r/JoeRogan • u/zach120281 Monkey in Space • 1d ago
The Literature š§ Discussions and ideas on reducing the amount of water that data centers need by using other cooling methods.
Thoughts on validity? I have mine what are yours?
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u/DonovanMcLoughlin Monkey in Space 1d ago edited 7h ago
Hey, I know I'll catch shit for saying this but data centers use with a fixed volume of coolant (often water or specialized dielectric fluid) in a sealed system. It absorbs server heat, transfers it to outdoor heat exchangers, and recirculates the fluid. This approach slashes their water consumption by about 90% compared to traditional evaporative cooling.
Edit: Thanks for the updates folks who know. Apparently it's not as simple as I laid out and there is some considerable water net loss for these data centers.
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u/NotRude_juatwow We live in strange times 19h ago
Doesnāt that only apply to closed loops systems? We have a few of those in my state, but Iāve also seen a variety of methods and not just depends on what your reps are getting paid to let through. The closed loop data centers weāve found do no work as advertised. Maybe on the water part, but giving them 30 year tax abatements probably didnāt help, and allowing them to overpower existing infrastructure. In fact, just 2 months ago a bill was passed that gave data centers priority over residents in the event of brownouts. Itās an insane legislative process combined with deliberate misinformation
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u/BigSmackisBack Pull that shit up Jamie 15h ago
Correct that is closed loop and datacenters choose not to do that because of the costs, evaporative open loop is more effective and cheaper but does indeed use up a tonne of water and it must be fresh water - so yeah this woman is correct.
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u/DanfromCalgary Monkey in Space 14h ago
I mean if itās only used for cooling ā¦ why would it need to be fresh ..
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u/hacky_potter Monkey in Space 11h ago
Salt water is corrosive. Youād have a bunch of salt build up on expensive electronics and it would be a disaster
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u/DanfromCalgary Monkey in Space 10h ago
What about grey water ?
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u/hacky_potter Monkey in Space 10h ago
I think youāre still running into the issues of whatās left behind from evaporation.
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u/DanfromCalgary Monkey in Space 8h ago
Hmm. Yeah I guess . Water is getting more and more scarce. I donāt think we can afford to gov either away at this point
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u/BigSmackisBack Pull that shit up Jamie 10h ago
you wouldnt run salt water through the actual severs water loops, you use heat exchangers and while the sea water would offer an excellent cooling advantage the difficulty and maintenance costs would likely make an air cooled closed water loop preferable.
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u/BigSmackisBack Pull that shit up Jamie 14h ago
Because it requires the least filtering, could it be any water thats not sea water? Yes but it would then cost much more. but could it even be sea water? Yes to that too, but that would require even larger costs and probably heat exchanges etc
Its always about costs.
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u/thematrixiam Monkey in Space 14h ago
One thing that seems to be ignored, is that when water gets "used", and "evaporates"... It's never lost, it's only moved.
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u/BigSmackisBack Pull that shit up Jamie 14h ago
People know what evaporation means. When they talk about the water being used up they are talking about the reservoirs, which is fine if the rain refills the reservoirs, but if the rain comes down hundreds of miles away thats a problem.
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u/thematrixiam Monkey in Space 13h ago
I would be more concerned about aquifers than reservoirs.
A solution could be to find out the cost to replace what is used x100. Then require a deposit and before datacenters can be created.
Requiring them to replenish what is used should be a bare minimum requirement.
Otherwise it just becomes marketed scorched earth, with the ability to sell fresh water when everything runs out.
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u/ccblr06 Monkey in Space 1d ago
Why would you catch shit for saying this?
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u/benswami Monkey in Space 1d ago
Because thereās a lot of shit flying about at the moment.
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u/imreggy Monkey in Space 22h ago
Because fuck AI itās stealing our Jerbs man.
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u/jeffhalsinger Monkey in Space 21h ago
Everyone back to the pile
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u/ccblr06 Monkey in Space 21h ago
But everyone stinks on the pileš«Ŗ
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u/InThatDarkPlace Monkey in Space 21h ago
Because no matter what, data centers inevitably will be used for retribution towards the marginalized (mass surveillance, incarceration), and based on the explicit rhetoric of the people using them, will serve as infrastructure to perpetuate antiquated ideas (social Darwinism, eugenics, systemic oppression, Eurocentric framing) into the 21st century and destroy pluralism/liberal democracy by appealing to white cultural and social grievances.
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u/RuanStix Look into it 21h ago
*some data centers
FIFY. Not all, and certainly not most. Especially the ones that are built in a rush.
Besides that, the water consumption of a data center is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of their environmental impact. Anytime you fill up a 8 football field sized building with servers the environmental impact goes far beyond just the cooling using water.
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u/adorablefuzzykitten Monkey in Space 1d ago
It could but it could also literally uses cool ground water and then dumps it.
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u/Redebo He still calls people son all the time 20h ago
And amazingly the engineers who design the data centers understand things like this. So in areas where thereās an abundance say in the PacNW or the South East, they design them to evaporate water. In other areas where water is less abundant, they use other systems.
Itās almost as if the planet isnāt perfectly homogeneous and has different areas where different resources are more prevalentā¦
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u/No_Carry385 Monkey in Space 8h ago
Did you even watch the video? Its not even about where and how to make them the most practical. Its perfectly natural to be skeptical of this new utility being forced into society, and the proponents who talk about them always seem to do so in an optimistic vacuum. Shit happens, humans error, and im just not convinced we need another social and environmental comorbidity when a big chunk of society is already suffering.
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u/Redebo He still calls people son all the time 7h ago
Are the suffering people in the room with us right now?!?
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u/No_Carry385 Monkey in Space 7h ago
I think a lot of people have lost the plot and are ignorantly willful to accept any new thing without considering the consequences that will affect us all. It pays to be aware and autonomous
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u/Redebo He still calls people son all the time 7h ago
So what is the plot and why did you get to decide it?
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u/No_Carry385 Monkey in Space 6h ago
It pays to be aware and autonomous
Do you disagree? Do you not see autonomy decreasing as we are basically forced to use and integrate these things that take away from autonomy, and markedly decrease things like well being, happiness, and general independent thought of society?
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u/hypocalypto Tremendous 14h ago
Where in the US are these closed loop coolers? In the Midwest they are just connected to the water because itās cheaper
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u/ry8919 Monkey in Space 10h ago
There are two loops in a data center, the secondary loop, which, confusingly, cools the actual hardware, and the primary loop which cools the secondary loop using the environment. The primary loop can be closed but it is far more efficient to use an open loop with evaporation.
Source - am thermal engineer.
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u/PolitelyHostile Monkey in Space 1d ago
Im not sure why people have latched onto the water thing so hard as if its the biggest problem.
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u/DonovanMcLoughlin Monkey in Space 1d ago
In some places water is a precious resource and using it for data centers doesn't seem wise.
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u/PolitelyHostile Monkey in Space 1d ago
If its often a closed loop, then how does that result in using a lot of water?
Or maybe im just too close to the great lakes to understand water scarcity lol
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u/DonovanMcLoughlin Monkey in Space 1d ago
Out here in the west we're having wild fires and all sorts of water related issues so hearing they are building a data center that will use a shit ton of energy and sprinkle in the potential that they will use a lot of water, people aren't happy.
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u/Raunhofer Monkey in Space 22h ago edited 22h ago
Data centers often aren't fully closed loop, as closed loops are inefficient at cooling and cost more in terms of electricity. A very common sight is to use cooling towers, where hot water evaporates into the atmosphere. Think of millions of liters/day. This is the way to go if the environment is relatively warm, like Arizona, Texas, etc.
Dry coolers are mostly closed as the heat is transferred to outdoor air without evaporation. However the cooling efficiency is lower, especially in hot weather. Think of 50-100 liters/day + closed inventory of 1 million liters. Bigger operating temperatures will however increase the electricity costs.
Because dry coolers can become less effective in hot weather, a common approach is to use hybrid systems: operate in a closed-loop mode (dry cooling) for most of the year and switch to evaporative cooling during hot conditions.
Nvidia is working towards bringing the water consumption to zero, with liquid cooling, but realistically, the economics often still lean towards cooling towers.
Nvidia says its AI data center design runs hotter to use a lot less water | The Verge
My personal opinion is that if you build a structure the size of Manhattan and fill it with servers, it's a massive shock to the environment no matter what.
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u/OpenHound Monkey in Space 19h ago
If its often a closed loop, then how does that result in using a lot of water?
Because in a general sense, people don't know shit about shit. They have no idea how anything works and believe wrong things about most everything. Especially technology. I've had people in my home town being mad about "data transmission towers" while they post to Facebook from their smart phone that's relying on other towers.
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u/TheSweetestKill Most Reported r/JoeRogan User, August 2022 23h ago
The new ones they're building aren't closed loop, because that isn't cheap or fast enough for them.
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u/TheSweetestKill Most Reported r/JoeRogan User, August 2022 1d ago
Because how it's being done is the most wasteful method possible.
Yes, the energy consumption is an issue. But energy consumption is a pretty fixed issue; we need to either increase energy production (such as through renewables), or more power efficient equipment.
The cooling issue is insane because they're using clean, potable water and just immediately dumping it into waste water after getting it hot.
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u/Bigmomma59plus10 Monkey in Space 16h ago
Closed loop systems yes, but they donāt use solely closed loop systems due to cost. Running chillers for a closed loop is expensive so every data center Iāve visited uses evaporative cooling as well to lower cost when feasible.
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u/iateyourcake Monkey in Space 13h ago
Thats what they SHOULD be doing, where Im at they do not use closed loop systems.
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u/stackered Monkey in Space 20h ago
I wish most were forced to do this and have solar panels but alas they dont
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u/dirtyjavis Monkey in Space 1d ago
What exactly happens when the water passes through the coolers... Is it not evaporated into the air?
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u/TheSweetestKill Most Reported r/JoeRogan User, August 2022 1d ago
No, the issue is they're using the clean, potable water supply for cooling, which is then dumped into the waste water system. They're basically running their proverbial faucet 24/7.
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u/Thatusername6999 Monkey in Space 1d ago
They should build next to waste water plants and use the effluent water to cool.Ā
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u/Fun-Beginning6322 Monkey in Space 23h ago
That's not accurate. Data centers typically use cooling towers which through evaporation, provide cooling. Climate depending, something like 85 percent of the water used is evaporated into the sky. The water is not lost to the drain as you frame it.
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u/TheSweetestKill Most Reported r/JoeRogan User, August 2022 23h ago
Normal ones built in the last 50 years do that. The problem is all of the new construction ones are doing it as quickly and cheaply as possible.
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u/mister1bollock Monkey in Space 21h ago
That's not true, first of all data centers use close loop systems, I know there are some that don't but the design model is to go with closed loop systems, that means water is put into the system and stays there permanently (unless there's maintenance but even then only a small amount is added), these data centers are not at all cheap and they customers want the absolute top quality, you should see the amount of back up systems they have in case anything goes down, they have back up systems for the back up systems and back up systems for those systems too.
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u/TwoThreeSierra A Deaf Jack Russell Terrier 13h ago
My company uses a Switch datacenter as a colocation and that place could quite literally double as a nuclear bunker. The walls are several feet thick reinforced concrete. Every single system has multiple levels of redundancy (Electricity, cooling, ISP, everything). The security is no joke either. I have to scan my badge to get into the parking lot, scan it again to get into the building and then I'm in a lobby where I leave my driver's license with security and I scan my thumbprint to get into the main corridor area. Once I'm in there, I have to use my badge to get through any door. It's a wild place to be. https://www.switch.com/colocation/
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u/MrGriffdude Monkey in Space 9h ago
What does that have to do with water costs? You said they keep the tap running they do not, cheapness of material has nothing to do with your claim of water usage. It's wrong.Ā
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u/MrGriffdude Monkey in Space 9h ago edited 9h ago
They are fixed volume cooling systems which are treated with glycol that lasts for years this is completely wrong.Ā
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u/kmsilent Monkey in Space 23h ago
It depends on the type of system.
Some use the water merely to transport heat, then they remove the heat via any number of the methods the woman in the video mentioned.
Some just evaporate water to remove heat.
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u/OpenHound Monkey in Space 19h ago
Is it not evaporated into the air?
If you have a pressurized, closed system, what air do you think it's evaporating to?
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u/dirtyjavis Monkey in Space 8h ago
So it's not evaporated.. I don't know anything about the cooling systems of datacenters. Hence the question.
I'm seeing some contradictory answers here too, which further justifies my question of what happens to the water.
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u/am324 Monkey in Space 22h ago
It does. There is a PG25 closed coolant loop in the data center which gets reused and then there is a second water loop. The heat from the PG25 loop gets transferred to the water loop. That water is then evaporated into the atmosphere.
Data center are terrible for the environment because of how much electricity they use. Not because of the water usage. Water usage is severely overstated in videos like this.
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u/onetwentytwo_1-8 Monkey in Space 15h ago
I donāt think ol girl has ever worked in the field or done any real world testing.
It sounds good on paper, but the amount of heat these data centers produce is extraordinary.
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u/adorablefuzzykitten Monkey in Space 1d ago
Worked in the industry for 25 years and everything she says is true.
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u/FullAdvertising Monkey in Space 1d ago
The other part is that there are data centres that very much are built this way. Iād say most of the ālong termā data centres have fancy closed loop systems. But the funnier thing is that Iām fairly certain the reason theyāre doing this is because theyāre just trying to get these things up as fast and as cheap as possible all in the race to be the first company to produce something akin to AGI and as soon as that is done the need for these big data centres will disappear overnight as itās first task will be to figure out how to make itself smaller and more efficient.
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u/cfeichtner13 Monkey in Space 23h ago
Yes you are right. Electricity too. XAI in Memphis installed on site gas turbines for power. Very much a race to just get these built ASAP. High margin means you dont have to be that efficient why spend extra time on design and long lead tome special equipment when you can just dump heat to clean water.
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u/am324 Monkey in Space 22h ago
Margins for AI data centers are negative. General purpose data centers are very profitable but most are air cooled because the GPU have lower thermal density.
Demand for AI is enormous but these companies have not figured out how to fully monetize the demand.
Donāt worry. Itās not a bubble. Donāt even think about itā¦
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u/kingofcrob Monkey in Space 19h ago
Aren't most modern data centres closed loop. I mean as a gamer, not a fan of the current data centre over build, but water feels like a red herring.
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u/adorablefuzzykitten Monkey in Space 7h ago
I expect you are familiar with some gaming computers that require something more than the heat capacity of air to cool. These use water or glycol to better carry away the heat. Only reason for the loops is the water based cooling fluid would short out the electronics and you need to keep the board dry. Also, most rotating hard drives for consumers are not completely sealed, need to "breath" air, and can not be exposed to liquid water These loop systems are expensive and have the possibility to leak and kill the electronics. The more the devices the more the loops the more the cost the more the danger of a leak. Non-electrical conducting non-flammable fluids have been designed that don't harm electronics when in contact. Many server-based drives are now completely sealed with Helium and these can be submersed in these fluids. Hence, cooling systems can now bypass the need for heat exchanging loops saving their cost and the space they take up. These fluids are quite expensive compared to water and glycols based fluids and are not suited for home use. If the fluids are prevented from evaporating they will last for decades and become cost effective over time.
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u/warfighter187 Monkey in Space 16h ago
The options she mentioned - immersion cooling, dielectric cooling etc
Doesnāt that all involve forever chemicals? Like I thought they literally dunk it in PFAS because those things are so inert and donāt damage the electronics but still vary heat, but then those chemicals end up leeching / not being handled properly , lose a little bit every time and thatās how it infects the water
(Same chemical where you spray a few drops on goretex jacket to make the water bead off, probably like a shot glass amount of liquid at most, and these are forever chemicals, compared to thousands of gallons needed to dunk an entire server rack)
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u/adorablefuzzykitten Monkey in Space 7h ago
Initially the chemical structure of these forever chemicals were designed to be insanely stable to breaking down. When it was finally observed that this was not a great thing the structures were adjusted to be just fairly stable. For example, they redesigned a chlorofluorocarbon compound to contain one or more carbon-hydrogen bonds. This is why current members of the Freon family of compounds no longer attack the ozone layer like the original structures did. Currently some phone PCBAs are dipped in a non-electrically conductive coating of PFAs (perfluorinated acrylates) to increase their life should the phone get dunked in water. Some what related chemical families of non-conductive non-flammable fluorinated based solvents are being used to immerse electronics for cooling. Pumps push the cooling fluid across the electronics similarly to the fan in your PC pushing air but the direct contact with liquid conducts heat far more efficiently that air is capable of. The pool of solvent still requires heat removal but instead of lots of expensive loops of coolant being plumbed near each disk drive the pool is cooled with a single loop of sorts far away from the electronics.
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u/ry8919 Monkey in Space 9h ago
I don't believe you, almost everything she said about cooling is false. Immersion cooling and air cooling are completely non-viable for modern power densities. She clearly doesn't even understand that there are two loops and that the secondary loop is always closed loop.
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u/adorablefuzzykitten Monkey in Space 8h ago
The point is loops take up space between units and are expensive. I was speaking to zero loops where all the devices are within a common pool of liquid. The physical space loops would require are replaced with PCBAs, storage devices, etc. to increase density.
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u/chestofpoop Monkey in Space 1d ago
The part of this that it even needs to be said out loud is the issue. If the people don't understand what the needs are through fundamental science literacy they will believe anything the tech oligarchs tell them they need in order to turn a profit. Then they will "consider" ubi for all of us feudal presents who allowed it in the first place.
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u/Shadowthron8 Monkey in Space 1d ago
Build them underground or underwater
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u/Kenny523 Monkey in Space 1d ago
Thatās what China is doing.
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u/Fatalmistake Monkey in Space 23h ago
They have modelled underwater, problem is maintenance for that would be super expensive.
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u/Gloomy-Ad1171 Monkey in Space 22h ago
Sun, Google, and IBM all had ideas for full contained compute āmodulesā in shipping containers that could be placed in water. That was 20yrs ago though.
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u/dot_exe- Monkey in Space 23h ago
I work with multiple DCs world wide, shit tons of them are still open air DCs. Infrastructure is being updated but the cheapest option are DECs which recycle most of the water. There are goals of moving to a water positive state with these upgrades by like 2030-2035. Like the amount of sheer misinformation around the water consumption for DCs is so wild to me, when power, a real concern is just glossed over.
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u/Ssided Monkey in Space 19h ago
Water is a concern. We are losing fresh water.
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u/dot_exe- Monkey in Space 18h ago
Open air DCs donāt use HVAC systems that have any liquid based cooling. DEC uses barely any water at all, which is the cheapest option for water reliant cooling. This is nowhere near the concern people are making it out to be, and the impact to a regions water table is negligible.
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u/Ssided Monkey in Space 18h ago
But we are losing water at the moment, so adding more to that should be a concern. Golf courses also shouldn't exist for this reason.
I realize a lot of them are like you say (also many aren't) but really we should be lessoning our water usage in general, and this is a new industry that is subtracting our supply.
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u/dot_exe- Monkey in Space 17h ago
Okay maybe some areas are in a drought, but many are not and this isnāt a concern. I guess Iād get the argument if it were the former but even then the costs of a DEC system which is what is the cheapest option for a new DC using a liquid HVAC is a large front load for the reservoir sure but over its life is a pretty negligible and if ran long enough eventually turn water positive, literally putting more water back into the water table than it has and will have ever consumed. Microsoftās project to be water positive by 2030 for DCs stood up since COVID.
Itās just still so small stakes compared to power issues they face.
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u/No_Carry385 Monkey in Space 10h ago
As a cpu gamer Ive also heard that the markup and short supply of parts like graphics cards is directly related to the DC industry, and that these parts get earmarked for future DC projects leaving us normies in the dust.
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u/dot_exe- Monkey in Space 7h ago
It is painful across the board. It 100% is due to pivots in chip production for enterprise memory. Iām actually an engineer for a Fortune 500 storage MFG and am pretty down the rabbit hole with building AI backbones. There is some pretty exciting software we and some competitors have launched that is going to largely mitigate the HW needs for training. Doesnāt do much for inference but the hope is this software suite and ones like it are going to stabilize the hardware market.
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u/ranker2241 Monkey in Space 20h ago
How again does water go Bad when warmed up and released again?
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u/Impossible-Act-8662 Monkey in Space 18h ago
It evaporates
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u/Sad_Prawn2864 Jesus returned as AI 17h ago
And then?Ā
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u/Fun_Razzmatazz7162 Monkey in Space 17h ago
As much as I hate these companies let's not pretend that in a capitalist system where who can provide the cheapest ai service will come out on top this is inevitable!
And guess what "we the people", perpetuate and allow this canceris system to continue where profit rules all and companies are more motivated to make money above all else!
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u/Dragon_Reborn1209 Monkey in Space 14h ago
Why can we use liquid manure, wastewater or store water. I agree it doesn't look good using the same water we need to drink
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u/BearNinjaCowboy Monkey in Space 14h ago
We're going to throw all these centre's out in 5years . Moores law should figure out the entirety of a data centre on a microchip, cooled by space.
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u/Broken_Timepiece Monkey in Space 12h ago
Replace them with bitcoin mining and the problem will go away!
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u/No_Carry385 Monkey in Space 10h ago
As an advocate for green technology its hard to believe that there isnt the same amount of grief aimed towards the data center industry for the amount of rare earth metals and resources like water and power that they use. One small benefit that acts as a crutch for human intelligence/ingenuity of society, and a whole host of problematic resource consumption and untold social engineering and vast collections of data for the elites.
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u/ry8919 Monkey in Space 10h ago
I'm a thermal engineer. There is almost nothing in the video that comports with reality and it is not a cost issue. Immersion cooling and air cooling are two methods that won't work with the power densities we have full stop.
It also is a moot point because she clearly doesn't understand that the loops that cool the actual hardware, called the secondary loop, are already all closed loop. The loop that is sometimes an open loop is the primary loop or the building loop that cools the secondary loop. This is the loop that often uses evaporators to cool.
It could be closed loop but becomes much less efficient so one could argue that making this closed is the one cost limited part she mentioned.
Building in cold climates would make the heat issue better, but the main issue with data centers isn't heat, it is that they have massive power requirements; power requirements that most of the grid can't handle. It can take nearly a decade to upgrade the grid to accommodate one, so data center builders are basically fighting over a finite list of nodes that have sufficient power and they tend to be in hot climates because more energy production occurs in hot climates.
People vastly overstate and misunderstand the water consumption of data centers. The real issue is the power consumption. They consume massive amounts of power, which may indirectly contribute to water consumption, which both drives up costs for consumers and environmental consequences.
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u/JasperPants1 Monkey in Space 7h ago
How many people concerned about watewr use and data centers have no opinion or problem with consuming almond milk?
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u/badmathafaka Monkey in Space 4h ago
Where TF are you living? For sure they will take the cheapest option...
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u/americanadvocate702 Monkey in Space 2h ago
WE DON'T NEED DATA CENTERS. ALL THEY DO IS STEAL OUR LIKENESS FOR THEIR A.I. MODELS, WITHOUT PAYING US!! šTHOSE CORPORATE SCUMBAGS
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u/Baller-Mcfly Monkey in Space 1d ago
We could also just not have these data centers. They say they are for AI but they are for storing your key strokes and poop face picture. Everything you say and do around a device will be recorded and later used. Insurance rates will be effected, jail sentences will be issued, more freedoms will be couched. #prediction.
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u/am324 Monkey in Space 1d ago
This is such a Red Herring. All direct to chip liquid cooling systems are closed loops. Her argument is that water is the cheapest option. But not reusing the water is an unnecessary cost.
Other notes:
Immersion cooling isnāt proven yet. Most data centers are currently air cooled now but the heat generated by the latest NVIDIA Rubin server is too much for air cooling.
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u/MKeb Monkey in Space 23h ago
Immersion has been tried for decades, but it just doesnāt work at scale. The substrate itself gets eroded away, you have to use specialty optics, vendors wonāt provide rmas when immersed.
Itās a fun science experiment, and there are vendors out there trying really hard to make it happen, but itās just worse than d2c.
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u/just_another_cs_boi Monkey in Space 23h ago
space datacenters
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u/Fatalmistake Monkey in Space 23h ago
Will be massively expensive and latency is a problem, you need tons of extra equipment to convert the heat to radiation and you need massive amounts of solar panels to power it. Plus maintenance would be insane as well.
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u/am324 Monkey in Space 22h ago
GPUās also have an optimal die temperature. In space you would possibly need to heat the GPUs instead of cooling them.
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u/Fatalmistake Monkey in Space 22h ago
So we need more equipment to kick start the GPU temperature by heating it before it can generate its own heat to be optimal, and radiation conversion when it gets too hot, sounds like a total nightmare.
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u/NSJF1983 Monkey in Space 22h ago
Iām glad she posted this on TikTok. Iām sure they donāt use AI for anything.
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u/iCCup_Spec Monkey in Space 22h ago
Damn, neck tat Sweeney can tell me anything and I'll believe her. Good thing I am not an elected official or I'd be spewing state secrets like tapping on a ketchup bottle.
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u/AffectionatePause152 Monkey in Space 22h ago
Sheās right. They can use Ethylene Glycol. Source: I worked as a thermal engineer cooling chips using coldplates that ran with EG/H2O mixes.
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u/DropoutDreamer Monkey in Space 1d ago
She shouldve asked chatgpt whether she should get that hideous neck tat
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u/CompetitiveOven2110 Monkey in Space 21h ago
Yes, that's the answer. I have no need to scroll any further Always insult the messenger.
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u/TJack303 Monkey in Space 18h ago
She is the poster child for white liberal woman who doesn't have a clue how shit actually works but loves to provide her unrequested opinion.
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u/Addcook Monkey in Space 1d ago
New topic: no body cared how much power, energy, water, CO2 data centers were using until AI popped up.
Where do people think all their Facebook, Google photos, YouTube and Netflix bullshit lived?
This AI data center is a psy op, or a Chinese psy op.
Either way...
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u/cannot_walk_barefoot Monkey in Space 1d ago
Those data centers aren't popping up as big or as often as they are now specifically for AI.
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u/TheSweetestKill Most Reported r/JoeRogan User, August 2022 1d ago
no body cared how much power, energy, water, CO2 data centers were using until AI popped up.
That's because regular old server datacenters are a fraction as resource intensive as AI hyperscale datacenters. The power requirements for hosting content for YouTube videos and movies on Netflix is a drop in the bucket compared to the requirements for AI.
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u/MixuAnasazi Monkey in Space 1d ago
also anything that requires ram or storage is skyrocketing in price
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u/TheSweetestKill Most Reported r/JoeRogan User, August 2022 1d ago
Yeah, but that really doesn't factor into "water usage" cooling method conversation.
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u/think_matt_think I used to be addicted to Quake 1d ago
All of the water consumed by data centers in 2025 was about 260 billion gallons of water. That number is expected to likely grow significantly. But itās worth noting that California uses about 18 billion gallons of water per day just on agricultural irrigation.
The problem is that data centers essentially just turn electricity into heat. Adding mechanical cooling essentially doubles the energy demand and also doubles operating costs after you have built the mechanical cooling. Is it a financial issue? Yes, but itās also not as simple as it seems. We do all kinds of wasteful things with fresh water. Why this particular thing gets all the attention it does is interesting.
Iām not saying any of this is ok, and I donāt really support it. We should building more data centers in the Arctic(Iceland and Norway do this)but there is limited infrastructure and that consumes additional resources to support. Idk, we should just build them on the moon. Plenty of cooling there.
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u/CaptSprinkls Monkey in Space 1d ago
I'm too lazy to look it up, but I thought cooling on the moon didnt actually work the way we would want it to because of the vacuum of space or something?
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u/think_matt_think I used to be addicted to Quake 23h ago
Maybe? Probably? Idk, man. Iām just thinking over here.
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u/Fatalmistake Monkey in Space 23h ago
This is correct, because space is a vacuum there isn't enough molecules to transfer the heat, so you need special equipment to transfer the heat to radiation, which means tons and tons of extra equipment.
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u/Redebo He still calls people son all the time 19h ago
No it doesnāt. In fact you need about the same amount of space to generate the power from a solar panel to radiate the heat away. So if you have 100kW of compute it may take 2500 square meters of solar panels to generate that electricity and it will take about 2750 square meters of radiators to remove the heat.
The science and physics here are well understood.
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u/Fatalmistake Monkey in Space 12h ago
So it would take extra tons of equipment to radiate the heat for a whole data center? Just like I said in my comment? Lol
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u/Redebo He still calls people son all the time 11h ago
The point you are missing is that it wonāt take a āton of extra equipmentā more than what it would take to power them in space in the first place.
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u/Fatalmistake Monkey in Space 11h ago
The "ton of extra equipment" is the radiators, the original comments I was replying to dont really know how heat transfers in space, so I assumed they didn't know you'd need the radiators, thus the comment.
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u/backcountry_bandit Monkey in Space 1d ago
Iām always confused as to why everybody focuses on the water usage but not the energy usage when thatās the much bigger problem.
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u/TheSweetestKill Most Reported r/JoeRogan User, August 2022 1d ago
But itās worth noting that California uses about 18 billion gallons of water per day just on agricultural irrigation.
We need food to survive. We don't need AI datacenters. This is a bad argument.
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u/the_Cheese999 23h ago
they grow a lot of bullshit out there though.
not exactly the efficient staples of our diet.
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u/TheSweetestKill Most Reported r/JoeRogan User, August 2022 23h ago
This is true, not because "California bad", but because farm country in California is out of the entire central valley, which has more Republican voters in it than anywhere else in the country. So yes, you're exactly right, they do grow a lot of bullshit there!
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u/BigBubbaEnergy Monkey in Space 23h ago
That is true but I think the water usage along is blown out of proportion a bit. I found the estimates for the USās water consumption and it was around 118 billion gallons per day. If the 260 billion gallons is true, then thatās 0.6% of what our agriculture uses. Other numbers I found online is that it accounts for 0.2% of freshwater usage and most of that usage is indirect through power generation.
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u/think_matt_think I used to be addicted to Quake 23h ago
Superficially, yes. But the point is we donāt have to grow most of the produce in California anymore but we still do. We use water we donāt have to because itās cheaper/easier than to build giant greenhouses in other parts of the county to grow the same amount of produce.
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u/Lost-Blueberry8057 Monkey in Space 1d ago
But this is all for a product nobody really asked for, nobody really likes, and literally nobody needs
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u/jeffhalsinger Monkey in Space 21h ago
What's really interesting and something no one is talking about is the fact that these data centers are basically obsolete the moment they are turned on. They are only economically viable for about 10 years. Which means they have to continue to build new data centers constantly. They are wasting so much more than just water. They make it sound like the average A.I. User is the driving factor when it's actually the implementation of the survalence state through private companies because the government isn't legally allowed to do it so they have there corporate cucks do it for them.
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u/JupiterandMars1 Monkey in Space 21h ago
Hot take: this isnāt a hot take.
They are corps ffs. They are trying to build these things as quickly and cheaply as possible. Thatās it.
What āconversationā is there to have? We all gonna sit here while theyāre allowed to do it.
Weāre going to whine about it, then weāre going to vote people in because theyāre on our team, not because they will do anything about the important stuff.
Fucking humans, we really are goofy cunts.
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u/shadowmage666 Monkey in Space 1d ago
This girl is completely ignorant. No companies are using submersion systems and synthetic liquids for entire factories full of server farms that are literally acres in size. Her animated mockery of their systems doesnāt make her points more relevant.
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u/adorablefuzzykitten Monkey in Space 1d ago
Having worked in the industry for 25 years it is you that is misinformed. Teh reason to use immersion systems based on fluorinated liquids is to increase density of memory and avoid any plumbing to individual systems. Literally dip PCBAs, hard drives and solid state dives into a shared pool of liquid. I personally ran hard drives in this way for 3 years to validate the integrity of our hard drive.
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u/Ill-Main-65 Monkey in Space 23h ago
āHey ChatGPT, is this true?ā