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Re:The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water by Dove on Friday May 10, 2024 @01:55PM (#40321865)
Building on permafrost is actually tricky with just residential levels of heat - houses are sometimes built on stilts in order to avoid melting the ground under them and making it unstable.

But I like where your head is at. Maybe an offshore platform? Alternatively, there are lots of places that aren't permafrost-cold which are nonetheless quite cool underground year round. I wonder how big a geothermal system would have to be to be an effective heat sink for a data center.

Re:The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water by Dove on Friday May 10, 2024 @02:06PM (#40321993)
> I wonder how big a geothermal system would have to be to be an effective heat sink for a data center.

Ah. 500 feet of pipe per 3.5 kW. That might be why they don't do it that way. XD

Re:The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water by Dove on Friday May 10, 2024 @02:08PM (#40322028)
Oh! Or when they do, it involves a 35 acre lake.

https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/showcase-pr...

Re:The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia's water by Scoundreller on Friday May 10, 2024 @02:44PM (#40322453)
Or a 7000 acre reservoir for a nuclear plant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Texas_Nuclear_Generati...