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this post was submitted on 10 May 2026
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I mean when you heat up a lake, it starts evaporating faster. Also some have switched to using evaporative cooling instead of AC. That's why they're building them in deserts. You can save a lot of energy, but need to waste water. In the desert that might piss off people living nearby.
But yes, the power plant water use is actually bigger than direct use. If it's a lossy thermal plant.
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?
This is the reason. Deserts are hotter, but also dryer, so it makes evaporative chillers ridiculously efficient. That's how and why they build datacenters out here. Go look at any DC facility in the state and you'll see evapco equipment being used.