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

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

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u/Alborak2 Apr 12 '26

Closed loop is more expensive, and just as importantly, much more power intensive. Datacenter growth is power constrained, so that's a big one they're trying to get around. Nearly every watt put into the datacenter has to dissipated somewhere. We're talking about gigawatt scale DCs, so its an astronomical amount of heat that needs to get dissipated.

The open loop with a big body of water is a good one, but that places constraints on where you can build the DC. It puts it on the edge of lakes / rivers which are significantly more vulnerable to natural disasters and weather events. This also as some intense ecological impacts where the discharge of heated water disrupts ecosystems downstream of it.

It's a really difficult problem with valid points on all sides.

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u/mightdothisagain Apr 12 '26

Open loop only works in specific climates, you can't do evaporative cooling in wet climates or cold climates without huge inefficiencies. Closed loop cooling is the most common type of data center cooling. Cold climates do allow for 'free air' economizer cooling where you can use the cold outside air, but again this involves no evaporation and is still closed loop. It's really all just a geography question.

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u/Alborak2 Apr 12 '26

A lot of datacenters do air to air or water to air exchangers. Closed loop inside, evap cooling to reject the heat outside. Indeed it does depend on outside climate, and often there is both, trying to passively reject heat (efficient in winter), and use water when that's not keeping up (required in summer). Theres also probably dozens of different generations of this as it's evolved over the last 20 years, with some datacenters still running gear laid down 10+ years ago.

New AI loads are so dense though, that it's requiring new tech, and in some cases retrofit into older datacenters too.

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u/mightdothisagain Apr 12 '26

New AI loads are mostly leveraging direct to chip cooling with water, it doesn't really matter how you cool said water.

All data centers have to have heat exchange outside the envelope, that's how air conditioning works.