A condenser will generate the same amount of heat that they are trying to dissipate.
Comment on How do AI data centers manage to *consume* water, but when I cool my house, my A/C *makes* water?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 days agoWhy are they not using a closed loop system with condensers collecting the evaporated water?
SaltSong@startrek.website 2 days ago
Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Collect and condense the hot water vapor, concentrate the heat until you’ve got steam; then pump it through a steam turbine recapturing that energy as electricity.
I’m sure there’s some difficulties and nuances I’m not seeing right away, but it would be nice to see some sort of system like this. Most power plants generate heat, then turn that into electricity. Data centers take electricity and turn it back into heat. There’s gotta be a way to combine the two concepts.
SaltSong@startrek.website 1 day ago
The difficulty is, to put it in very simple terms, is that physics doesn’t allow that. The less simple explanation is a thermodynamics textbook, and trust me, you don’t want that.
Everything generates heat. Everything. Everything. Anything that seems to generate “cold” is generating more heat somewhere else.
Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Yeah, thermodynamics are a thing. I’m not trying to claim some free energy system saying you could power the whole data center; but if you could re-capture some of the waste heat and convert it back into electricity, putting that energy to work instead of just venting to atmosphere, it could potentially help offset some of the raw electrical needs. An efficiency improvement, that’s all.
zqwzzle@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Actually more because thermodynamics is a cruel mistress.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 days ago
A condenser can be as simple as a glass dome in a cool room. There is no need for any electricity or heat.
obviouspornalt@lemmynsfw.com 2 days ago
Pretty sure the glass dome traps the heat they’re trying to dissipate.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 days ago
It’s literally there to let steam cool and become liquid again. 🤦♂️
SaltSong@startrek.website 1 day ago
Note your use of the word “cool.”
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’ll give you one gue$$