I hope you didn't even suspect criticism. It does seem there's something wrong with that picture, though. When water condenses it gives off a whole lot of heat. On steam-driven ships that heat from turbine exhaust steam gets transferred to the infinite heat sink of the ocean in a condenser. So I bet that, like in cooling towers, a lot of water absorbs heat, then releases it as the steam droplets diffuse into the atmosphere as invisible gaseous H2O.
You could be right - I may have misunderstood the process - I'll do some more research on that.
I have seen a photo of the Data center at The Dalles that shows a lot steam rising from the cooling towers. Actually, I like constructive criticism - it's a positive, not a negative - it keeps us on our toes, gives us a chance to make corrections, and we all end up learning more. Also, when I get comments like yours, it lets me know that you gave the post a serious read, and some thought, not just a quick scan.
Here's what FB engineers say about the Prineville plant: "We didn’t build a chiller plant, eliminating associated cooling towers, piping, pumps and controls. The innovative system:
Uses a 100% outside air evaporative cooling and humidification system.
Recycles return air in winter. Wasted heat is recirculated to heat the office space and is mixed with outside air in the penthouse to meet temperature set point and warm the air before it enters the data center.
Has a ductless air distribution system. Cold air is distributed into the middle of the data center via dry wall supply air shafts from the mechanical penthouse. Hot aisles are contained to minimize thermal mixing and draw air into the drop ceiling return air plenum. The hot air is then either recirculated as above or is completely ejected outside the building, depending on outside air conditions."
Google's plant in The Dalles, however, has cooling towers, and they've even posted a picture showing the water vapor pouring into the sky.
I realize that H2O is much more of a greenhouse gas than CO2, but when asking about the H2O exhaust from hydrogen fuel, was told that water vapor condenses so quickly as it rises that it doesn't hang around long enough to have much effect on global warming.
Thanks for reposting this. Can someone run the numbers for me? Looking at this one data center and its consumption of water (is the water converted into vapor, which becomes part of the atmosphere? If not, explain the numbers, please. Here is just one statistic:
Water withdrawn
240,302 cubic meters = 63,481,073 U.S. Gallons
Again, just for this one contributor to global warming, what is the effect of adding its greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. (Uh, didn’t you know that H2O is a major contributor to greenhouse gases already?) How does 240,302 cubic meters compare with quantities of CO2 released from other sources? Now, how many data centers are spread over the world, contributing to global warming—er, I mean to Climate Change? How does their total contribution compare
Good question - sorry I didn't address it - the water is not released to the atmosphere - it's first run through a mister, then the air that is blown through the mister takes on the humidity, then when it condenses that's where they get the cooling effect.
(Clumsy fingers?) …compare with other contributors to greenhouse gases? (BTW, I discount the entire anthropogenic contribution to global warming—changes to 10% of 0.04% don’t change anything.) But for those who refuse to “question the Science”, run some actual numbers and then run a sensibility or sanity test.
Great article on the often overlooked massive energy consumption by servers and server farms worldwide.
thanks...and I didn't even go into the electric consumption of crypto mining - maybe will do soon.
I hope you didn't even suspect criticism. It does seem there's something wrong with that picture, though. When water condenses it gives off a whole lot of heat. On steam-driven ships that heat from turbine exhaust steam gets transferred to the infinite heat sink of the ocean in a condenser. So I bet that, like in cooling towers, a lot of water absorbs heat, then releases it as the steam droplets diffuse into the atmosphere as invisible gaseous H2O.
You could be right - I may have misunderstood the process - I'll do some more research on that.
I have seen a photo of the Data center at The Dalles that shows a lot steam rising from the cooling towers. Actually, I like constructive criticism - it's a positive, not a negative - it keeps us on our toes, gives us a chance to make corrections, and we all end up learning more. Also, when I get comments like yours, it lets me know that you gave the post a serious read, and some thought, not just a quick scan.
Here's what FB engineers say about the Prineville plant: "We didn’t build a chiller plant, eliminating associated cooling towers, piping, pumps and controls. The innovative system:
Uses a 100% outside air evaporative cooling and humidification system.
Recycles return air in winter. Wasted heat is recirculated to heat the office space and is mixed with outside air in the penthouse to meet temperature set point and warm the air before it enters the data center.
Has a ductless air distribution system. Cold air is distributed into the middle of the data center via dry wall supply air shafts from the mechanical penthouse. Hot aisles are contained to minimize thermal mixing and draw air into the drop ceiling return air plenum. The hot air is then either recirculated as above or is completely ejected outside the building, depending on outside air conditions."
Google's plant in The Dalles, however, has cooling towers, and they've even posted a picture showing the water vapor pouring into the sky.
I realize that H2O is much more of a greenhouse gas than CO2, but when asking about the H2O exhaust from hydrogen fuel, was told that water vapor condenses so quickly as it rises that it doesn't hang around long enough to have much effect on global warming.
Thanks for reposting this. Can someone run the numbers for me? Looking at this one data center and its consumption of water (is the water converted into vapor, which becomes part of the atmosphere? If not, explain the numbers, please. Here is just one statistic:
Water withdrawn
240,302 cubic meters = 63,481,073 U.S. Gallons
Again, just for this one contributor to global warming, what is the effect of adding its greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. (Uh, didn’t you know that H2O is a major contributor to greenhouse gases already?) How does 240,302 cubic meters compare with quantities of CO2 released from other sources? Now, how many data centers are spread over the world, contributing to global warming—er, I mean to Climate Change? How does their total contribution compare
Good question - sorry I didn't address it - the water is not released to the atmosphere - it's first run through a mister, then the air that is blown through the mister takes on the humidity, then when it condenses that's where they get the cooling effect.
(Clumsy fingers?) …compare with other contributors to greenhouse gases? (BTW, I discount the entire anthropogenic contribution to global warming—changes to 10% of 0.04% don’t change anything.) But for those who refuse to “question the Science”, run some actual numbers and then run a sensibility or sanity test.