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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byv1 ( 525388 ) writes:
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone trying to use the waste heat that all this computer power is generating? I realize that would impact cooling a little, but surely SOME of this can be recovered efficiently? Steam turbines are the usual way to turn heat into electrical power. Is there no way to do it for data centers?
For example, use a heat pump to concentrate the heat to above boiling temperature then use that to boil water to run a steam turbine. The heat pump would require some power to run, but I think you could run that at a net-positive for power?
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byAnonymous Coward writes:
Heat pump above boiling for water? Seasonal performance factor might be able to outpace standard efficiency for heating, but it has its upper limits. The best you could hope for would be a closed loop system with something like alcohol which has a lower boiling point, But I don't know if a closed loop system with alcohol can spin a dynamo...
I had this same idea as a "perpetual motion machine" in warm climates back in the '90s, when I learned about HSPF, but the numbers never panned out with what my teen
byv1 ( 525388 ) writes:
The heat pump's working fluid doesn't have to be water, it'd be whatever fluid can phase change at a "convenient pressure". The released heat on the high pressure side would be used to boil water into steam, which could then be moved to a turbine to generate power.
That "working fluid" woud be what is circulating on the low pressure side, through the cooling blocks.
bywill4 ( 7250692 ) writes:
Simply data centers should pay above the average retail rate for single home owners do for home within a metro area and within 75 miles in the same state.
Individual homeowners and apartment renters should not subsidize AI data centers.
byCommunityMember ( 6662188 ) writes:
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone trying to use the waste heat that all this computer power is generating?
Some data centers have used their waste heat to do things like heat pools, or apartments/condos.
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byHadlock ( 143607 ) writes:
Famously, the Coors (beer) brewery in waste heat keeps the sidewalks free of snow and many of the buildings heated in the winter. PG&E built a power plant at the site of the H&C sugar refinery in california and the waste heat is used to make baking sugar. It's not that uncommon.
byrsilvergun ( 571051 ) writes:
Because that would require the expensive infrastructure spending and why would they bother doing that when they can just take your electricity away from you?
I don't think people have realized that AI isn't for us. It's not a product. It's what the top 6,000 people on earth are going to use as an answer to the question "well if they fire all of us who's going to buy their products?"
The problem seems to be that people cannot comprehend capitalism going away except maybe by Star Trek style utopian soci
byArchtech ( 159117 ) writes:
The parent is obviously sarcastic. Not wise in such a forum as this.
byal0ha ( 1262684 ) writes:
Why will they need humans at all in your dystopian view? By the time something like this might be possible, meat sticks will have been made irrelevant already by robotics.
byPPH ( 736903 ) writes:
when they can just take your electricity away from you?
Who is going to let them just take it?
●Utilities are generally allowed to demand payment for needed infrastructure improvement in advance.
●AI electrical demand is high, but not likely to be dependable.
Newer AI implementations are likely to be much more energy efficient*, reducing the anticipated payback for infrastructure.
●Utilities are within their rights to demand deposits be placed in escrow to cover the impact of this phantom demand. Use it or lose it**.
●If the initial demand predictions are unmet, the
●ent threshold.
bySmidge204 ( 605297 ) writes:
> Is there no way to do it for data centers?
The water temps are typically barely warm enough for most people's preference for a shower.
> For example, use a heat pump to concentrate the heat to above boiling temperature then use that to boil water to run a steam turbine.
Getting a heat pump to operate at atmospheric boiling water temps is extremely difficult. Remember that to have a working heat pump, you need a refrigerant medium that condenses at the high temperature side under a given pressure and also boils at or below the low temperature side at a given pressure... then, you need to build a machine that can actually create those pressures.
Now consider that most steam cycle powerplants use superheated steam at temps of over 500C. What material could you use that can be made to condense into a liquid at >500C, what kinds of pressures would be required to make that happen, and what could you even build such a machine out of to survive those conditions?
> I think you could run that at a net-positive for power?
The second law of thermodynamics has left you a voicemail...
=Smidge=
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byAmiMoJo ( 196126 ) writes:
The Japanese have found a way to use small temperature differences to generate electricity. They use the temperature gradient between shallow and deep sea water, for example.
The key is to use liquids that boil at much lower temperatures to drive the turbines. Of course then you get into difficulty handling those typically quite nasty liquids, but they seem to have made it work and have exported the technology.
It's probably still a bit too new to be of much interest to data centres, but if it keeps ramping u
bySmidge204 ( 605297 ) writes:
> The Japanese have found a way to use small temperature differences to generate electricity
And for about $50 I can buy an engine that runs off the temperature difference between the ambient air and a cup of hot water. The idea of using thermal gradients in the ocean to generate power is at least 150 years old. Any guesses why it's not caught on?
Hint: the facility in Japan you're probably thinking of only generates 100kw (~135HP), and it's not clear if that's before or after they account for the power to
bygoombah99 ( 560566 ) writes:
the core challenge of renewable energy is it's inconstancy. Physical batteries are a bandaid and long distance grids are a council of despair. The real solution for reliable renewable energy is to just build out four or five times the peak load. Then when it's cloudy or not windy you still have way more power than you need to supply the peak load. But of course this has the problem that you just spent four of five times as much capital. And that's a non-starter. But the easy, though bad solution, to
byMspangler ( 770054 ) writes:
It's not hot enough. I suppose in a Canadian winter you could boil butane as the working fluid but the Carnot efficiency would be rather low.
Putting the data center in town you could pump the warm water around for district heat. If you can get to 250 F, equal to 15 psi steam you can run an absorption air conditioner or a distilling plant.
byambrandt12 ( 6486220 ) writes:
Are these datacenters getting over 212F? If they are, the cooling ain't working right.
Do you mean like pump the cooling water into a tank and use the heat from the water to heat the tank to boiling? You'll never get there with just a football-field of datacenters... at best, the combined heat from the whole place might heat a studio apartment... I know, my 3950X 24-core Threadripper and Titan X running CudoMiner all night maybe raises the livingroom a degree.
To turn that big generator, you need pressure,
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