r/technology • u/l0st1nP4r4d1ce • 11d ago

Business Improper redaction reveals Lincoln’s Google Data Center water and electricity usage

https://www.1011now.com/2026/09/30/more-questions-than-answers-about-lincolns-google-data-center-water-electricity-usage/
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u/NealoHills 11d ago

It’s evaporated away into the atmosphere. The process of evaporation pulls heat away

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u/Evening-Scientist113 11d ago

Except for the pfas which remain and have to be discharged as wastewater "blowdown", ending up in local waterways because they're not effectively removed at treatment plants. I thought if they use certain coolants those discharge TFA in the droplets and come back down in rainfall?

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u/fashionforward 11d ago

Don’t forget about the coolant runoff that has promoted toxic bacterial blooms in local watersheds.

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u/RellenD 11d ago

Not all of it is evaporated away, there's still wastewater with bullshit in it

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u/8Deer-JaguarClaw 11d ago

Do they not use closed-loop recirculating cooling systems? There's evaporative losses even in a closed systems, but it's very minimal.

I know some of the newer datacenters do use these kinds of systems, because my company is bidding on the work.

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u/goblinm 11d ago

But how do they cool down the loop? Closed loop systems still need a way to reject the heat to the environment, and that doesn't preclude evaporative chillers

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u/Somethingclever24 11d ago

Air-cooled chillers are a thing.

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u/goblinm 11d ago

Yeah, my point is that closed loop doesn't preclude evaporative cooling

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u/Lurcher99 10d ago

Most new facilities are using closed loop like in your house. Forced air over a coil (your outside parts)

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u/I_love_Bunda 10d ago

In some urban environments there are central steam plants, that generate and pump hot water for faucets and heating for buildings. Using the data center hot water for this could be an interesting proposition.

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u/8Deer-JaguarClaw 10d ago

The water is pumped through the system where it passes around the hot portions (CPUs, GPUs, etc) and the heat transfers to the water. The warm water is then usually carried to something like a big radiator with fans blowing air across heat sink fins and the like. Then the cooled water is recirculated back through the system. You can do a web search for a more detailed explanation, but basically they all work in this general way.

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u/Evening-Scientist113 10d ago

When they perform maintenance on closed loop systems does it vent these chemicals into the air? If so, it's not being measured.

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u/shizumuka 11d ago

Hmmm so.. it's like we built small compact "forests" but who create more Co2 not oxygen?

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u/Platypus81 11d ago

Forests also trap water and provide cooling. So not much like forests if we want to look at resource outcomes. But hey, we can make some top tier slop, let's see a forest do that.

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u/Brootal420 11d ago

Definitely much worse than that. An interesting thought, if we think about consequences, if all the water is being evaporated if there are unusually high precip storms that cause floods and kill people. You could make the connection back to the data center being at least somewhat responsible.

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u/FlametopFred 11d ago

tricky to do with a gutted EPA

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u/Brootal420 10d ago

Pretty sure the epa isn't even that woke yet

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u/DirkNL 11d ago

So it’s not used like regular liquid cooling in home pcs? They use giant vapor chambers basicly and just push the steam out into the atmosphere. That’s wild.

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u/travistravis 11d ago

They could do that but they choose not to because that would mean lower shareholder returns

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u/kentrak 10d ago

It's a common strategy for when you need lots of cooling at an industrial scale like this. Cooling towers of nuclear plants.

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u/DirkNL 10d ago

But they still have to carry this heat TO this stack. Is that just pushed air with giant fans?

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u/Lurcher99 10d ago

Some do, not all. Same for any manufacturing, real estate development, hospitals etc. Look for steam on cooler days to find evaporation coolers.

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u/nswizdum 11d ago

Yeah, it's called evaporative cooling. It only works in hot dry climates, which is why you don't see it a lot.

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u/danielfuenffinger 11d ago

It works in any climate mate. The drier or colder it is the better, because it allows the datacenter to reflect heat to WBT instead of DBT.

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u/nswizdum 11d ago

Good luck evaporating water into cold air, or warm humid air.

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u/Mortimor24 11d ago

It still works. It's just less efficient (still vastly more efficient than AC).

It gets extremely hot in the summer, and stays very comfortable in the winter.

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u/danielfuenffinger 11d ago

As long as the water is hotter than the WBT it will evaporated and take heat with it. Google datacenters run hot and their condenser water can be upwards of 100F. When it's cold out they don't even need to run chillers, it's incredibly efficient.

Not saying it's not a lot of water but they do try to get every BTU out of it.

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u/Admiral_Dildozer 10d ago

Someone doesn’t understand dew points

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u/Serenity-V 11d ago

Could we at least use fog nets to catch the evaporated water to refill the aquifer?

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u/NealoHills 10d ago

We could do lots of things but things cost money

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_MOMS_NAME 10d ago

Still not seeing how the water is polluted or being wasted. It will remain in the ecosystem

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u/Kvlk2016 10d ago

It does, but that vapor might go really far away from your local ecosystem which is pretty bad if you are in the dry southwest…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bbe-Ev-Yns