Who cares? They voted for this.

Thaddeus73 said:

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H20 in Texas is a problem, and these things require a lot!

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If a closed loop system water usage is not an issue.

Principal Uncertainty said:

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jpb1999 said:

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Principal Uncertainty said:

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TAMUallen said:

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Data centers are going to be such an issue for electricity grids

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Most maga-size data centers are installing their own generation and not even connecting to any grid. But many mid-size ones are, so point is partially valid. Also, with the new high-powered severs being liquid cooled, they will just use a heat exchanger to a cooling tower. So, no refrigerated chiller and fin-fan coolers. The cooling towers will use much less electricity (for the cooling, not the chip power), so it's by far the cheaper way to go. But evaporative cooling does consume water, so in dry place like west Texas where cheap fuel gas exists wil, indeed, need to manage the water consumption.

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Most are going to a closed loop system with little water use.

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No, they are not. Closed loop chilling for the building envelope, but future servers will have liquid immersion for cooling with plate and frame heat exchangers directly to an evaporative cooling tower. They are in the prototype stage now, but will be the future of compute.

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Liquid immersion has been the 'future' for at least a decade and is way past the prototype stage, this has not and will likely not be widespread adopted anytime soon.

ETA that if a user went liquid immersion there is absolutely no water needed, it would use a specialized fluid.

Hank the Grifter said:

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Deputy Travis Junior said:

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I don't understand the tension. Our country is gigantic. Plenty of room for data centers and farm land.

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When you realize that these "data centers" are actually domestic espionage centers, you'll begin to understand the tension.

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There it is!!! All these data centers are really spy centers

Deputy Travis Junior said:

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I don't understand the tension. Our country is gigantic. Plenty of room for data centers and farm land.

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they should all be put in the desert

or at least 15 miles from any city

not all over Northern Virginia near Dulles Airport destroying every tree within 30 square miles and clogging up traffic in one of the most populous metro areas.

flown-the-coop said:

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Ozzy Osbourne said:

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Lots of toilet flushes for the H1B workers that man these data centers

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Jokes on you! h1-Bs don't flush.

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.

Can confirm at my office.

The math on water cooling is that every gallon of water evaporated off a cooling tower is 2.4 kilowatt hours of delivered cooling saved. Loss of work due to inefficiency probably bumps that up to 3 kwh of power saved. So that's $0.45 saved by spending roughly $0.02. It's a financial no-brainer to use evaporative cooling if you have enough water. But in places where water is becoming increasingly scarce, that math needs to change without putting the screws to the average person.

Ozzy Osbourne said:

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Data centers are the new 5G for the tinfoil hat squad

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Matt Walsh went off on them....but that is his reaction to everything. He's perfected rage bait.

flown-the-coop said:

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Ozzy Osbourne said:

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Lots of toilet flushes for the H1B workers that man these data centers

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Jokes on you! h1-Bs don't flush.

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Nor do they use toilets! Been wondering why those marigolds are blooming great this year?!

Thaddeus73 said:

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I think I agree....

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The highest, best use of land in a desert would be data centers. It's poor for agriculture, low population density so not very valuable for single family homes, low recreational value, not a lot of great scenery, little water.

I love to see the arguing about data centers in a forum hosted….within a data center!

Martels Hammer said:

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Sulphur Springs TX is getting, I am told, the largest pending build of a new center. And their city budget, by memory, will go from $6M to something like $400M.

So I would assume the people in Sulphur will be pretty happy.

Edit

I "hear" the city is saying the residents will not longer have to pay for garbage etc. I will believe that when I see it but come on, free garbage people.

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I'll get an update tomorrow, but my parents and brother live there. Last time I talked to him this DC was under major dispute. The entity that sold the company this land is now suing them because they sold land with specific requirements of how land would be used and DC was not one of them. I have no idea how legitimate that lawsuit would be.

And there are other headwinds in this getting built now as well. This one sounds like a big grift, but again, I'll get an update tomorrow.

Will the usa fall behind if we do not build them here?

Ag_07 said:

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This whole data center dilemma is BS.

I don't want farmland and open spaces taken up by anything. Data center or subdivision or skyscraper or parking lot.

It's just something to scream and bltch about when in reality it's just an inevitable result of technological advancement and progression.

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People aren't asking why farming has been on the decline for the last 40 years, but they sure do think data centers are to blame for something that just started being a thing about five years ago .

Queso1 said:

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This reminds me of my law school's building. It was constructed decades ago a certain way in order to hold computers. The massive computers needed to process whatever data weighed tens of thousands of pounds. I'm now posting with a phone with exponentially more processing power.

I think these things will be obsolete in 10 years and nobody will clean them up. Just another blight on our country's landscape.

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Don't blame me. I'm unapologetically completely anti progress. If I could push a button and send my county back to 1948, ship out everyone that moved here that's not an original founding family, I'd smash that button so fast I'd probably break every bone from my fingers to my shoulder….which would be a pain since there aren't hospitals where I am in 1948. But I'd roll those dice anyway.

BrazosDog02 said:

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Don't blame me. I'm unapologetically completely anti progress. If I could push a button and send my county back to 1948, ship out everyone that moved here that's not an original founding family, I'd smash that button so fast I'd probably break every bone from my fingers to my shoulder….which would be a pain since there aren't hospitals where I am in 1948. But I'd roll those dice anyway.

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Build baby build. Good Trump

Where do you live? Obviously not a desert.

A1_Ag_95 said:

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Thaddeus73 said:

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H20 in Texas is a problem, and these things require a lot!

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If a closed loop system water usage is not an issue.

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How many gallons are needed to create that "closed loop system"? I don't know about you, but I depend on groundwater. I don't need more slimeballs siphoning off that water.

Queso1 said:

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This reminds me of my law school's building. It was constructed decades ago a certain way in order to hold computers. The massive computers needed to process whatever data weighed tens of thousands of pounds. I'm now posting with a phone with exponentially more processing power.

I think these things will be obsolete in 10 years and nobody will clean them up. Just another blight on our country's landscape.

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Huge buildings always have uses. Thrse thing aren't going obsolete any time soon. They will periodically be taken out of service to have the servers updated to fit more computing power in the same footprint over time,

This IS the future. And it is one we must win. Otherwise the CCP will rise to be the dominant global power. That is the choice. A big boring building here and there or subservience to CCP manipulation and intimidation within 2 generations at most.

Don't fall for the doomer chinese propaganda. They'll bot feed anything they can to make people here paranoid or upset to help themselves catch up to our lead.

But if someone owns private property and wants to sell to a data center, why shouldn't they be allowed to? If the neighbors can stop the transaction than the owner of the private property has lost their rights. I should've able to do what o want to with my land.

We bulldoze prairies a hundred square miles at a time for tract homes, build mile long industrial warehouses by the thousands, and have poured enough concrete and asphalt to cover the entire state of Arizona, but you draw the line at data centers?

Aoc is against them so now I'm thinking they're a good idea.

lb3 said:

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We bulldoze prairies a hundred square miles at a time for tract homes, build mile long industrial warehouses by the thousands, and have poured enough concrete and asphalt to cover the entire state of Arizona, but you draw the line at data centers?

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Do those other examples have the drain on resources that data centers have? Specifically water and electric plus the apparent noise they put off.

jja79 said:

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I see them going up everywhere in Arizona. Today my surprise I saw an interview with a developer in this space say one reason they're building so many here is the state is the only one with a 100 year water plan. Don't know if that's true but I found it interesting.

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Rolling back the clock 25 years to when Arizona started getting popular for Data Centers, the other reasons besides cheap land and few restrictions are that Arizona is mostly free from natural disasters -
Earthquakes
Hurricanes
Tornados

dmart90 said:

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A1_Ag_95 said:

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Thaddeus73 said:

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H20 in Texas is a problem, and these things require a lot!

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If a closed loop system water usage is not an issue.

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How many gallons are needed to create that "closed loop system"? I don't know about you, but I depend on groundwater. I don't need more slimeballs siphoning off that water.

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Much less than you flush in a year. Or water your yard, do laundry, wash dishes.

jpb1999 said:

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Principal Uncertainty said:

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TAMUallen said:

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Data centers are going to be such an issue for electricity grids

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Most maga-size data centers are installing their own generation and not even connecting to any grid. But many mid-size ones are, so point is partially valid. Also, with the new high-powered severs being liquid cooled, they will just use a heat exchanger to a cooling tower. So, no refrigerated chiller and fin-fan coolers. The cooling towers will use much less electricity (for the cooling, not the chip power), so it's by far the cheaper way to go. But evaporative cooling does consume water, so in dry place like west Texas where cheap fuel gas exists wil, indeed, need to manage the water consumption.

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Most are going to a closed loop system with little water use.

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but require more electricity.

YouBet said:

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lb3 said:

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We bulldoze prairies a hundred square miles at a time for tract homes, build mile long industrial warehouses by the thousands, and have poured enough concrete and asphalt to cover the entire state of Arizona, but you draw the line at data centers?

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Do those other examples have the drain on resources that data centers have? Specifically water and electric plus the apparent noise they put off.

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Haaaaave you met the average American in 2026?

agracer said:

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jpb1999 said:

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Principal Uncertainty said:

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TAMUallen said:

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Data centers are going to be such an issue for electricity grids

---

Most maga-size data centers are installing their own generation and not even connecting to any grid. But many mid-size ones are, so point is partially valid. Also, with the new high-powered severs being liquid cooled, they will just use a heat exchanger to a cooling tower. So, no refrigerated chiller and fin-fan coolers. The cooling towers will use much less electricity (for the cooling, not the chip power), so it's by far the cheaper way to go. But evaporative cooling does consume water, so in dry place like west Texas where cheap fuel gas exists wil, indeed, need to manage the water consumption.

---

Most are going to a closed loop system with little water use.

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but require more electricity.

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Please explain.

lb3 said:

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We bulldoze prairies a hundred square miles at a time for tract homes, build mile long industrial warehouses by the thousands, and have poured enough concrete and asphalt to cover the entire state of Arizona, but you draw the line at data centers?

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I was gonna say ... if the land isn't used for a data center, before long it will become subdivisions for third-worlders, complete with strip centers housing nail salons, vape shops, Wal-Marts, etc.

Urban Country Boy said:

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agracer said:

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jpb1999 said:

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Principal Uncertainty said:

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TAMUallen said:

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Data centers are going to be such an issue for electricity grids

---

Most maga-size data centers are installing their own generation and not even connecting to any grid. But many mid-size ones are, so point is partially valid. Also, with the new high-powered severs being liquid cooled, they will just use a heat exchanger to a cooling tower. So, no refrigerated chiller and fin-fan coolers. The cooling towers will use much less electricity (for the cooling, not the chip power), so it's by far the cheaper way to go. But evaporative cooling does consume water, so in dry place like west Texas where cheap fuel gas exists wil, indeed, need to manage the water consumption.

---

Most are going to a closed loop system with little water use.

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but require more electricity.

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Please explain.

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Water has to be just not cooled but circulated. In open loop, one way flow and moderate to no cooling of the fresh water.

Just my guess on the need for more electron vs H2O juice.

EclipseAg said:

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lb3 said:

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We bulldoze prairies a hundred square miles at a time for tract homes, build mile long industrial warehouses by the thousands, and have poured enough concrete and asphalt to cover the entire state of Arizona, but you draw the line at data centers?

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I was gonna say ... if the land isn't used for a data center, before long it will become subdivisions for third-worlders, complete with strip centers housing nail salons, vape shops, Wal-Marts, etc.

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Better than trailer parks with rides on the roof and drunken injuns leaching off modern society.

Coates said:

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Principal Uncertainty said:

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jpb1999 said:

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Principal Uncertainty said:

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TAMUallen said:

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Data centers are going to be such an issue for electricity grids

---

Most maga-size data centers are installing their own generation and not even connecting to any grid. But many mid-size ones are, so point is partially valid. Also, with the new high-powered severs being liquid cooled, they will just use a heat exchanger to a cooling tower. So, no refrigerated chiller and fin-fan coolers. The cooling towers will use much less electricity (for the cooling, not the chip power), so it's by far the cheaper way to go. But evaporative cooling does consume water, so in dry place like west Texas where cheap fuel gas exists wil, indeed, need to manage the water consumption.

---

Most are going to a closed loop system with little water use.

---

No, they are not. Closed loop chilling for the building envelope, but future servers will have liquid immersion for cooling with plate and frame heat exchangers directly to an evaporative cooling tower. They are in the prototype stage now, but will be the future of compute.

---

Liquid immersion has been the 'future' for at least a decade and is way past the prototype stage, this has not and will likely not be widespread adopted anytime soon.

ETA that if a user went liquid immersion there is absolutely no water needed, it would use a specialized fluid.

---

This is being used now. I would have liked to see the reaction of the data guys when they were told, "We have an idea. We are going to submerge your servers to cool them".