this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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Thirsty work: how the rise of massive datacentres strains Australia’s drinking water supply (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 months ago by voidx@futurology.today to c/futurology@futurology.today
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[–] nul9o9@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The water use is because of evaporative cooling right? Releases steam into the air? Couldn't this be handled with standard refrigeratation, even if its more expensive?

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Estimated cost for professional installation is about half or less that of central refrigerated air conditioning.

Estimated cost of operation is 1/8 that of refrigerated air conditioning

Source

Seems to be a lot more expensive, especially in running costs.

[–] nul9o9@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Thanks for the info. It'd be nice if we had a functioning government that could regulate and provide incentives to move data centers away from evaporative cooling.

Edit: assumed this was in the US.

[–] MummysLittleBloodSlut@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago

It also uses more electricity. I'm more worried about carbon use than water use