Why do datacenters continuously use more water instead of recycling the same water in a closed loop system?
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Evaporative cooling is the most cost-efficient way to cool a facility. It takes a lot of energy for water to go from (hot) liquid to gas, which means that a small amount of water being evaporated gets you a lot of cooling capacity.
However, the reverse is also true; when water goes from gas to liquid, it dumps that heat into everything around it. So if you’re using evaporative cooling, then you necessarily have to eject the gaseous water as well, otherwise you’re just cycling the heat from one part of the facility to another. But since you’re ejecting water from the system, you need to bring in more water to replace it. Hence, you’re a net “consumer” of water, as that water can’t be used anymore.
The alternative is to use a nearby river or waterway as a heat sink. You bring cool water in from the river, run it through the cooling system to bring it from cool to warm or hot, and then dump that water back into the river, further downstream. Again, you’re “consuming” water, except now you’re also heating up the local waterway, which could have unforeseen consequences on the local wildlife.
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