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!
It's not an extra cent for a closed loop cooling system and your straw analogy is closer to closed loop in how it works. They use open loop because vaporising water takes a lot more energy than heating water. You get a lot of more cooled. The alternative is to run a ton more AC at lower efficiency since the hot side of the AC won't be cooled fast enough.
They're doing it to use less electricity since electricity is expensive. In a way, it's a good thing. Until you factor in droughts