2026-09-24 21:27 UTC
Put a straw in your hand.
Get a mouthful of ice cold water
Blow it through the straw out the other side.
Feel it cool your hand? See how its dispersed out to god knows the fuck where? Never returning in any significant volume to replenish the cup it was drawn from
Thats basically whats going on.
Billions of gallons of drinkable water, wasted because data centers didnt want to pay the extra cost for a closed loop cooling system. putting enormous strain on water systems that are already at or beyond their breaking points and are not able to replenish at even a fraction of the rate that they are being drained from.
Replies (1)
-
@boonhet@lemmy.zip 2026-09-25 07:04
It’s not an extra cent for a closed loop cooling system and your straw analogy is closer to closed loop in how it works. They use open loop because vaporising water takes a lot more energy than heating water. You get a lot of more cooled. The alternative is to run a ton more AC at lower efficiency since the hot side of the AC won’t be cooled fast enough. They’re doing it to use less electricity since electricity is expensive. In a way, it’s a good thing. Until you factor in droughts