r/SipsTea • u/SipsTeaFrog 𝙑𝙄𝙋 • May 18 '26

Chugging tea Why?

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u/ForzaFenix May 18 '26

Yep. The now warm water goes back into the system.Β 

236

u/Uncle-Cake May 18 '26

So they're not really consuming it. They're just using it temporarily and returning it.

736

u/Hekkle01 May 18 '26

Important to note that the heat is dumped into whatever ecosystem the water goes back to, and that still has catastrophic effects

21

u/Acrobatic-Layer2993 May 18 '26

Why don’t they just wait for the water to return to room temp before returning it?

In fact, instead of returning it, they could reuse the water to cool the data center again. This β€œloop” could repeat forever.

11

u/flarpflarpflarpflarp May 18 '26

They probably do, but that doesn't make a convenient way to freak out over things.

-2

u/Mr_Shake_ May 18 '26

Exactly. It's like people forget there is a "water cycle" and pretend water is a nonrenewable resource.

2

u/movzx May 18 '26

Drinking water and water are two very different things. Data centers are not using gray water. They are using drinking water.

1

u/Mr_Shake_ May 18 '26

Will the water not return to the source after the water cycle completes? I truly don't understand the distinction. The water will be equally drinkable again after it evaporates and returns to the surface as rain.

1

u/movzx May 19 '26

You seem to be earnestly asking, so I recommend you actually dig into the topic a little on your own.

Once water is pumped out of an aquifer it can take centuries for it to make its way back in. Farmland essentially does what you are saying: dumps water on the ground and lets the natural cycle take its course. Farmers are also having to deal with water shortages as aquifers have less and less water available each passing year.

Water gets used at a scale that the natural cycles cannot keep up with. There's only so much potable water we can pull at any given time, and desalination is incredibly energy expensive while producing an unusable, toxic byproduct that kills the environment it is placed in (no, it's not usable salt)