They probably treat the water to prevent mineral and bacterial build up. No matter how sanitary it is it will probably require some amount of treatment before it can be put back into public supplies.
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 9 months ago
I gotta wonder though, water used for server cooling is basically just run through metal fixtures and returned right? Couldn’t it be possible to force some kind of maintenance and cleanliness standards onto the equipment and just have the water return to the supply? Is there any reason that water wouldn’t be just as drinkable after?
BetaDoggo_@lemmy.world 9 months ago
MSids@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
Well, all sewer water requires treatment before it’s used again but this water doesn’t go into the sewer, it’s evaporative cooling so it goes into the air.
Taako_Tuesday@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
No, but I assume you’d have to build extra infrastructure for that, which is expensive. They might now consider it worth it if they continue to need that much water, though.
Namahanna@lemm.ee 9 months ago
They use evaporative cooling on days where it is over 85f
…microsoft.com/…/Datacenter-water-consumption-fac…