They use evaporative cooling because it's the cheapest way to vent the heat. Make it more expensive, and other cooling methods become more attractive - or better yet, innovation is incentivized. Government reluctance to tax and regulate hurts the market and the people. Unfortunately, it's business as usual.
Notice you have to cool both in the power plant and the DC. And these DCs run up to a GW or more.
Closed loop cooling isn't that hard, just sone extra plumbing, pumps and fans.
IBM does 60 deg C watercooling which can be not a lot of thermal delta in nonarctic environments. It's a lot of km of infrastructure to vent directly if you want to dissipate a nuclear reactor's worth of power in a single site.
I don't see why cold side water temp isn't near room temperature.
We have moved to https://lemm.ee/c/collapse -- please adjust your subscriptions
This is the place for discussing the potential collapse of modern civilization and the environment.
Collapse, in this context, refers to the significant loss of an established level or complexity towards a much simpler state. It can occur differently within many areas, orderly or chaotically, and be willing or unwilling. It does not necessarily imply human extinction or a singular, global event. Although, the longer the duration, the more it resembles a ‘decline’ instead of collapse.
RULES
1 - Remember the human
2 - Link posts should come from a reputable source
3 - All opinions are allowed but discussion must be in good faith.
4 - No low effort posts.
Related lemmys: