• d00phy@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Yeah, seems like a desert isn’t the best place to build something where cooling is a critical factor! Or building something that uses massive amounts of chemical treated water for cooling in a place that has had water scarcity concerns for generations, now.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      1 day ago

      I don’t understand why they even need to use up water. Water cooling does not require you to evaporate the water. You can just keep it as a closed system and reuse the water.

      If nuclear power plants can manage it which would be easy for a server farm

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          21 hours ago

          I guess water is cheep enough.

          Still kinda obnoxious though. Like they couldn’t see that the ultra high water usage was the thing that would get the most pushback from?

      • scutiger@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        Closed loop watercooling is really just air cooling with extra steps. The water is heated by the devices and cooled by a large radiator with fans. Or it’s cooled with a chiller which in turn is cooled by a radiator with fans.

        Replacing the water is the most effective (yet wasteful) way to remove the heat.

        • d00phy@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          To a point, yes. While you’re still using air to cool the water, I think it’s still a little more efficient than blindly keeping the server room at a low-ish temperature.

          • scutiger@lemmy.world
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            13 hours ago

            Keeping the server room cool is just using an air conditioner which is cooled by a radiator with a fan, and then using that cooled air to cool another radiator with a fan. Every step is a loss of efficiency.

            The main advantage of water loops is that you get to use a different form factor for the radiator and fan by moving it away from the source of heat and aren’t limited by the case dimensions.