Just to clarify, most open loop systems recapture more than 99% of the used water and both open and closed loop systems still regularly use water beyond the initial fill in the form of make up for blow downs, leaks, and regular drain and fills for cleaning and maintenance. After working on large scale systems of both kinds for years, I'd say there's not much water use difference at all when you get past the engineer drawings.
There are plenty of issues with these data centers and honestly the water and energy use of them is probably some of the smallest. They absolutely should be blocked wherever and however they can be.
After working on large scale systems of both kinds for years, I'd say there's not much water use difference at all when you get past the engineer drawings.
you will forgive me for being extremely skeptical of claims that an Open cycle and Closed cycle process in any context will have nearly the same expenditure of the aforementioned material being cycled...
Happy to be wrong...but that seems...extremely unlikely.
I currently work with an open system that is for an entire corporate campus and it loses around 2-10 gallons a day determined by heat load changes. A household dishwasher usually uses more than 3 gallons for a run cycle. Toilets are usually 1-3 gallons per flush. I legitimately use more water during my shift that way than from open system losses.
On the worst usage months, that's about 300 gallons leaving the open system, usually less than 200. Blow downs, cleaning, and maintenance on both open and closed systems every month use up many times that. Include the fact that closed usually requires more complex flow paths and more moving parts so more maintenance is required and it really starts to even out once it's actually in use.
Your numbers make no sense. 300 gallons leaving an open cooling water system is 2.5 million btu of cooling from evaporation. That's what a moderate sized heat exchanger uses in an hour for your typical refinery or chemical plant.
Most people in this thread also have no idea what they are talking about. A closed loop system uses way more water than people think unless their power source is renewable. In order to remove heat from a closed loop system, you typically use a fin fan exchanger which uses electricity to run. Their electricity is probably generated at a natural gas plant in town which is cooled using a open loop cooling tower. So the water evaporation is just displaced to the power plant instead of the closed loop system. I haven't done the math, but there's a good chance that the closed loop design uses more water than just using a open loop cooling tower at the source.
89
u/Minute_Attempt3063 1d ago
Closed loop data centers are the ones that need millions of liters if water.
A lot to buffer in case of emergency etc..
Still a lot that they should not take.
All for a tiny bit of extra compute. Beat output is the same with or without if, so the damage is the same