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What Happens When Facebook Heats Your Home (www.wired.co.uk)

submitted 11 months ago by fer0n@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Since 2020, Meta’s hyperscale data center — spanning 50,000 square meters on an industrial estate on the edge of the city — has been pushing warm air generated by its servers into the district heating network under Odense. That heat is then dispersed through 100,000 households hooked up to the system, with Meta providing enough heat to cover roughly 11,000.

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[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So you're saying to just let the servers get as hot as they want and ignore it? What is this heat pump going to be heating?

If you don't have anything you are wanting to heat up, adding a heat pump doesn't help.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Modern heat pump systems are reversible, so you would be drawing the heat energy from the room and releasing it outside. During this exchange air is run over a compressed coolant which cools the air and reintroduces it back to the room.

[–] bitwaba@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's just called an air conditioner?

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

An AC can only cool the home, while a heat pump can both cool and heat a home. They are different things, and worth looking into.

[–] bitwaba@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

During this exchange air is run over a compressed coolant which cools the air and reintroduces it back to the room

That's just an air conditioner. The difference between an air conditoner and a heat pump is that a heat pump has a reversal valve that allows the refrigerant to run backwards through the system.

My point is someone is using a whole bunch of words to say "I'd air-condition my server room". It's not exactly a ground breaking idea.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 months ago

A heat pump still costs energy to run... And running it in reverse to cool a room is the exact same process as running an ac to cool a room. It's all phase change cooling which we've been doing for decades. The only possible innovation that could be had here is using the waste heat instead of just releasing it to the outside environment, but that requires wanting to heat something else while you need to cool the server room.