Datacenter cooling uses so much water because it is

[brewsterkahle@mastodon.archive.org]

Datacenter cooling uses so much water because it is

"evaporative cooling"-- it is actually boiling water. transition water to steam takes energy-- energy from the machines.

This can use up alot of fresh water (it is), or...

it could desalinate water at a huge scale. boiling seawater allows fresh water to be separated from salt.

so we could have datacenters boil seawater to create fresh water to water plants.

why not? (am I wrong about this?)

1/2

[brewsterkahle@mastodon.archive.org]

2/2

1GWh = would take 1.7M Liters of water = 85 water trucks. ok, that is alot of trucks, but it is also alot of groundwater. so worth it?

maybe a pipeline from the sea. maybe build midcoast california-- dry but next to the sea. and we could use the fresh water for farming.

[jamesmarshall@sfba.social]

@brewsterkahle very interesting. 🤔 You might not be able to use the salt water directly (maybe deposits or corrosion?), in which case you'd need to transfer heat from the fresh water in circulation to the salt water, enough to boil the salt water. (I am neither a mechanical engineer nor a chemist.)

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@brewsterkahle the main issue is what to do with the the deposits created by evaporation.