The massive computer clusters powering artificial intelligence consume vast quantities to answer the world’s queries, but how is Big Tech redressing the balance?
Writing a 100-word email using ChatGPT (GPT-4, latest model) consumes 1 x 500ml bottle of water It uses 140Wh of energy, enough for 7 full charges of an iPhone Pro Max
Why does the article make it sound like cooling a data center results in constant water loss? Is this not a closed loop system?
I’m imagining a giant reservoir heat sink that runs throughout a complex to pull heat out of the surrounding environment where some liquid evaporates and needs to be replenished. But first of all we have more efficient liquid coolants, and second that would be a very lazy solution.
I wonder if they’ve considered geothermal for new data centers. You can run a geothermal loop in reverse and use the earth as a giant heat sink. It’s not water in the loop, it’s refrigerant, and it only needs to be replaced when you find the efficiency dropping, which can take decades.
It highly depends on every data center, but it is very likely that they do use municipal water for cooling. Mainting a Reservoir is extremely expensive for the amount of thermal mass it requires, these things kick off HEAT.
The math on this doesn’t really check out. The USA uses 322 billion gallons of fresh water per day. A hyperscale datacenter uses only 5 million gallons per day.
There are about 1,000 hyperscale datacenters in the USA, so that comes out to 5 billion gallons of water every day.
That’s 1.5% of our annual freshwater usage, half of which is in closed loop systems and not going anywhere, and the other half being returned to the atmosphere where it will rain back down as fresh water again.
And of course, the water cycle doesn’t really care about national borders or annual evaporation rates so much, and there is about 1 quintillion gallons of liquid fresh water available worldwide, so its not like sequestering 5 million gallons really offsets the available freshwater needed for hydration and agriculture.
Why does the article make it sound like cooling a data center results in constant water loss? Is this not a closed loop system?
I’m imagining a giant reservoir heat sink that runs throughout a complex to pull heat out of the surrounding environment where some liquid evaporates and needs to be replenished. But first of all we have more efficient liquid coolants, and second that would be a very lazy solution.
I wonder if they’ve considered geothermal for new data centers. You can run a geothermal loop in reverse and use the earth as a giant heat sink. It’s not water in the loop, it’s refrigerant, and it only needs to be replaced when you find the efficiency dropping, which can take decades.
It highly depends on every data center, but it is very likely that they do use municipal water for cooling. Mainting a Reservoir is extremely expensive for the amount of thermal mass it requires, these things kick off HEAT.
Yes, the vast majority are closed loop systems and the water isn’t really used up, like a lot of these headlines imply.
That’s not to say the energy being used can’t be put to better uses, though.
Not used up per se but sequestered. It’s water that nobody will ever get to drink or use for crops, etc.
The math on this doesn’t really check out. The USA uses 322 billion gallons of fresh water per day. A hyperscale datacenter uses only 5 million gallons per day.
There are about 1,000 hyperscale datacenters in the USA, so that comes out to 5 billion gallons of water every day.
That’s 1.5% of our annual freshwater usage, half of which is in closed loop systems and not going anywhere, and the other half being returned to the atmosphere where it will rain back down as fresh water again.
And of course, the water cycle doesn’t really care about national borders or annual evaporation rates so much, and there is about 1 quintillion gallons of liquid fresh water available worldwide, so its not like sequestering 5 million gallons really offsets the available freshwater needed for hydration and agriculture.