cooling, it's just the cheapest. And while it's expensive to retrofit an existing center, there are modern designs that are functionally cost-neutral, so this waste in fragile ecosystems is even more abhorrent in its lack of care.
I thought they mostly used a closed loop system these days.
People arguing against the idea that data centers have a (comparatively or absolute) high water usage often say that. But I'm not sure what "these days" means. Newly planned centers? Center coming online now?
The articles I'm seeing regarding ones being actively built now and running now are talking about evaporative cooling being used, and pointing out when households are under water restrictions already. (They don't use as much as a golf course or some other industries but they're generally adding to a strained system in many places.)