The EU wants to compete with the U.S. and China on artificial intelligence. But critics say policymakers haven’t planned for the sector’s extreme water demand.
Any increase in temperature, which benefits evaporation, decreases the efficiency of running the data center.
This is the vapor pressure curve for water. Under constant pressure and saturation of the air, the evaporation rate as a function of temperature is proportional to the vapor pressure curve. As you can see it is an exponential relationship.
Now you have to offset that with the energy it takes to pump the water around, the increased costs for equipment that can deal with salt water, the increased costs to deal with flooding risks…
Europe consists of a bunch of peninsulas surrounded by ocean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Ocean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean
EDIT: For bonus points, if one is going to expend the waste heat on evaporating seawater anyway:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/desalination-saltwater-brine-mining
The temperatures needed to boil water are not the temperatures at which to run datacenters.
You don’t need to hit boiling levels to evaporate water.
Any increase in temperature, which benefits evaporation, decreases the efficiency of running the data center.
This is the vapor pressure curve for water. Under constant pressure and saturation of the air, the evaporation rate as a function of temperature is proportional to the vapor pressure curve. As you can see it is an exponential relationship.
Now you have to offset that with the energy it takes to pump the water around, the increased costs for equipment that can deal with salt water, the increased costs to deal with flooding risks…
You know what you could do instead?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_evaporation_pond
All it takes is a flat basin and a dam with a gate to let in water and then block it away. The sun will do the rest.