Discussion
The Olympus
adrianN: How much higher would the energy cost be without evaporative cooling? It doesn’t seem that hard to use water-air heat pumps to get rid of the heat without any water use, so the reasons it’s not used are probably economic. I suppose you could just make water more expensive?
bob1029: Evaporative cooling gives you a COP beyond 20 in good conditions. It can be 4-5x more efficient than a heat pump.
Ygg2: Why are they using blue water? Can't they just use grey water?
supern0va: I think it's super cool that Olympia HS has a student run newspaper, but I don't think this is something that should be posted to HN. The only source quoted on the water issue is an EE professor from a school in California, who I am guessing is not a subject matter expert on water in Washington state.FWIW, as a Washington resident, I can say that we're not exactly a state worrying about water shortages. We're probably one of the more reasonable places to build data centers due to cheap green energy and pretty plentiful water. Obviously, we need to manage it responsibly, but I haven't seen any evidence of looming issues here (please feel free to correct me, though).
denotational: Has anyone looked at using greywater for evaporative cooling? I couldn’t find much after a quick Google, aside from small scale domestic usage.
fallingfrog: It's funny that in movies like the matrix they imagine that humanity would fight back against the machines. In reality the first thing ai will do, which it has already done, is capture our governments through the application of money, and then the humans would first have to defeat their own institutions before they can even begin to fight the machines. Neoliberalism is profoundly unable to deal with threats if the threats produce short term profits. That goes for housing shortages, global warming, health care costs, falling birth rates, across the board if it produces short term profits that can be used to bribe politicians its impossible to address. AI is no different.
techsupporter: > I can say that we're not exactly a state worrying about water shortages.Except we are.> We're probably one of the more reasonable places to build data centers due to cheap green energy and pretty plentiful water.Most of our water comes from snowpack that melts over the spring and summer. Almost every year for the last several years, snowpack has been abnormal and has affected downstream flows.https://ecology.wa.gov/water-shorelines/water-supply/water-a...https://www.plantmaps.com/www.plantmaps.com/www.plantmaps.co...https://ecology.wa.gov/blog/november-2021/snowpack-washingto...And datacenter construction has put a major strain on central Washington power and water supplies: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/pow...
jakelazaroff: > I think it's super cool that Olympia HS has a student run newspaper, but I don't think this is something that should be posted to HN.Why shouldn't it? The thoughts and opinions of high schoolers matter just as much as those of adults.
stvltvs: Yeah, that was a classic ad hominem, addressing the author instead of the content of what's said.
