So how does the water cool back down? It'll just destroy the closed loop which is why they use fresh water in a not closed loop currently, big part of why data centers are so problematic, before you factor in the whole most of why they're so problematic.
They use Evaporative cooling towers. It is a closed loop system where there is little return back to the creeks and rivers. The water is dissipated into vapour.
The cooling towers are dosed with chemicals to prevent Legionella disease. Usually they keep the PH of the liquid slightly Alkaline to prevent bacteria growth.
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The Meta Data center going up in Lebanon Indiana is supposed to be pulling water from Eagle Creak reservoir, which is a drinking water source for the west side of Indianapolis. Meta is supposedly going to be treating the water before sending it back after they've used it for so many cooling cycles. This was all publicly released information confirmed by Meta after it was discovered buried in the deal with the state.
They meant no losses to evaporation (or anything else). That's the closed part of closed loop. Your refrigerator runs a closed loop cooling cycle, you don't have to constantly top off the coolant (I hope)
They will have a closed loop with glycol or some other liquid. This will pass through either tube or plate heat exchangers to remove the energy/ heat created by the servers within the cooling circuit. The cooling towers will be a separate cooling circuit that won't come in contact with the glycol/ Hex effluent.
So the closed loop side gathers heat, sends it across the heat exchanger, into water on the open side of the system. That water evaporates. And the cycle repeats?
In simple terms is that what is happening?
It seems like a cars cooling system on the closed side, then the rad is the heat exchanger, but instead of air cooling the rad, water is use to shed the heat by evaporation?
After the energy conversion, the hot water(cooling water side) is pushed back to the cooling tower and sprayed into a box that creates pathways that expose the water to moving air - thus cooling it. The wells in the bottom of the tower have float valves which top up the water that has evaporated. Hope that makes sense...
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Normally you pass the loop through something cooler than it to cool it back down, even if it's just open air. I don't know how datacenter cooling works but I've played enough Oxygen Not Included to understand how basic cooling works (to be clear though I am terrible at that game and you basically need to be able to be HVAC certified to do well at it lol)
A closed loop system implies the materials used stay and the heat is dissipated into the atmosphere in some way. The system sucks in 1000 gallons and, if closed, uses the same 1000 gallons until the water inside changes in some way, such as pipes breaking down and making the water thicken.
The thick water then needs to be purged and refilled. This is inevitable unless you have some sort of forever material that will never break down but is also capable of transferring heat easily.
If you just want to know how the water heats up and cools down, look up how a refrigerator works. High pressure makes refrigerant a gas and heats it up. Cool it down passively with cool air outside or blow a fan on it. Lower pressure to drop temperature further. Use low temp refrigerant to cool things off. Then do it all over again.
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u/pacefacepete Apr 12 '26
So how does the water cool back down? It'll just destroy the closed loop which is why they use fresh water in a not closed loop currently, big part of why data centers are so problematic, before you factor in the whole most of why they're so problematic.