Owen Lucas
$100 Site Donor 2023
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- Sep 5, 2021
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Are you for or against Data Centers?
- Thread starter ZZman
- Start date
On one hand, I feel bad for them, but on the other, they had to realize that almost anything could have ended up there in their backyards. Zoning can always be changed so that doesn't always protect either.... The houses across the street from us have a hay field behind them. In their case though, I believe it's too small and "road-locked" for anything other than more housing to end up there. There is a cul-de-sac in the lower left where a street could continue off of to turn into the field. It would require purchasing the wooded lot too though. That's someone's property with their home though, so unlikely....
They're not "taking away" farms or farm land and the same applies with solar farms. Remember - who sells them the farm land to build these ? The farmers do....
Just because there is a land that has previously grown stuff, doesn't mean it will forever be suitable to farm.
In California we have almond farms using up water and then in drought the trees die. Yes it is "farmland" but there is not enough water, nutrient (due to past over farming), labor, whatnot to continue using it as a farm. Using some of it for solar is actually a way to save up water for the rest of the "farmland".
I am not sure how long do data centers last but for solar, if they last 20 years they can in theory always turn them back into farm afterward. If they want to build houses afterward that's fine by me too. If they don't have enough water they will just sit there regardless, instead of being a "farmland".
A bunch of the new ones are doing closed loop cooling, not evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling has efficiency limits with these very dense power numbers.
Yeah, data centers are going to wreck the entire ecosystem around this place:
And the people that are supposed to protect you and your interests - they don't care.
The truth is, it's going to happen whether you are for it or against it. The money is there to support the growth, the demand is there from everywhere (even us using this forum is demand for more servers and content we are providing because, in reality, we are "content creators". Everyone who contributes to this forum, with their opinions, gripes, praise, or whatever - is creating content that has to be stored somewhere.
Farmers sold the land because their kids don't want to be farmers. Makes sense then, take the money and move on. Ultimately, in a capitalist society, the money decides what is "valuable" and what is not. Land use is one of those things that capital is deciding - land is better used for data centers and not farming.
And the people that are supposed to protect you and your interests - they don't care.
The truth is, it's going to happen whether you are for it or against it. The money is there to support the growth, the demand is there from everywhere (even us using this forum is demand for more servers and content we are providing because, in reality, we are "content creators". Everyone who contributes to this forum, with their opinions, gripes, praise, or whatever - is creating content that has to be stored somewhere.
Farmers sold the land because their kids don't want to be farmers. Makes sense then, take the money and move on. Ultimately, in a capitalist society, the money decides what is "valuable" and what is not. Land use is one of those things that capital is deciding - land is better used for data centers and not farming.
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Was not farmed until the Colorado river project brought subsidized water to them.
We have lots of water and the right weather to farm in South Carolina, but much of it is not used because the farmers have to pay to move, store and pump there own water and then cannot compete with giant subsidized California farms that essentially get almost free water delivered due to "water rights". There are many small organic farms growing tasty stuff if your willing to pay more.
Depends on where you are.
I think your on the East Coast. Evaporative cooling doesn't work here. Too humid.
Out west where they have 20% humidity it works great, but they lack water.
No free lunch ever.
I have facilities all over the US.
It's super hard to blanket statement things about what does and doesn't work. Works for a traditional data center at 40 kW / rack isn't the same as a next gen rack doing 400+ kW.
Not for evaporative cooling, its pure science. All you need to know is the wet bulb and dry bulb temperature and a psychrometric chart. It really isn't efficient above 40% relative humidity and pretty much stops working altogether at 50%. There is essentially no US state East of the Mississippi with average summer humidity in range.
How are you defining evaporative cooling. What is your inlet water temperature?
Evaporative Efficiency is a function of the difference between wet bulb and dry bulb because it relies on evaporative energy loss. When its 80 degrees outside and 50% humidity, those two are very close = maybe 10 or 12 degrees apart. So if you pour 100F water through a swamp cooler you might get a 5 degree drop.
If you pour 200F water through the cooler you will get a drop due simply to the difference in temperature - ie Newtons law of cooling. If I put a boiling pot of water outside on the hottest summer day it too will cool off - from ambient not evaporation.
You said evaporative.
Indirect evaporative is a heat exchanger. No one calls it that - they call them heat exchangers. The cooling loop in your car is a indirect evaporative system. So is the AC in your car, and the AC in your house. Your coolant doesn't rely on evaporation. In fact it sealed and doesn't evaporate at all. Very different.
I'm for them but only in places that already have lots of water, which does NOT incude AZ's Sonoran Desert.
Maybe you don't use it, but it's quite common.
In some facilities, we use the Oasis DCIE. Do you know what the DCIE part of the name is? Data Center Indirect Evaporative.
Where does the water come from for that? And how much water does the building go through in a day?
I was doing some research on heat pumps and was kind of surprised how many people just pump water out of the ground and run it through the heat pump once and then into a leeching bed, or onto the ground depending on their circumstances.
The one in Desert are likely solar panel powered, just like the one in Las Vegas my employer uses. If your workload align with daytime sunlight it can get VERY cheap.
AC is a phase change cooling system, yes it's a direct evaporative system, but it's closed loop, so the phase change happens over and over again.
Plenty of data centers use chillers that are closed loop, evaporative systems, the difference is that a lot of them use water to cool down the evaporators, instead of air like conventional AC systems.
So they can easily mislead the public and local governments because direct cooling is a closed loop system, but they can omit that cooling the chillers may be an open loop system that uses and pollutes water. As always, the devil is in the details.
It's from processed sewage. It would be destined for stream discharge, but is redirected for the commercial recycled loop.
I don't have the daily numbers, but the time of year would matter. There's more water usage in summer months than winter months. I'd note that a few facilities have (3) water inputs, usually one has enough water for the regular needs, but the recycled supply is preferred for cost. The three are:
County Water Supply
County Recycled Supply (AKA Purple Pipe)
Onsite Well
This thread hits hard for me, as Northern Utah has just learned of a proposed mega data center that would be built for military use. The MIDA (Military Installation Development Authority) is considering installing a massive data center out in the desert of Western Box Elder County. The data center would take 4000 acres of land. The developers say the data center is necessary to put the US military of better footing, compared to China, who is claimed to be far ahead of us in using AI for military purposes.
It wouldn't surprise me if many of you have heard about it, as it is big news right now. The opposition is loud, and of course the news media loves a good story, so the critics are getting plenty of publicity, while those who are not opposed are quiet, so they don't make the news.
I've spent a fair amount of time exploring this desert area. It is vast open land, primarily populated with jack rabbits, coyotes, snakes, sagebrush, and prairie grass. And of course a few farmers and ranchers that enjoy the solitude, and their cattle. If I were to pick a site for a data center, that is not going to disturb the neighbors, this would be it. They are planning on using a closed loop cooling system, which I would think would be the only choice, considering the lack of water. They will be buying the same rancher's water rights, and using it to replenish the cooling system water usage.
It wouldn't surprise me if many of you have heard about it, as it is big news right now. The opposition is loud, and of course the news media loves a good story, so the critics are getting plenty of publicity, while those who are not opposed are quiet, so they don't make the news.
And when it comes to data centers, I kind of get that. But in this case, the proposed data center location is separated from the nearest people, as small farming community of perhaps 250-300 people, by about 10 miles and a mountain range. Without driving out to the desert, no one will ever see or hear this data center. The nearest highway (Interstate 84) will be about 7-8 miles away, so the data center may be visible to those traveling on the highway, but not in their normal view.
Unless eminent domain is used, I don't see how that applies. In this case, the land owner is willing to sell his ranch to the developer. And although I have no personal knowledge of this particular instance, I know most of the aging farmers and ranchers in Western Box Elder County would be thrilled to have someone willing to buy their land at a fair market value.
I've spent a fair amount of time exploring this desert area. It is vast open land, primarily populated with jack rabbits, coyotes, snakes, sagebrush, and prairie grass. And of course a few farmers and ranchers that enjoy the solitude, and their cattle. If I were to pick a site for a data center, that is not going to disturb the neighbors, this would be it. They are planning on using a closed loop cooling system, which I would think would be the only choice, considering the lack of water. They will be buying the same rancher's water rights, and using it to replenish the cooling system water usage.
