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‘Thirsty’ ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
(www.thetimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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Why does the article make it sound like cooling a data center results in constant water loss? Is this not a closed loop system?
I’m imagining a giant reservoir heat sink that runs throughout a complex to pull heat out of the surrounding environment where some liquid evaporates and needs to be replenished. But first of all we have more efficient liquid coolants, and second that would be a very lazy solution.
I wonder if they’ve considered geothermal for new data centers. You can run a geothermal loop in reverse and use the earth as a giant heat sink. It’s not water in the loop, it’s refrigerant, and it only needs to be replaced when you find the efficiency dropping, which can take decades.
Yes, the vast majority are closed loop systems and the water isn't really used up, like a lot of these headlines imply.
That's not to say the energy being used can't be put to better uses, though.
Not used up per se but sequestered. It's water that nobody will ever get to drink or use for crops, etc.
It is a closed loop, but the paper treats it as if it's an open loop, and counts all water use for the building, as well as all the water that went into creating any equipment used.... and the water that escapes power plants in powering the buildings.... it also includes any other buildings that might house related services. Here is the original "study" which is about what maths could be done given the above assumptions:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.03271
In short, it has nothing to do with reality, and is more just an attempt at the authors to get their names out there (on bad science that the media is interested in publicizing for click bait reasons).
Evaporative coolers save a ton of energy compared to refrigerator cycle closed loop systems. Like a swamp cooler, the hot liquid that comes from cooling the server is exposed to the atmosphere and enough evaporates off to cool the liquid by a decent percentage, then it's refrigerated before going back into the servers.
Data centre near me is using it and the fire service is used to be being called by people concerned the huge clouds of water vapor are smoke
You need something to move the heat away, like water or air. Having something solid that just absorbs will reach its heat capacity pretty quick.