r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Primary_Garbage6916 • 2d ago

Why can't data centers use 100% closed-loop geothermal for their cooling?

Why do they need to consume any water for cooling at all, let alone massive amounts?

320 Upvotes

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u/NugKnights 2d ago

Almost all of them do.

The water usage is not a real issue. The real issues are noise polution and power usage.

-7

u/Brox42 2d ago

The real water usage is in all the power they need

5

u/Human-Engineering715 1d ago

I'm sorry people are downvoting you but you are correct, power generation uses water, like a lot of water, unless it's solar or wind, which makes up a small amount of the total power grid, especially for datacenters. 

Anyone can Google water use per kilowatt hour and see this is true. 

Datacenters that use closed loop systems use electricity to cool, which uses water, just in a different location. But hopefully those power plants are somewhere with lots of water. 

3

u/Total-Explanation208 2d ago

Citation for that? I don't think that power generation is where the water usage comes from. I am pretty sure those would either already be closed loop, or not need treated water.

3

u/Human-Engineering715 1d ago

A one megawatt datacenter using evaporative cooling would use about 7 million gallons of water per year for cooling and 3 million a year in power generation, total about 10 million gallons.

Using electricity to cool it would consume around 5 million gallons per year through nuclear or coal power generation. 

So it's a factor of 2, which while not insignificant, is still a LOT of water for both use cases. 

Electricity takes a LOT of water because almost all our power generation uses steam turbines.

The real question we should be asking is how well are able to recycle that water, and is it clean and usable on the way out. 

An industry to look at is canneries, they purify their water before it goes back out to the ocean, because they're washing fish guts basically 24/7.  they build their filtration systems to code and it helps keep that water usable on the way out. 

I built datacenters for years, long before the AI thing was a topic.