News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Tiny data centre used to heat public swimming pool by newpavlov on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @09:32AM (#48831734)
Because it's not economical, the required hardware is unlikely to pay for itself during its lifetime. The gradient is too small (~50C), which means low Carnot efficiency. Additionally, extraction of low-enthalpy energy involves obstruction of heat transfer, meaning lower cooling efficiency. It may have been a different story if we had computer hardware able to efficiently operate at 200-300C.

Even steel plants which deal with significantly higher waste heat gradients rarely bother with recovering energy.

Re:Tiny data centre used to heat public swimming pool by soco on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @11:17AM (#48833084)
> It may have been a different story if we had computer hardware able to efficiently operate at 200-300C.

Do I see a market opening here?