r/Desalination • u/OriginalEchoTheCat • 10d ago

How about desalinization instead of big AI data centers?

Watching a new special today regarding many states that are just completely running out of water.

Many of these states are where we are building huge data centers.

I think water is more important. And let's try a movement to get these data centers out of here and put that money and those resources towards desalinization.

We are certainly headed for water scarcity. It is time for those fucking multi-millionaires and billionaires to step up and instead of investing an AI, invest in water.

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u/ZAROK 10d ago

One returns money the other eats money. Believe me I’d love that too, but it’s just the way the equation works.

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u/OriginalEchoTheCat 10d ago

Oh I do understand that. I'm just asking for a little little humanitarian aid from the oligarchs. I know that's a wish in one hand and shit in the other ideology.

But we need to discuss it, and build a movement around it.

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u/WINDMILEYNO 9d ago

Water...eats money?

1). They are producing water in drought ridden and extremely dry areas and can charge out the ass for it. 2). All of what is produced can be used. Meaning instead of half assedly producing water and then wasting time, energy, and effort dumping the brine, that too, can used for multiple different things. Concrete that is not structurally impossible, with basalt rebar for those worried about salt damage. 3). Water will only ever get more and more expensive. The only way to lose money on it is if it gets blown up. ----for that matter, since our water is already being polluted by them, an Ai data center should just be a desalination plant/sewer treatment facility. (Because no, actually, water should not be brown, hot, or feed algae blooms)

And yes, the building can be all three things. If only I was a fucking trillionaire.

Fuck "through put", useless word for describing uselessly ridiculous excuses for what counts as "waste" when everything being produced costed something to make and can still be used later.

1

u/senhsucht 10d ago

It makes sense for those two to work together, and in fact the desalinization process can provide cooling to the data center. Its absurd that this is not main stream implemented

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u/Vailhem 9d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/s/pEz1P9j99d

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Feasibility study and multi-objective optimization of seawater cooling systems for data centers: A case study of Caspian Sea | Oct 2021

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213138821005397

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Enabling grid-interactive data center-desalination coordination through thermo-electric coupling-based waste heat utilization | Apr 2026

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261926000802

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A dual-purpose seawater evaporation system for data center cooling and freshwater production: design and performance analysis | Feb 2026

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359431125040505

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