• Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    50
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    These data centers consume water for cooling systems

    How does a data center consume water? Doesn’t every liter that enters as freshwater leave as slightly warmer freshwater? What am I missing here?

    • gus@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Swamp coolers.

      Fans blow over water to lower the pressure, causing evaporation to occur at room temperature.

      Evaporating water absorbs heat from its surroundings without raising the water’s temperature as it undergoes a phase change. It absorbs nearly 20 times more heat than it would from being heated from 50 degrees F to 100 degrees.

    • 4am@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      3 years ago

      Aquafers do not refill as quickly as industry sucks them dry. It’s not just a Bitcoin or even a cloud computing problem, but the author is using this fact to make Bitcoin look even more ridiculous.