Comment on What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?
Dave@lemmy.nz 2 days agoCan this steam be used to turn turbines to make power? Or is it not hot enough to generate the required pressure?
Surely it could at least be fed into a power station that now only needs half the fuel to get it up to temperature?
mushroommunk@lemmy.today 2 days ago
It’s definitely not able to run a turbine as is but either way it doesn’t really solve the problem. My understanding is steam turbines don’t actually condense or cool the water all that much. You still have hot water, maybe not fully boiling but still hot enough you’ll have a not insignificant amount of evaporation and environmental damage if you just dump it. There’s condensing and non condensing designs but the condensing design requires massive cooking towers and more water draw from a heat exchanger.
I’m not a systems engineer so calculating potential cost savings of adding the remaining heat to capture power vs just letting it evaporate vs using a closed loop system is outside my wheelhouse.
Bazoogle@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It wouldn’t solve the evaporation problem, but you could get some extra electricity from the steam. Makes the creation of said steam slightly less wasteful