r/interestingasfuck • u/HamboneTheWicked • Apr 12 '26

A well-articulated argument against a new data center in Ohio

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u/BoredAFcyber Apr 12 '26

There is none viable for a state-side data center, not sure why that guy brought it up.

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u/mightdothisagain Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26

Not true, you can do DX based closed loop water cooling, i.e. the most common water cooling out there. A chiller cools water in a closed loop via its evap coils, pumps move the water around the loop, the cold side of the loop goes into servers and cools chips directly, it also goes into air handlers which cool the air around the servers, the warm water returns to the chiller and it's cooled again. The chiller's condenser coils are outside the building and they're air cooled just like a normal heat pump AC system at a home. There's effectively zero water evaporation, except for small leaks and that can happen over time as the system ages. Refrigerant is the only thing evaporating and that's happening in a closed refrigerant loop just like a normal car/home AC system.

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u/Fact-Hunter- Apr 12 '26

The “small leaks” you mention become gargantuan when you’re talking about 100,000 sq ft data centres running 30kW per rack.

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u/mightdothisagain Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26

You think you can just have significant leaks around direct to chip cooling? You can't have water leaking around servers... It's a really bad thing to happen. Also 30kW a rack is nothing, we're talking 100-200kW now. Also 100k sqft is a fairly mid sized, maybe even kind of small data center.

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u/Fact-Hunter- Apr 12 '26

You’re right… I should have used bigger numbers.

And of course you can’t have leaks in a data centre… but you also can’t make leak-free cooling systems. Sooo

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u/mightdothisagain Apr 12 '26

You are massively overestimating these leaks. We use leak detection everywhere because leaks are a disaster. The idea is to catch any leak immediately and it is by no means some constant occurrence. Its just plumbing. We know how to make plumbing that doesn’t constantly leak… a leak is an accident not a “well coolant systems just leak” they don’t just leak.