this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
425 points (96.3% liked)
Technology
59128 readers
2316 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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?
They use evaporative cooling on days where it is over 85f
https://local.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Datacenter-water-consumption-fact-sheet.pdf
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 drinking supplies.
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.
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.