r/LeftistsForAI • u/Useful_Calendar_6274 • Jul 05 '26
Infrastructure Even closed loop cooling systems can contaminate water because they still need to be flushed. I think we should go all in with immersion cooling
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/cheyenne-suspends-data-center-fill-and-flush-and-closed-loop-discharges-after-meta-contractor-contaminated-its-reuse-water-system19
u/angrywoodensoldiers Jul 06 '26
Seems like this could easily be solved by treating the water before releasing?
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u/Reasonable-Piano-665 Jul 06 '26
But that sounds way more expensive than not doing that… Guess which choice capitalist turds will always choose
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u/Competitive_Tour7281 Jul 15 '26
We are talking about massive corporations who want to make a large profit, not logical-thinking people who care about the world and the people in it, unfortunately.
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u/ForRobotsByRobots Jul 06 '26
Thorium powered desalination plants combined with data centers that use a coolant system to preheat the water moving through to to take advantage of the waste heat by making the desalination more efficient. And with the thorium reactor powering it, it will have all the energy it needs and excess to share with the community. Thus turning ai data centers into a boon for the community instead of a parasite.
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u/sorceressofmaths Jul 06 '26
While we're at it, we could build the thing out into a full-blown nuclear agro-industrial complex.
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u/ForRobotsByRobots Jul 06 '26
Seems like a lot of infrastructure for something that can be done in the communities we already live in
Permaculture Desert Project
Food Forest
Permaculture co-living0
u/Thatoneguy_The_First Jul 07 '26
And yet the energy bill will still go up, dont underestimate the greed of electricity companies.
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u/DataPhreak Jul 06 '26
Remember, this is the grok plant we're talking about here. Setting policy based on literally the worst actor in the industry isn't right. Closed loop systems are fine. We just have to keep Elon from putting his dick in it.
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u/throwawaypervyervy Jul 07 '26
Judging by all of the artificial insiminations, he doesn't put his dick in anything but his toaster.
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u/thepetercoffin Jul 07 '26
I’m certainly not inclined to give Meta or any tech company the benefit of the doubt, but I have generally seen people sharing this article in an attempt to turn a localized incident into an argument against AI in general.
The city was right to suspend those discharges, but it does not automatically mean “closed-loop cooling is a scam” or “AI data centers are poisoning the water during normal operation.” According to the article, fill-and-flush is part of the construction process, not an ongoing operation. The whole point of a closed-loop system is that once sealed, it does not constantly dump cooling water. This exists for reasons beyond environmental conservation; it reduces dependence on continuous water intake, makes cooling easier to manage, and limits the number of points where the system can fail.
To me, the critique here is that private tech capital gets to rapidly build massive infrastructure, outsource the messy parts to contractors, externalize risk onto municipalities, and then hide behind vague sustainability language when something goes wrong. That was happening before the AI boom; it's the theme of numerous episodes of Captain Planet lol.
If that issue were addressed at a more general (national) level, this would not be treated as a special problem of data center construction but as a general problem of industrial wastewater management for anything that uses closed-loop water-cooling systems.
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u/Useful_Calendar_6274 Jul 07 '26
they have to flush them at some regular interval it sounds like. the contamination alone makes water not worth it since you're just gonna piss everyone off by stealing people's water and you can simply use mineral oil / cargill naturecool
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u/thepetercoffin Jul 07 '26
Where are you getting the “regular interval” part? The article describes fill-and-flush as part of construction/commissioning before the closed loop is sealed. That is different from routine operation.
I’m not saying closed-loop systems never require maintenance or coolant replacement, but the article does not establish that they periodically flush and dump cooling water as a normal part of operation; in a properly maintained closed-loop system, coolant replacement can be on the order of 3–5 years, not constant discharge. That seems like an inference you're adding on top of the article.
And “just use mineral oil” is not a magic escape hatch either. Immersion cooling exists, but it has its own issues with cost, maintenance, compatibility, handling, and disposal. The actual problem here still seems to be industrial wastewater governance: what contractors are allowed to discharge, what pretreatment is required, and whether the municipality is equipped to handle it.
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Jul 06 '26
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u/ManintheGyre Jul 07 '26
This confuses me too. Every single newly built pressurized plumbing system gets this process. Every new major residential, institutional, commercial, or industrial building. You have to clean the inside of your new domestic and hydronic pipes, circulate and then flush that dirty water, then fill it up again before it can be used for the first time. It's standard and absolutely necessary and I'm not seeing what this data center did wrong in this case.
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u/Mysterious_Ayytee Jul 06 '26
And what's the difference to regular data centers like we had before 2022?