this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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Data centers are creating ‘heat islands’ and warming the land around them by up to 16 degrees | CNN (www.cnn.com)
submitted 4 hours ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The vast data centers that power artificial intelligence are so energy hungry that they’re heating up their surroundings, according to new research. It’s an alarming finding given the number of data centers is predicted to explode over the next few years.

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[–] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

There's 33kWh worth of energy in a gallon of gasoline, and they use 0.3gal/hour when idling, so cars are pumping out 11kWh of heat just sitting there....that's a surprisingly large amount of heat.

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 8 points 4 hours ago

33 kWh/gallon * 0.3 gallon/h = 10 kWh/h = 10 kW

But units aside, that is really nothing. The car itself already has about 3 m² area or about 3 kW of sunlight. The issue is the CO2 (globally) and pollution from the car (locally, causing smog etc.).