I think evaporative cooling is more effective.
Comment on Tucson City Council votes 7-0, unanimously to kill AI Data Center
Natanael@infosec.pub 3 weeks agoEvaporative cooling needs less water volume and less surface area for the same cooling effect. They could simply use bigger heat sinks outside the building and have a bigger water cooling system to make it closed loop, but they don’t want to do that.
toppy@lemy.lol 2 weeks ago
3abas@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Right, that’s what they said. For a closed loop, because it’s less “effective”, you need a much larger system. It’s more expensive to build and requires a much larger footprint and corporations like Amazon would rather save a penny than do anything to reduce their harm.
Fredselfish@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Then why the fuck do they keep wanting build them in the middle of the desert then?
StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Cheap land, dry air is good for evaporative cooling, and many arid areas have a surprising amount of ground water. It ultimately comes down to being the cheapest option, not the smartest or best option.
Fredselfish@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So how long to the billionaires have that entire city council replaced with people who are in their pocket and will vote for its passing?
StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In the states? 1-2 years tops.
Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Externalization of cost, the environment and community bears the cost instead of the corporation. Privatize the profits, externalize the costs.
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In addition to the other answers;
America’s deserts are tectonically stable and don’t experience natural disasters. If you want your data and/or compute running in two regions for redundancy, somewhere in the desert is a good choice for one of your DCs.
Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Maybe in AZ or other states but CA deserts are not tectonically stable.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I know. Was looking for a term to separate the two areas. Not like the San Andreas fault is stable!
How could I have dialed that in better?
Taldan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Because the local and state governments in those deserts keep promising them unlimited water for nearly free
Fredselfish@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Then local governments need be strung up. Tar and feathered and hung from the largest tree in the state.
Fidgetting@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Two more reasons not yet mentioned:
It is close to a population center (Phoenix) keeping latency low to customers. Getting customers off the public Internet quickly and into your private network fast is best for a lot of reasons.
Cheap and abundant solar power. Data centers are extremely power hungry and power lines are expensive so companies like Amazon almost always secure abundant power rights before building. Google built their first data center in The Dalles Oregon because an aluminum smelter had gone belly up and left a bunch of capacity unclaimed in a local hydroelectric dam.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Demand, ain’t much of it in the desert. Also, easy to manipulate governments.