Data Centers Work To Reduce Water Usage

miller60 writes "As data centers get larger, they are getting thirstier as well. A large server farm can use up to 360,000 gallons of water a day in its cooling systems, a trend that has data center operators looking at ways to reduce their water use and impact on local water utilities. Google says two of its data centers now are "water self-sufficient." The company has built a water treatment plant at its new facility in Belgium, allowing the data center to rely on water from a nearby industrial canal. Microsoft chose San Antonio for a huge data center so it could use the local utility's recycled water ('gray water') service for the 8 million gallons it will use each month."

Comments

Re:Idea

[iminplaya]

Exactly! The water is going nowhere. There's just as much now as there was 4.5 billion years ago. And there's plenty of it bubbling up from deep underground we haven't even touched. Christ! We pipe oil 800 miles across Alaska. Do they mean to say we can't do the same for ocean water? In fact I thought it might be one of the reasons to just float the damn things, or better yet sink 'em so they are surrounded by nice cool water. As always, it's about the damn money.