Data centers, whose expansion is being fueled dramatically by the artificial intelligence boom, have a far bigger carbon footprint than previously estimated, according to a new study. The sprawling, power-hungry sites, used to store critical IT infrastructure like servers, are being built worldwide by companies and countries as AI applications…
I still do not understand why they don’t use heat exchange loops, like we figured out for nukes 75 years ago
Because it’s considerably cheaper to do it this way and they’re being allowed to do so. Why would they spend money building giant cooling towers when they can just dump the hot water into the river and then drain main supply for fresh supply.
I’d assume it’s cheaper to fuck up the environment.
They usually do. They just do the same thing a lot of nuclear reactors do and also evaporatively cool one end of the heat exchange loop.
As far as I can see they don’t ever do it that way, that’s the problem, if it was a closed loop they wouldn’t be pulling water from the mains and causing water pressure issues for everybody else.
Hmmm can they … add a turbine?
It’s as the case is with everything for these parasites: if it loses them too much money or makes them too little, they avoid it like the plague. It’s cheaper upfront to just run it through an open system.