this post was submitted on 10 May 2026
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Thanks, looks like I was wrong. I looked into the evaporative cooling. It looks like this kicks in if it's hot outside, otherwise the cooling units operate in a "dry" mode.
Although, none of that is directly heating up a lake, it looks like the water just flows into something like an A/C unit. Are there datacenters that are piping heat directly into lakes?
Yes, Equinix is one company building them. Of course they'll tell you that this results in zero water loss, but it can't be good for the long term health of the lake to use it as a heatsink.
In cold climates with distance heating, though, it's possible to make efficient use of the heated water in the cold months by using it for residential heating. Not very useful in the summer though.