Europe Told To Cool Its Datacenter Boom Before Water, Power Run Short (theregister.com) 60
A new Grundfos report warns that Europe's datacenter boom could strain water supplies and power grids unless regulators bake water and energy efficiency into planning, reporting, and incentives for new facilities. The Register reports: According to the report, the EU-wide server farm IT load is about 10 GW today, and is expected to rise to 35 GW by 2030 -- just four years away. These facilities account for about 3 percent of all electricity consumption now, but this is projected to hit 7-9 percent by the end of the decade. Water and energy are intertwined in cooling systems. Grundfos claims that cooling infrastructure accounts for a substantial share of a datacenter's resource use, representing about 38 percent of total electricity consumption in an average facility, while water demand in large hyperscale facilities can reach 11,356 to 18,927 cubic meters per day -- enough for up to 155,000 EU households.
Rapid growth in bit barns is placing increased pressure on energy systems, water resources and local infrastructure, the report notes. Without careful coordination, inefficient or poorly sited facilities risk exacerbating these problems and triggering public opposition. [...] Grundfos advises regulators to integrate water efficiency and cooling design requirements directly into planning approvals for new facilities and any large-scale expansions to encourage adoption of efficient cooling technologies. It also advocates investment incentives from governments such as tax credits, green financing mechanisms, and grant programs for technologies that demonstrably reduce energy and water consumption. Integration between server halls and district heating networks is another aspect worth consideration, the report adds.
Rapid growth in bit barns is placing increased pressure on energy systems, water resources and local infrastructure, the report notes. Without careful coordination, inefficient or poorly sited facilities risk exacerbating these problems and triggering public opposition. [...] Grundfos advises regulators to integrate water efficiency and cooling design requirements directly into planning approvals for new facilities and any large-scale expansions to encourage adoption of efficient cooling technologies. It also advocates investment incentives from governments such as tax credits, green financing mechanisms, and grant programs for technologies that demonstrably reduce energy and water consumption. Integration between server halls and district heating networks is another aspect worth consideration, the report adds.
Re: So... (Score:2)
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Iceland or Greenland might be good spots.
Lots of geothermal power and ice water.
Grundfos? (Score:4, Interesting)
Who in fuck is Grundfos?
"Grundfos is a global leader in advanced pump and water solutions, renowned for its highly efficient, reliable, and sustainable pumping systems."
Ah.
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Re:Grundfos? (Score:5, Informative)
Why does your water heater need a pump?
Instead of having your hot water fan out in a tree, you wire it like a token ring with a return pipe, where each faucet only has a short bit of pipe between it and the ring. Then, you have a pump to circulate hot water through the ring-shaped pipe network. That way, it takes half a second to get hot water instead of half a minute or more.
Re: Grundfos? (Score:3)
In my very large home, some of the fixtures take 3 minutes if the pump is off. It wasted a lot of water.
The pump is loud, and vibrations can be hard in the entire home. It also wastes a significant amount of electricity. Constant unnecessary recirculation also wastes a lo of energy in the water heater.
I put the pump on a smart switch. I added home automation, with motion sensors near showers, and energy monitoring plugs for appliances, that trigger the pump only when needed. There is still a delay to get ho
Re: Grundfos? (Score:4, Interesting)
If your pump is loud, you need a new one. One that is properly sized. It should be somewhere between "are you sure it's even working?" quiet to barely audible if you're in the same room with no other source of noise.
Should probably also only be like 100 watts or so at most.
=Smidge=
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I have already replaced it. Same issue. There may well be quieter models, but I'm just very sensitive to the pump vibrations. There is a bedroom adjacent to the utility room where the pump is located, and while it is a guest room, it can interfer with sleep, depending on how sensitive the guest is - probably not my mother, since she can just take her hearing aids off. The home theater is also adjacent, and I want silences in movie to really be silences.
100W constant load is 876 kWh per year. The average kWh
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Re: Grundfos? (Score:2)
I did not say how much I was spending. Only what the increase would be from not using a circulation pump vs using one.
What makes those heaters you mentioned more efficient than others ? I have a commercial grade unit.
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If "The vibrations can be heard in the entire home" then it's still wrong. It maybe the wrong type somehow, but I'm thinking it's probably way oversized and so working too hard to push way too much water through the pipes. If the run is really 300ft (you must live in a huge house...) then maybe the pipe itself is undersized or so poorly insulated they need to keep the flow unreasonably high. in any case, sorry for your situation but it ain't right.
Standard controls for domestic recirc is a timer and return
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What you describe makes perfect sense in a commercial setting. Our house really is that large, but we still don't need hot water 24/7 at all fixtures, and there are only 2 of us. Our showers and baths in the master bathroom are served by the larger 80 gallon water heater which does not have a recirculation pump. The delay is about 1 minute and tolerable.
The smaller 50 gallon water heater serves the other 3.5 bathrooms, but the showers are only used when we have guests. The rest of the time, the hot water fr
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What is "very large"? How far is the faucet from the water heater? Couple hundred feet? I've never seen anything take *minutes* to get hot water out. Hell, I can turn my boiler on and heat the whole tank from cold faster than that.
My house is a relatively normal size (1800 square feet), and it still takes more than three full minutes for water in my shower to reach full temperature when I run it straight hot. If I also turn on both faucets in my bathroom, I can get that down to about twenty or thirty seconds, which is barely tolerable.
At my mom's house in Tennessee, the distance the water has to travel is comparable, but it takes only ten seconds or so.
It's a huge downside to all the water-saving showerheads and faucets that were fo
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There is a company called Grundfos that makes good circulation pumps. :D
Well I don't know if enshittification has, hit them yet but they used to be silent efficient and have a long life. I know one person is just an anecdote, but the circulation pumps I have, have been running for 20 years, and they adjust their power to match the load needed so when there are no draw from the loop it runs much slower.
Re: Grundfos? (Score:3)
Thanks. Recirculation also causes pipes to wear out faster. A repipe job would be enormously expensive, since they run on the slab foundation. Most likely would need to move pipes outdoors if that is ever needed.
Good thing it never freezes here.
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Thanks. Recirculation also causes pipes to wear out faster. A repipe job would be enormously expensive, since they run on the slab foundation. Most likely would need to move pipes outdoors if that is ever needed.
Water delivery through slab - I have that as well, so I feel for ya.
It does freeze where I'm at (PA) and my recent adventure was a frost-proof spigot went bad and needed replaced. This one was about 18 inches long that needed removed and a new one put in.
Hired a plumber - I never thought a Jackhammer was a plumbing tool
Re: Grundfos? (Score:1)
Because the pipe in the slab ran between baseboards, I just had them pipe against the wall around a nearby corner rather than break up the slab.
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In my kitchen I have a tap that provides both hot and boiling water, to do this there's a 7 liter insulated vat of water kept at boiling temperatures at all times. Because it's well insulated it uses surprisingly little energy to keep it at temperature, about 10W (and between solar panels and battery storage, power usage isn't that much of an issue to begin with).
When you ask for normal hot water, it will mix the boiling water with cold water to provide instant hot water. You can also hook up a regular hot
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In my kitchen, I have an undercounter reverse osmosis filter, to filter out things like PFAS. I only drink water from that faucet. So do my cats, who eat food and get enough minerals. Ice cubes from my fridge also come from the RO line. I use that water for cooking, too. My induction cooktop is extremely fast and efficient at boiling water. I cook rice under 5 minutes in my pressure cooker - less than one minute to boil the water before closing the pressure cooker, and 4 minutes cook time.
For beverages such
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Fortunately I don't need to filter my water, tap water quality in my country is one of the best in the world (so much so that Kikkoman built their European soy sauce factory here in the Netherlands specifically because of the high water quality). I only filter water for my espresso machine to prevent scale buildup. Never tried boiling water for tea on my induction top, smallest size is 12cm (4.7") and the power setting delivers 3680W so it should be very quick, but still not as quick as just having instant
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There is no known safe level of PFAS. I don't know for sure that I "need" to filter my tap water. I do it anyway because the cost is fairly low, and there is no downside to filtering. I did a few searches on PFAS standards in water in Europe, including Netherlands, vs the US, and did not find significant differences. If anything, the standards appeared to be stricter in the US, and the Netherlands had a similar "advisory" which was not legally binding. In any case, the devils are in the details - enforcemen
Re: Grundfos? (Score:1)
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Instead of having your hot water fan out in a tree, you wire it like a token ring with a return pipe, where each faucet only has a short bit of pipe between it and the ring. Then, you have a pump to circulate hot water through the ring-shaped pipe network. That way, it takes half a second to get hot water instead of half a minute or more.
That is a nice little convenience system, and one that is incredibly wasteful in energy efficiency, not only for a continuously running pump, but also a continuously running heater and a continuously long heat loss circuit. Fun fact installing such a system in a house in north-western Europe precludes you from an A energy rating and directly negatively impacts the resale value of your house.
That said if your water line is long enough to give a shit about this you also fail to get that A energy rating. What
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1. the pump runs on a timer circuit - I have the timer set for times when one of us is likely to take a shower, otherwise it's off.
2. without the pump, you end up wasting a lot of water, because you'll run the hot water for a while to purge out the cold (I'm in SoCal, water useage is a big deal here.)
3. Didn't add anything noticeable to our electrical bill.
4. It does add a little noise, but it seems to just be the noise of water running in the pipes. You have to be standing ne
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I'm in SoCal, water useage is a big deal here.
Well that's the big difference. In Europe gas usage is the big deal, water usage not so much (though it really should be, it seems like something governments are ignoring too easily). As to your electricity bill, do you use electricity to heat? It actually makes a significant difference to gas usage. But then so does every convenience. For example our gas heater has the ability to pre-heat the exchanger plate in the mornings and evenings meaning that hot water comes faster (same theory as this circulation -
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Why does your water heater need a pump?
Instead of having your hot water fan out in a tree, you wire it like a token ring with a return pipe, where each faucet only has a short bit of pipe between it and the ring. Then, you have a pump to circulate hot water through the ring-shaped pipe network. That way, it takes half a second to get hot water instead of half a minute or more.
The go-to in my area has become little in-line heaters each place you need it. Like a bathroom on the far side of the house from the main water heater. The under-sink heater heats your main stream with electric heat and runs until the hot water from the heater makes it. Once the incoming hits a certain temperature, it shuts off. Seems more efficient than running a pump all the time, and saves having to let the water run for a minute plus before it warms up.
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Who in fuck is Grundfos?
"Grundfos is a global leader in advanced pump and water solutions, renowned for its highly efficient, reliable, and sustainable pumping systems."
Ah.
Translation: A company that has the potential to benefit from regulation by squeezing out competitors wants more regulation.
I'm not saying they're not right, just that it seems awfully convenient for a company specializing in pumps that recirculate data center water to want efficiency regulations that would push customers towards their most efficient (and thus presumably most high-margin) pumps.
Re:Grundfos? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having a product to sell doesn't make them wrong. There are multiple energy grids across Europe that are completely overloaded. There are multiple water supplies including ground water that are massively under strain.
And when I say overloaded I mean in some places there are even proposals to use the mobile phone emergency alert message to ask consumers to shed loads (e.g. unplug cars, stop their washing machines, etc). https://www.rtvutrecht.nl/nieu... [rtvutrecht.nl] (in Dutch). In Germany the HV grid is under such strain that at some time the price of electricity dips negative in one province only for it to spike in another. Only 12 hours ago Truin was in a complete blackout as Italy's power system was unable to cope with the load of everyone's AC units. There are massive anticipated water supply shortages looming in Spain, France, and even the god damn Netherlands where it rains 364.5 days a year (bit of a joke but not far off).
While it's always healthy to have a bit of scepticism whenever someone has a solution to sell you, one shouldn't turn off their brain entirely and dismiss the claim outright. .
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In Germany the HV grid is under such strain that at some time the price of electricity dips negative in one province only for it to spike in another. Only 12 hours ago Truin was in a complete blackout as Italy's power system was unable to cope with the load of everyone's AC units. There are massive anticipated water supply shortages looming in Spain, France, and even the god damn Netherlands where it rains 364.5 days a year (bit of a joke but not far off).
While it's always healthy to have a bit of scepticism whenever someone has a solution to sell you, one shouldn't turn off their brain entirely and dismiss the claim outright. .
A couple things of note here: OP's talk about High efficiency/High margin and presumably high price is missing the point. Cheap seldom saves money over the long term.
My place has extra insulation I had put in, and I took out the old high efficiency oil furnace and replaced it with a maximum efficiency gas furnace, the exhaust is mostly water, and via PVC pipe. The lights are all LED, Even our spa tub is super insulated. Hard to calculate the "payback" is on that - but our electrical bill is pretty cheap c
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Second - doesn't the EU have an interconnected power grid?
It does. But that doesn't mean you can infinitely send power where you want. Major HV connections are starting to be a limiting factor and governments are spending a small fortune to expand them. It's not like Schleswig-Holstein (one of the main landing points for North Sea wind can send power to Frankfurt via Limburg if the Dutch interconnector is also already overloaded. Regional constraints do very much still exist.
To be clear we're not out of total power capacity. We're out of the ability to move power
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Second - doesn't the EU have an interconnected power grid?
It does. But that doesn't mean you can infinitely send power where you want. Major HV connections are starting to be a limiting factor and governments are spending a small fortune to expand them. It's not like Schleswig-Holstein (one of the main landing points for North Sea wind can send power to Frankfurt via Limburg if the Dutch interconnector is also already overloaded. Regional constraints do very much still exist.
To be clear we're not out of total power capacity. We're out of the ability to move power around where its needed. Yesterday the spot price for energy hit 80c/kWh as soon as the sun set in the Netherlands because the wind wasn't blowing in Germany and their sudden loss of solar caused the power network to swing the complete opposite direction from import across one of the main 480kV links to export.
Likewise to my Italian example, Italy has enough power plants to keep the lights on, but the 220kV transmission lines from Mezze to Turin weren't able to carry that power resulting in the power outage.
No one is fully reliant on themselves but interconnection has limitations.
Probably should do a whole grid/generation redesign, and it is going to cost a lot.going to cost a lot, but power use isn't going to decrease, and temps are only going to go up. If they are going offline now, it will only get a lot worse if they have energy gobbling data centers.
In PA, there is a whole revolt against data centers going on, and going off grid is looking better all the time.
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There's no possibility to do that. Grids evolve naturally and are fundamentally designed to move power around where needed. What is needed is simple expansion.
And that's precisely what is happening, the problem is electrification is exceeding the speed of grid capacity upgrades. Germany is currently $35bn / year on grid infrastructure upgrades. Tennet alone spent 1/3rd of that last year. The Netherlands is investing $20bn / year in grid upgrades.
Literally countries are currently fighting for capacity on ava
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I'm pretty sure they are the manufacturer of the pump in the well at my off-grid cabin.
They make stuff ranging from consumer to massive industrial products. Regarded as a manufacturer of high quality reliable equipment.
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"Grundfos is a global leader in advanced pump and water solutions, renowned for its highly efficient, reliable, and sustainable pumping systems."
Yeah, what that means is that they are going to be the de facto choice for pumps for european DCs, and yet they are asking the EU to build fewer of them, which will mean less business for them. This doesn't mean what you think it means. Unlike in the USA, a lot of major European corporations are still run with sustainability in mind. They would like there to be a tomorrow for them to profit in.
enough water in the sea (Score:2)
now only if there were a company who could make highly efficient reliable and sustainable pumping systems.
Re: enough water in the sea (Score:2)
Ocean water would need another pipe source, normal water pipes currently bring clean drinking water
Cooling cycle (Score:3)
11,356 to 18,927 cubic meters per day
Is that make-up water for cooling towers? Or pumped out of a river, passed through an exchanger and then returned with some specified maximum temperature rise?
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Open loop river to river datacentres don't use any water in any normal sense. That 11-20k m^3 figure sounds like evaporative cooling for a ~150MW facility.
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Not sure who moded this down, presumably someone who doesn't understand what that white stuff is that comes out of cooling towers. But don't trust me, look it up yourself.
Maybe they should work on compute efficiency? (Score:1)
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Compute is not heat. Power consumption of silicon is heat. Compute capabilities per watt vary greatly with silicon design. There's a reason we don't run AI models on general purpose CPUs. Compute efficiency is absolutely a thing.
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100% of the power is turned into heat. The amount of compute you get can vary with the compute efficiency, but this does not correlate to heat.
Read what you wrote again and tell the class where you just went wrong.
Are all these data centers being used? (Score:3)
That is to say, they are definitely not all being used. Whether or not a meaningful percentage of them are being left unused is still an open question.
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Black Rock has been building data centers [yahoo.com] as an investment vehicle. It's not clear whether they are all being used or not. That is to say, they are definitely not all being used. Whether or not a meaningful percentage of them are being left unused is still an open question.
I might be wrong, but the rush to have data centers that consume incredible amounts of energy, and their waste heat, and restoring old Nuclear reactors for data centers is super premature. A bad paradigm, and not sustainable.
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I'm sure that I'm forgetting some, but:
The Crisis of the Third Century (235-284 AD): Europe is finished
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD): Europe is finished
The Plague of Justinian (541-542 AD): Europe is finished
The Viking, Magyar, and Saracen Invasions (8th-10th Centuries): Europe is finished
The Black Death (1347-1351): Europe is finished
The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648): Europe is finished
The Napoleonic Wars (1812-1815): Europe is finished
World War I and the 1918 Flu Pandemic (1914-1918): Euro
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I'm sure that I'm forgetting some, but:
The Crisis of the Third Century (235-284 AD): Europe is finished The Fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD): Europe is finished The Plague of Justinian (541-542 AD): Europe is finished The Viking, Magyar, and Saracen Invasions (8th-10th Centuries): Europe is finished The Black Death (1347-1351): Europe is finished The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648): Europe is finished The Napoleonic Wars (1812-1815): Europe is finished World War I and the 1918 Flu Pandemic (1914-1918): Europe is finished World War II (1939-1945): Europe is finished
But this time, like, "for real" you mean?
Not finished, but I don't think that's the flex you think it is.
No, Europe is not finished, they just go through massive re-decoration projects and get rid of people they don't like pretty regularly.
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None of this has anything to do with climate change. But I'm sure there's a climate change related article somewhere on Slashdot right now to post your trolling rage bait.
Water (Score:2)
The problem is most parts of Europe is not water supply but drainage. So let's have some data centers and aqua culture farms, and heat some households with it.
Techies planning Utilities is a Disaster (Score:3)