This is genius, here in Michigan the city's along Lake Michigan get 'lake effect' snow that is a multiple of what occurs in the rest of the state. Muskegon tackled it with tunnels although most of them are closed now.
Could a data center that was water cooled end up melting snow off streets and sidewalks? It would be an easier sell to the public imho if it did.
westurner•4w ago
Roadway heating to reduce snow melt costs sounds like a good use for waste process heat, for example from datacenters.
FWIU typically it's necessary to amp up waste heat in order to get it to move through a heat pipe under a street.
There are LEED Green buildings that are heated by datacenter waste heat.
> Most datacenters have no way to return their boiled, sterilized, [demineralized] water for water treatment, and so they don't give or sell datacenter waste water back, it takes heat with it when it is evaporated.
A sustainable thermofluid would increase the efficiency and sustainability of heat recovery and reuse operations
Mountain_Skies•4w ago
It would be great during the cold months, but Michigan does have four seasons and summers do get hot.
toomuchtodo•4w ago
You could potentially pump the heat into the ground to use as a seasonal energy store, or otherwise switch to air cooling when you're not in district heating mode. Perhaps sell the heat energy as ConEd sells steam service in NYC [1] (serving 3M people).
rmason•4w ago
Could a data center that was water cooled end up melting snow off streets and sidewalks? It would be an easier sell to the public imho if it did.
westurner•4w ago
FWIU typically it's necessary to amp up waste heat in order to get it to move through a heat pipe under a street.
There are LEED Green buildings that are heated by datacenter waste heat.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42694570 :
> Most datacenters have no way to return their boiled, sterilized, [demineralized] water for water treatment, and so they don't give or sell datacenter waste water back, it takes heat with it when it is evaporated.
> "Ask HN: How to reuse waste heat and water from AI datacenters?" (2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820952
A sustainable thermofluid would increase the efficiency and sustainability of heat recovery and reuse operations
Mountain_Skies•4w ago
toomuchtodo•4w ago
[1] https://www.coned.com/en/commercial-industrial/steam