Hi there everyone,
Let me start this by saying that this is an honest question. I figure nobody would be better suited to answer my question than a group laser-focused on the negatives of the technology.
I see these types of memes a lot and see statistics of gallons consumed in a lot of articles I read. What I don't understand though is where the water goes that it can't be reclaimed or naturally return from a gas to a liquid.
As a kid(long ago), I was taught of the cycle of rain and the conversion between gases and liquid. It's my understanding that when a liquid is used to cool something, it also follows the same conversion process as it cools.
Could someone explain to me what's going on in this process where the 264 billion gallons of water used in the meme do not return to a liquid state?
I would appreciate any insight into the process that seems to defy this cycle that I am missing. Like I said prior, my knowledge of this process ended in middle school science class so I'm confident that I'm missing something.
Thanks for your time!
Another commenter explained evaporative cooling and how that displaces water. I don't believe open loop systems like that are common, however.
When the water source is groundwater or snowmelt, it is a problem to withdraw the water faster than it replenishes. It's not that uncommon to have drinking water come from a well (groundwater) and wastewater returned to a surface water system, which means you need to give water time to percolate back into the aquifers.
There are different types of closed loop systems. Some require a constant source of water, and some are refreshed periodically. Both could cause a strain on a sensitive ground water system, even if the water is returned to the wastewater system for treatment.
I'm not following the topic closely, but the articles I have read about opposition to specific projects tend to be either misunderstandings (coincidental wells being dry whereas the centre is taking surface water) or a lack of treatment system/distribution capacity, kind of like what you see with concerns about energy demands.
They do use open loop systems because those are cheaper and that is exactly the problem. They could use closed loop systems but they choose not to.
This is highly regional.
I looked at the data centres listed here: https://ontariodatacentres.ca/
For the Applications, 1 of the 6 listed sites are proposing evaporative cooling.