Comment on How do AI data centers manage to *consume* water, but when I cool my house, my A/C *makes* water?

• surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ll give you one gue$$

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• SaltSong@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  A condenser will generate the same amount of heat that they are trying to dissipate.

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  • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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    • SaltSong@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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      • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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  • zqwzzle@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Actually more because thermodynamics is a cruel mistress.

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  • Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    A condenser can be as simple as a glass dome in a cool room. There is no need for any electricity or heat.

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    • obviouspornalt@lemmynsfw.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Pretty sure the glass dome traps the heat they’re trying to dissipate.

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      • Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It’s literally there to let steam cool and become liquid again. 🤦‍♂️

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    • SaltSong@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Note your use of the word “cool.”

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• BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Because if it’s a closed loop then the heat doesn’t leave the system so at some point you need to open the system. Your options for getting heat to actually leave the system are: evaporate water, air coolers (not efficient with large systems or in warm climate), or water coolers.

  The water coolers sound good but then you are heating up a local water supply which can kill a bunch of local wildlife

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