With our own rack we nearly went down the once-through river route, but the state made it clear the delta had to stay below about 3°F and we had to log DO/temperature/flow constantly before they would even look at the permit. In the end we sealed the cooling loop, run the plate heat exchangers into the office HVAC and a dry cooler, and we only add makeup water for the evaporative losses. That lets us reuse the waste heat and keeps the creek from seeing a hot plume.
> The draft for a new permit that would allow data centers across the state to release untreated wastewater and stormwater directly into rivers and streams.
> The new permit would apply to water that circulates through all current or future data centers, regardless of location.
Stormwater is a non-issue and generally a waste of money racket unless you're talking about developing a many acre concrete jungle or some sort of facility that will generate pollution that it may pick up. Datacenters, warehouse, etc. don't really have that issue. "Treatment" in these cases would consist of the gutters simply running into a bioswale (i.e. a grassy ditch, god I hate how the industry intentionally makes the language incomprehensible to laymen). There'd be some number crunching regarding volume and stuff but nothing that any competent dirt work contractor couldn't shoot from the hip simply by looking at the building size. There's no real cost impact to over-sizing it once you've set down the path of engineered site plan which all these facilities probably will.
The wastewater I am concerned about though for the thermal reasons many have cited.
With our own rack we nearly went down the once-through river route, but the state made it clear the delta had to stay below about 3°F and we had to log DO/temperature/flow constantly before they would even look at the permit. In the end we sealed the cooling loop, run the plate heat exchangers into the office HVAC and a dry cooler, and we only add makeup water for the evaporative losses. That lets us reuse the waste heat and keeps the creek from seeing a hot plume.
Fish are pretty sensitive to temperature. It may seem like a river is a great heatsink, but it isn’t without side effects.
> The draft for a new permit that would allow data centers across the state to release untreated wastewater and stormwater directly into rivers and streams.
> The new permit would apply to water that circulates through all current or future data centers, regardless of location.
Stormwater is a non-issue and generally a waste of money racket unless you're talking about developing a many acre concrete jungle or some sort of facility that will generate pollution that it may pick up. Datacenters, warehouse, etc. don't really have that issue. "Treatment" in these cases would consist of the gutters simply running into a bioswale (i.e. a grassy ditch, god I hate how the industry intentionally makes the language incomprehensible to laymen). There'd be some number crunching regarding volume and stuff but nothing that any competent dirt work contractor couldn't shoot from the hip simply by looking at the building size. There's no real cost impact to over-sizing it once you've set down the path of engineered site plan which all these facilities probably will.
The wastewater I am concerned about though for the thermal reasons many have cited.
Thermal pollution is pollution.
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