A data center in Denmark gives away heat that data centers often waste. It runs water from the city's heating network through its cooling units and into heat pumps that raise it enough to fill the radiators of 11,000 homes

[u/_Dark_Wing]

https://scienceblog.com/m-a-data-center-in-denmark-gives-away-heat-that-data-centers-often-waste-it-runs-water-from-the-citys-heating-network-through-its-cooling-units-and-into-heat-pumps-that-raise-it-enou/

[u/National_World944]

This works because Denmark already has district heating pipes under most of its cities. The data center just plugged in. The real engineering happened decades ago.

[u/j12 → u/National_World944]

You mean good central long term planning

[u/TyrKiyote → u/j12]

And a history of it being cold outside across most of their nation often.

[u/KINGDenneh → u/TyrKiyote]

That is true, our days are mostly cold, outside of the last few years in the summer being extremely fucking hot.

[u/Nohreboh → u/KINGDenneh]

It rained in December here in the Maritimes, used to be snow drifts would be near as tall as a house and now dead frozen grass is what I often see.

[u/Dracomortua → u/Nohreboh]

"Next year it will be even hotter!!"

Repeat that ten times or until you can't anymore because you are just too scared. Or you hit... 2050 or so?

[u/AndrewMacIntyre → u/Dracomortua]

Or you hit... 2050 or so?

Celsius?

[u/Highpersonic → u/AndrewMacIntyre]

There is no ° or deg, so it's probably Kelvin

[u/Slamtilt_Windmills → u/Dracomortua]

Or until you can't anymore because we're gone

[u/remuliini → u/TyrKiyote]

Yeah, this solution doesn't really work in Singapore or Malaysia.

We do have the same approach here in Finland, too.

[u/mikkopai → u/remuliini]

Well, there is district cooling in Kuala Lumpur. For example the famous twin towers are cooled by a power station inside a neighbouring “apartment building”. I had the pleasure of visiting in a professional capacity. The cooling station is really hidden inside two of the smaller building a couple of blocks away. If you look closely you might spot it from small amount of steam rising from the roof.

[u/remuliini → u/mikkopai]

Fair point, but is there any use for the heat itself? I think that the main point of this technology is not just to ensure the cooling, but to also use the excess heat to replace separate furnaces.

[u/upvotesthenrages → u/remuliini]

People still shower, bathe, wash dishes, clothes etc, in hot countries.

[u/PurbulentTriest → u/upvotesthenrages]

Much less usage of hot water when it's 35+ out, and when infrastructure doesn't often include hot water for dishes. We were surprised we had it in our current place as we've never had it for the last fifteen years in SEA. Showers are usually electric, not served by piped hot water.

[u/remuliini → u/upvotesthenrages]

Showers and baths typically account for the vast majority of hot water usage, and if I remember correctly, it can also be around 15%-20% of energy usage in colder climates over the year as well.

[u/mikkopai → u/remuliini]

Yes, correct. But you need energy to produce cooling, which you would bring in the form of heat

Edit: physics, baby :-)

[u/Zengineer_83 → u/remuliini]

is there any use for the heat itself?

District Cooling exists. And if you use an Absorption Refrigerator you CAN cool with waste heat.

[u/RacoonWithBenefits → u/remuliini]

to be fair, people need warm water... even in warm countries

but it would probably be very expensive if it wasn't part of the infrastructure already

[u/Jale89 → u/TyrKiyote]

It's not really as specific as all that - it's not just for very northern latitudes. District heating is a useful thing for any latitude where central heating is used in homes, and is basically a direct upgrade. It removes the thousands of inefficienct small boilers and replaces them with a district boiler. It can also supply hot water, which is needed at pretty much every latitude.

The problem is more one of planning and central investment, rather than letting the cost of infrastructure be directly borne by the individual. My university in the UK had it because they planned it out from the start, and my hometown in the south of the UK had a pilot geothermal district heating project that ended up working very well too. Now I live in a new built danish neighbourhood, and the system works great.

[u/ronaldoswanson → u/Jale89]

There is a fair amount of heat loss from those systems. From an efficiency standpoint it isn’t great. If you’re solely collecting waste heat from industry or whatever where the heat will otherwise be wasted it makes sense, but otherwise it isn’t amazing if you’re just running giant boilers. Especially with how efficient small heat pumps have gotten.

[u/Jale89 → u/ronaldoswanson]

Yeah it doesn't make a lot of sense if you are using fossil fuels, and in that scenario well-maintained home boilers or heat pumps can be more efficienct. But there's plenty of waste heat going into our system in Copenhagen, including our trash incinerators and from decomposition of our sewage, so it works out better overall. That and we use water as a thermal battery to deal with excess wind power generation.

[u/marineconcept → u/TyrKiyote]

Every single time anything about Denmark comes up, people jump to reasons why it can’t be repeated elsewhere, or why it’s somehow unique to Denmark.

The U.S. is especially bad about it, since any number of reasons seem to be in the way at any given time, progress is simply not on the table.

It’s just funny, I guess? Where would Denmark be if this whole “can’t be done.” Attitude was as prevalent here.

[u/mtaw → u/marineconcept]

It's seemingly a contradiction. Americans: "North Europeans are cold, stand-offish and pessimistic. That's bad, you should be friendly and optimistic at all times, positive thinking is very important!"

Also Americans: Will instantly come up with a bunch of contrived reasons they can't improve their society in some way that's demonstrably possible to do.

Perhaps not a contradiction though - if you keep telling yourself you're already living in the best country, then there must be some reason why an apparent improvement is infeasible or not actually an improvement. It's toxic positivity "I'm already the best so why try harder?"

[u/passwordedd → u/TyrKiyote]

Almost all of northern US is significantly colder than Denmark.

We barely get a week of snow a year.

[u/RacoonWithBenefits → u/passwordedd]

yep

even though Denmark is geographically as north as central canada...

[u/Slight-Ad-6553 → u/passwordedd]

inland clima contra sea

[u/passwordedd → u/Slight-Ad-6553]

Long live the gulf stream.

[u/BlueFlob → u/j12]

You need a functioning government to do that, not just lobby-friendly yes men.

[u/THE_Dr_Barber → u/BlueFlob]

“Yeah, but that’s communism” — MAGA

[u/According-Insect-992 → u/j12]

Planning is “communism”.

[u/Isgrimnur → u/j12]

We don't do that here. [/T'Challa]

[u/chlronald → u/j12]

I dunno about good planning.
My city is implementing district heating and it cost way more and less consistent in general compare to onsite boiler.

[u/APRengar → u/chlronald]

Do we know if the planning was bad or the execution was bad? Because if other places are doing it successfully, it sounds like bad execution.

[u/chronicpenguins → u/APRengar]

just because other places are doing it efficiently doesnt mean that its the right solution for every city. You could execute it perfectly but at the end of the day if you dont have the density, or free large heat producers to extract heat from, then the costs of the pipes and the network may not be worthwhile. The boilers / heat generation itself is cheaper, but theres a ton of loss associated with transporting heat across distances.

Or perhaps theres a ton of free heat, moderate density.. If you werent using that much heat to begin with, then any fixed "connection" costs may drain any savings you get.

[u/Aesiy → u/chronicpenguins]

Its about scaling. Some heat systems was created with scaling in mind, some still use spaghetti method.

[u/upvotesthenrages → u/chronicpenguins]

The boilers / heat generation itself is cheaper, but theres a ton of loss associated with transporting heat across distances.

They really don't lose a lot of heat, at all. I believe it's around 5-10% in Denmark.

You're right that density does affect it, but in Denmark we have these even in rather low density areas.

I believe around 80% of all buildings in Denmark are covered by district heating.

or free large heat producers to extract heat from

Even that isn't really required. Ground heat pumps are insanely efficient, so waste heat from other sources isn't really a requirement.

[u/LeinadLlennoco → u/chlronald]

Which city?

[u/Ironsam811 → u/National_World944]

Would this even be feasible in the U.S.? Maybe like a minor compact city? I just feel like we are either too spread out or too jammed packed in the U.S.

[u/MaxPaynesRxDrugPlan → u/Ironsam811]

Chicago has a district cooling system for many downtown skyscrapers.

https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/the-ice-machine-that-chills-chicagos-skyscrapers-inside-downtowns-district-cooling-systems/

But yeah, building something like that from scratch for a community not designed around it would probably be a pretty tall order.

[u/firemage22 → u/MaxPaynesRxDrugPlan]

Detroit also has steam heating

I assume many of the older large cities have it in some way.

[u/alphacross → u/firemage22]

As does New York

[u/HamunaHamunaHamuna → u/MaxPaynesRxDrugPlan]

Yes, only building stuff that waste and destroy is worth investment, making shit better is just too hard work.

[u/rawbleedingbait → u/Ironsam811]

If I were a data center, I'd open an artificial hot spring to go relax in for the city, then just use the hot water for that. Then if anyone protests, just frame them as people against you having access to a hot spring.

[u/elmz → u/rawbleedingbait]

I love a relaxing bath in a hot spring while I listen to the calming, ever present whine of a data center.

[u/rawbleedingbait → u/elmz]

Pretty simple, just have the data centers build a loud ass waterfall too to drown out the sound. Every town would love their own waterfall. These are simple problems with simple solutions, don't overcomplicate it.

[u/NaptimeGood → u/elmz]

I read somewhere online that the water can get contaminated when they use it for cooling. Just looked it up. They use chemicals to prevent mold and bacteria growth, high mineral content from evaporated cooling and heavy metal contamination from flaking pipes. Your idea makes me think of trash mountain covered with soil that can be used for sledding.

[u/HawocX → u/NaptimeGood]

You wouldn't use the cooling water directly. A heat exchanger transfers it efficiently to the pool.

[u/BugRevolution → u/NaptimeGood]

Denmark has trash mountains covered with soil that can be used for sledding too.

You don't use the coolant directly anyway. You use it to transfer heat.

[u/bsubtilis → u/rawbleedingbait]

Cleaning up the used water that much would be awesome, but they're cheap bastards and don't want to spend money on cleanup if they can help it

[u/DaBulder → u/bsubtilis]

Keeping the pool water clean wouldn't be hard, you'd still want the actual cooling system water in a separate loop like any other conventional district heat system.

It's the noise that'd be the problem

[u/Chareon → u/DaBulder]

A significant amount of data center noise comes from either on site power generation, and/or cooling. Using the waste heat elsewhere solves the cooling problem, so as long as there is sufficient power delivery to the site from the grid, noise should not be a concern.

[u/KotR56 → u/bsubtilis]

Spending money on such a folly would hurt profits for shareholders.

Can't have that....

[u/rawbleedingbait → u/bsubtilis]

I feel like it would probably make more sense to just use the dirty hot water to pipe around and heat up the pools, rather than fill pools directly with the water runoff.

[u/MikeFromTheVineyard → u/Ironsam811]

There is a data center in downtown Seattle and it heats Amazon’s corporate headquarters

[u/Tasty-Traffic-680 → u/Ironsam811]

We have cities with district heating just none to the extent of Copenhagen (there's is the largest in the world) and it doesn't really go to residential buildings in most cases. Their population density helps - roughly a quarter of Danes lives in Copenhagen alone and nearly 90% in cities altogether.

[u/jbj153 → u/Tasty-Traffic-680]

Eh, we have district heating in basically any town over 10.000 people, regardless of population density.

[u/Kinexity → u/Tasty-Traffic-680]

none to the extent of Copenhagen (there's is the largest in the world)

Yeah, no. Warsaw has the largest one in the EU which isn't even the largest in the world so Copenhagen is definitely not the largest - not in terms of customers nor in terms of the amount of distributed heat energy.

[u/Tasty-Traffic-680 → u/Kinexity]

Interesting, ya learn something new everyday. That danish sonofabitch on the bus lied to me.

[u/Ringandpinion → u/National_World944]

....so make them pay for it? Trillion dollar market cap. They can easily afford it.

[u/FartingBob → u/Ringandpinion]

Share price is largely unrelated to how much cash a company has on hand these days.

[u/RGrad4104 → u/National_World944]

There are plenty of places in America where such an arrangement could be achieved with minimal effort. Hospital campuses, academic campuses, large government facilities, office buildings, even some residential buildings all have coolant loops for heating and cooling and could be fairly easily integrated into the heat exchange loops of server facilities.

[u/Fearless-Daikon5763 → u/National_World944]

So can we just build our data centers in Denmark?

[u/Lunarath → u/Fearless-Daikon5763]

Please don't. They're already talking about building more and bigger ones.

29 new data centers seem to be the current number they're already planning.

[u/loveiseverything]

This is standard method for just about every new data center in Finland.

[u/CurRock → u/loveiseverything]

It's also required im germany from, I think, next year. At least d For new DCs

[u/Kitzu-de → u/CurRock]

Idk if its required but I can confirm that just about a week ago my city in Germany approved plans for a new data center that will be 1.5 km away from me and - at least on paper - it will run on 100% renewable energy and will also feed its heat into the cities central heating network.

[u/comicsnerd → u/loveiseverything]

It is also happening for a lot of data centers in the Netherlands. It does not always work. There needs to be a neighborhood nearby. They also heat our glass houses for growing flowers and fruits.

They do not do this for free. It also does not work well in summers.

[u/sirhackenslash]

Yeah, but in america helping others is woke, so it's global warming and you'll like it

[u/trying_again_7 → u/sirhackenslash]

Even if we could do this in America, we would find a way to charge for it.

[u/Perfect-Escape-3904 → u/trying_again_7]

It costs much more to heat with district heating vs gas in many cities around me in The Netherlands. When you have district heat, there is a single company (government) that you pay and it’s often very expensive because, well it’s government run.

[u/comicsnerd → u/trying_again_7]

They are charging for it. There is no such thing as free energy.

[u/RaspberryTwilight → u/sirhackenslash]

You can't actually do this in America. We don't use radiators here. They might do in NYC but everywhere else it's forced-air central heating systems with vents and ducts. These don't use hot water, they make air hot and then blow it inside through holes on the wall.

[u/sirhackenslash → u/RaspberryTwilight]

The suburbs are mostly modern hvac, but large chunks of most big, older cities have a lot of homes and businesses still using radiators. A lot of the factories do pretty much this same thing for other business. There are steam tunnels under the streets and into neighboring businesses

[u/SeaToTheBass → u/sirhackenslash]

I’m in Canada, but my 1964 building has baseboard radiators. There are two big boilers in the maintenance room beneath my apartment, don’t even need to turn the heat on in the winter it’s all so poorly insulated.

Which would be nice if I had to foot the bill but heating is covered by the building. They insulated my floor last summer, apparently it wasn’t insulated before which is nuts. It’s a bit better this year, but AC in the summer is still a must.

[u/Fimception → u/RaspberryTwilight]

Vents and ducts work fine with this, water/air exchangers exist, and are used quite often in industrial settings here.

But private homes mostly use floor heating/radiators/heat pumps

[u/JinzoWithAMilotic → u/RaspberryTwilight]

You'd be shocked at how many houses in the north east use radiators and dont have central.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Bug6244 → u/RaspberryTwilight]

If only there was a way to heat air from hot water ..

[u/ryan30z → u/Puzzleheaded-Bug6244]

A way of exchanging heat? What sort of space age science is this?

[u/NoAssignment316 → u/RaspberryTwilight]

You can do the same with floor heating. My house uses this same type of system without radiators

[u/cr0ft → u/RaspberryTwilight]

You can use hot water to make air hot.

[u/SexyBisamrotte → u/RaspberryTwilight]

I might misunderstand, but it doesnt matter if its radiators or not (almost no new houses or flats are built with radiators in Denmark)

[u/eeyore134 → u/sirhackenslash]

If it's not actively hurting people then the rich and powerful in the US don't want anything to do with it.

[u/Siccors → u/sirhackenslash]

We have it in the Netherlands in quite many cities. Not from datacenters but other excess heat. It is fairly impopular since it is expensive as hell, most would rather not have it.

The thing is: The excess heat might be free, but a secondary network to distribute that across a city is expensive as hell to make (it needs to be well insulated to not lose all the heat towards the homes) and maintain.

It can still be a useful thing, but it really isn't as simple as many think.

[u/PlainBread → u/sirhackenslash]

In America you can just run your own local MoE model on your gaming computer and heat your room that way.

[u/Additional-Staff-326]

This is good tech. This only works if the local area is already built for it or going to build for it. Cant retrofit most cities to do something like this.

[u/yxhuvud → u/Additional-Staff-326]

Of course you can retrofit if you want to. It's not like Stockholm had central heating when it was founded back in the 1200s. It may not be economical, however. 

[u/Mad_OW → u/yxhuvud]

That's why the "free market" doesn't just solve absolutely everything

[u/CheeseAndCh0c0late → u/Mad_OW]

who could have guessed that working together is more efficient ?

[u/Hitokkohitori → u/yxhuvud]

Depends highly. Flensburg in germany retrofitted its has network with heating pipes.  It’s still an investment, but most decisions towards better infrastructure for citizens are not economical. 

[u/footpole → u/Hitokkohitori]

You basically repeated what they said.

[u/TyrKiyote → u/Additional-Staff-326]

I bet there are places in like, minneapolis or chicago set up well for this

[u/WiglyWorm → u/TyrKiyote]

There are some municipal steam networks, but they're not common in the U.S.

[u/Da_Spooky_Ghost → u/WiglyWorm]

NYC, Philadelphia and Boston have extensive networks of steam piping setup throughout the city.

Not sure why the many other cities in the USA didn’t set up the infrastructure.

[u/Legionof1 → u/Da_Spooky_Ghost]

In the south it would make no sense, we are too hot 80% of the year.

[u/PleasantSecond905 → u/Legionof1]

This is all bots here. They are trying to convince people that data centers can work. They can't, they are awful for the local communities in USA. Of course in other smarter countries they can properly regulate and find correct use in a limited way. Over here in America, we allow billionaires to deplete our fresh water, farm land, and other resources.

[u/Da_Spooky_Ghost → u/PleasantSecond905]

Well the problem is that the steam infrastructure in the USA is in cities but the land in city proper is very expensive so no AI data centers are going to be set up that close to NYC, Philly or Boston to even make use of the steam networks to recuperate waste heat.

[u/Tax_Fraud_Lover → u/PleasantSecond905]

Danish person here: Datacenters still have noise pollution, they still create what.. 3 jobs? I also wouldn’t be surprised if local fire departments don’t know how to handle a datacentre fire.

[u/TyrKiyote → u/PleasantSecond905]

It would be convenient if we were all bots, and i guess i havent read people under me.

Using the waste heat does not solve our problems, you're not wrong about that. this article is a buzz piece that is trying to propagandize the idea of "green" AI.

[u/math-yoo → u/Legionof1]

Same tech can cool a building.

[u/Legionof1 → u/math-yoo]

How do you cool a building with heat?

[u/turtlturtl → u/Legionof1]

Waste heat cooling, most common implementation is absorption chillers, essentially heat replaces the compressor

[u/math-yoo → u/Da_Spooky_Ghost]

It’s in most major American cities in some capacity. But it’s not like it is in Northern European cities, with residential infrastructure.

[u/Jerthy → u/WiglyWorm]

Ye isn't this more of european thing? It's certainly common here but i heard many americans completely baffled by the very concept.

[u/WiglyWorm → u/Jerthy]

Can confirm 90% of americans are baffled by the idea of working together to make the baseline for everyone slightly better than it is today.

[u/MajesticBread9147 → u/WiglyWorm]

Aren't they fairly common in cities? Before electricity, steam was one of the only ways besides coal to heat buildings.

[u/WiglyWorm → u/MajesticBread9147]

The u.s. is a very diverse and spread out area. Not much of the country that would need municipal steam is dense enough for municipal steam to be viable (maybe this is one way to change that and be more efficient)

[u/smaylof → u/WiglyWorm]

Holland Michigan has a snowmelt system that uses waste heat from the local power plant to melt snow on some of the sidewalks and streets in the downtown area.

[u/WiglyWorm → u/smaylof]

Yes. Along the great lakes. :)

My city also has one.

Most of the country doesn't really need them.

[u/tackleboxjohnson → u/WiglyWorm]

Universities often have them

[u/Human-Crazy8114 → u/TyrKiyote]

Can confirm, work in a Minneapolis datacenter and we have the same setup. we get chilled water from the city and use it to cool our DC then pipe the hot water off to heat homes.

[u/thelangosta → u/TyrKiyote]

The city I grew up in (in Michigan) has added heated sidewalks so people will want to visit downtown in the winter. They might not need it with super El Niño this year

[u/DrBhu → u/TyrKiyote]

But he said they are lost; you cant build new infrastructure in cities /s

[u/OHNOitsNICHOLAS → u/Additional-Staff-326]

You can. It's just very expensive.

[u/ENrgStar → u/OHNOitsNICHOLAS]

St Paul currently heats a lot of downtown buildings with waste heat from garbage burning, if recycling ever threatens that supply this could be viable switchover

[u/Derek-Dick → u/ENrgStar]

In Copenhagen, the waste-to-energy plant CopenHill provides district heating to 160,000 households and electricity to 62,500 residences.

https://stateofgreen.com/en/solutions/copenhill/

[u/Positive-Opposite998 → u/Additional-Staff-326]

What are you talking about? We made district heating in cities that are 1000 years old!

[u/bluestrike2 → u/Additional-Staff-326]

You don’t have to recreate it exactly. There are a ton of industrial processes reliant on steam and/or heat generation, for example, and putting data centers within a few miles of the already undesirable industrial developments seems like the sort of obvious option. Concrete plants, kilns (sawmills, etc.), massive commercial laundry services, various types of food processing, and paper mills, are just the obvious ones off the top of my head.

Likewise, many universities have district energy systems. If they’re near enough, give them a call and see if the numbers can pencil out. There’s a wide spectrum between dumping waste heat in the air and retrofitting an entire city to use steam.

Considering how noise pollution is at least one of the big arguments people have against data centers, one would think trying to lessen it would help them politically.

[u/Derek-Dick → u/bluestrike2]

In the Danish town of Kalundborg, they have created a symbiotic relationship between seventeen public and private industrial companies, including delivering heat to the district heating system.

https://www.symbiosis.dk/en/

[u/Unnenoob → u/Additional-Staff-326]

Nonsense. About 75% of all homes in Denmark are heated by district heating. They were obviously not all built after there was a plan about district heating.

It is a choise to built the infrastructure and you can easily combine expanding the fiber net installation or other utilities at the same time.

We are still working hard on expanding the heating network to even more existing homes

[u/hostile65 → u/Additional-Staff-326]

Any city set up for steam has the capabilities

[u/corsaaa → u/Additional-Staff-326]

you get the opportunity to do it if it gets bombed to hell in a world war

[u/seb222 → u/Additional-Staff-326]

You absolutely can retrofit district heating as it was retrofitted in my area digging down new pipes. But it is probably much easier in a suburbs rather than a metropolis

[u/HakimeHomewreckru → u/Additional-Staff-326]

We had a project in my city that was developed as a flagship European eco-district. Severe corrosion developed within the underground pipes due to oxygen leaking into the loop, causing frequent breakdowns for residents. It was shut down this year to be replaced with individual heatpumps.

A second project from the waste incineration plant was put on hold due to high cost and technical constraints.

And that's how my local government keeps wasting money on projects that never deliver what they promised.

[u/NaniFarRoad → u/Additional-Staff-326]

Cities aren't just built once and stand forever. Building age and need to be repaired and eventually replaced (unless it's a building we are trying to conserve). How long does the average skyscraper last? It's not going to be up for more than a century or so...

[u/killerrin]

What Big Tech fails to realize is people would be a lot less hostile towards Data Centers if they actually put a modicrum of thought towards sustainability like this.

Like FFS, if they powered the data centers with wind and solar, used closed loop cooling, capturing the heat for homes and offices there would be a hell of a lot less opposition.

Instead, they're going full steam ahead with the most destructive designs and telling everyone who complains to go fuck themselves.

[u/dirty_cuban → u/killerrin]

As much as a I dislike Suckerberg, he did summarize the goal of disruptive tech bros very succinctly: move fast and break things

[u/Siccors → u/killerrin]

Here most of the bigger ones are on wind power, responses are largely:

1. But that is OUR wind power they are using, they should put down their own wind parks!

- They invest in new wind parks -

1. But all those wind turbines could have been producing power for US and not for those datacenters!

[u/No_Individual_6528]

We have this regardless off datacenters. https://zerowasteeurope.eu/2014/01/the-story-of-denmarks-transition-from-incineration-to-zero-waste/

It's also how we burn trash. We even import trash for it.

[u/jimboTRON261]

This is where North America messed up. Corrupt Corporations, politicians and officials pocketed the funds that could be doing logical, sustainable, fair partnerships like this.

[u/dadbodking]

And in summer?

[u/WellAckshully]

Beware of pro data center posts as we head into the US midterms.

[u/Abedeus → u/WellAckshully]

Not all data centers are bad. Pretty sure this one was made before AI boom, as the guy quoted in article still calls it "Facebook" instead of "Meta".

[u/sllewgh]

This is just greenwashing of data centers.

[u/WillyRash → u/sllewgh]

I was thinking the same thing.

[u/SadAndSoSorry → u/sllewgh]

I wonder if people will be able to turn it off in the summer?

[u/Hitokkohitori → u/sllewgh]

Powered by wind and water Energie, waste heat used?  What’s the greenwashing there? If a data center is needed, that’s the best way to do it. 

[u/talldean]

I live in Pittsburgh, PA. The city - for every house combined - currently uses 200 MW of electricity.

There are two hyperscale data centers planned nearby, both within about 45 minutes of the city. They're planning on using 40x that much power, 8000 MW.

Data centers using waste heat to warm houses in the far north, rad. Hyperscale data centers would melt those towns, though, and America alone has 700 hyperscale locations planned.

[u/vaig → u/talldean]

both within about 45 minutes of the city

Hyperscale data centers would melt those towns

Average of sun thermal energy radiated into even a small neighborhood greatly exceeds even the most power hungry DCs. Largest current DC draws insane 1 GW of power. This is equivalent of heat blasted from everyday sun (averaged over days, winter months, etc) of an area of 2 sq miles. That's not even a 0.01% of Pennsylvania area, a rounding error in thermal balance.

The key issue is getting rid of the heat in a way that doesn't hurt local environment and doesn't use too much energy for the heat transfer itself (AC). Heating homes is a great way to do it. Plenty of European cities have central heating systems so expect to hear more of this idea to avoid wasteful energy usage.

Still wouldn't like to live next to a DC, tho.

[u/talldean → u/vaig]

Most of them - those local two as well - have moved to closed-loop cooling systems, which are what we want them to be doing.

The two in the works near me are 4 GW each, or 16 sq miles of sunlight. The bigger problem than the heat, at that scale, feels both the fuel and carbon emissions.

[u/vaig → u/talldean]

I just wanted to clarify that high power draw and resulting waste heat is numerically small enough to be insignificant on a larger scale* because sun blasts insane amount of terrawatt cancer rays anyway.

Emissions causing greenhouse effect, fossil fuel production chain, or zoning officials bringing hell to local community thanks to corporate lobbying are totally valid problems.

*edit: unless you live downwind in a local area where you can get some of the DC hot smell

[u/Royale_AJS]

Hey ChatGPT, it’s getting cold in my house.

“Hey there! It’s not anymore”

[u/KINGDenneh → u/Royale_AJS]

We appreciate yall using chatgpt.

[u/Odd_Onion_1591]

It makes a lot of sense but greedy capitalistic bastards would never do that in America

[u/Tasty-Traffic-680 → u/Odd_Onion_1591]

You really think greedy capitalists wouldn't try to sell their waste heat as a product if it were financially viable to do so?

[u/Luvs_to_drink]

As an arizonan my brain is having trouble understanding why some one would want more heat...

^{it's a joke Im not actually dumb}

[u/Patara]

Yeah because Denmark & Scandinavia actually have proper engineering & infrastructure designed to provide its citizens with long term solutions. Data Centers here are actually included in central planning & not some fucking behemoth you slam down into a small city, kill their environment & steal their electricity / water. 

If the US actually gave a flying fuck about its citizens they would invest in legislations to improve infrastructure. Both Biden & Obama did & tried to do more but were shut down by the seditious Republicans in congress & now everything is undone by the Trump admin. 

But hey at least we've got the Gestapo with shock gloves going after children & their parents, thats how you improve a nation right?

[u/FlaremasterD]

If its an ai data center, fuck it. Doesn't matter if this is one of the 'good' ones

[u/claudiaishere]

Wow - we are just putting the middle of nowhere.

[u/BigRed1541]

But Howard Nutlick just said, like 2 days ago, that data centers don't use any water?!? /s

[u/Sonofa-Milkman]

Ah yes Denmark. Thanks for reminding me how unorganized my hometown is🤣

All things considered this is a very good use-case. If this would mean cheaper heating, I can deff see people accepting data centers more than they are now.

As for water pollution, thats another can of worms lol

[u/P-l-Staker]

Honestly, if it led to us peasants getting dirt cheap or even free (lol) heating, I wouldn't be so opposed to them.

But naaaahh! Can't have nice things...

[u/fgnrtzbdbbt]

Using industrial heat to heat apartments through hot water pipes is quite common in Europe. Usually it is mixed from different sources and some extra heating is added.

[u/crashdout]

Gives away? *angry American noises commence*

[u/Butterbuddha]

Oh man what if they ran new plumbing and had heated streets instead, no more snowy roads! Bougie af! LOL

[u/-The_Blazer-]

Since computing is 100% efficient as heating (every watt of compute produces a watt of heat), I've always wondered if you could use them as some kind of combined cycle power\heat plant. I assume you couldn't run a true steam turbine from water that doesn't even reach 100C, but there's other ways to extract power from heat. And as this shows, the bare minimum would be using district heating.

[u/Mei-Bing]

One? All data centres in Denmark must return excess heat to either housing, industrial or process use.

[u/Think_Chocolate_]

This still doesn't solve the noise problem and, more importantly, the article omits the complaints by the communiry about the security lights.

[u/Kinexity]

Well, that's how it should be done. In general district heating should be used everywhere possible. 2-8% of global warming is from actual additional heat emissions rather than GHGs so curbing emissions eventually won't be enough. This does both.

[u/feel-the-avocado → u/Kinexity]

So what you are saying is not only do we have to stop gas emissions, we need to stop actual heat emissions.

I think many people will find that mind breaking.

But its true - the more energy we convert into heat, means more heat trapped by the greenhouse gases that cannot radiate out into space.

So we really need to be capturing waste heat and reusing it to offset other heat production.

A farmer near me has a 10kw solar panel that captures heat which would otherwise land on the ground, puts it into a large insulated 50,000 litre water tank and then he stores it for winter.
It means he doesnt burn firewood, run his heat pump or resistive heaters as much in winter, as he has a constant 2kw supply of heat coming out of a pair of radiators from his heat storage tank.
That is to say that excess heat from a sunny day is used on a cold day.

Just need to make a system that can capture the 24/7 heat output of a data centre and then store it until winter, then make it avaliable for nearby homes to use, so they dont create more heat during winter.

[u/Troglert]

Not exactly new, a lot of factories etc in europe is piped into the local district heating network. But its nice the infrastructure was there so it can be used

[u/Crio121]

That’s the point.
You can do data centers well.
With little noise, little to no water consumption and contributing to the neighborhood instead of praying on it.
But it takes time, efforts and investment and in no way constitutes to data centers’ primary business.
So instead you’re getting what you’re getting and that’s would continue until government regulates.

[u/coconutpiecrust]

Trust Denmark to do things well. Nice. I mean, you know, way to make something out of nothing. 

That’s what the US currently lacks completely. With the culture of “move fast and break things” they have turned everything to shit and will soon run out of things to break. 

[u/Visual_Jellyfish5591 → u/coconutpiecrust]

They haven’t broken

DEEZ NUTS

[u/belkarbitterleaf → u/Visual_Jellyfish5591]

Don't tempt me with a good time

[u/Ninevehenian]

cyclical economy is good.

[u/GlitteringRate6296]

What about water contamination and noise?

[u/DanielPhermous → u/GlitteringRate6296]

Countries that are not the US have environmental regulations that are enforced.

[u/SureEntertainer7818 → u/GlitteringRate6296]

Most countries hold data centers to the same noise, pollution, contamination(etc) standards that all other industrial complexes must comply with.

[u/feel-the-avocado → u/GlitteringRate6296]

The water is not potable. It is a closed loop heat distribution system. Households either access it directly or via a heat exchanger.

[u/AdEnvironmental4437]

So our datacenter is a little better than all the other ones. Still a data centre tho

[u/Booldye]

Yes. One positive thing about data centers, are there any more?

[u/krostybat]

We don't need heating really. We need cooling. 

[u/NagaSaiDeepak]

This is a great CSR initiative.

[u/Sylogz]

They have been doing this since 2014 for Bahnhof Pionen Datacenter.
https://www.carrier.com/commercial/en/eu/about/case-studies/bahnhof/

[u/Jeroe98]

We have this too in switzerland. they put in new pipes to all the homes that can use this heat.
My building also has a similar system installed with our waste incineration plant. the heat is used to make electricity and then gets distributed to nearby villages and greenhouses.

[u/Onzoku]

As someone who has done District heating and combined power plants, this subject/headline feels offensive.

District heating is awesome though! Great in the nordics!

[u/Deriniel]

kinda reminds me of frost punk somehow

[u/GenazaNL]

In Amsterdam we do kind of the same, but collect the heat from garbage disposal. And it sucks and is pretty expensive

[u/PurbulentTriest]

This isn't new, and has been running from similar sources for quite a while.

[u/JetBrink]

While I understand that this is probably not implementable without correct infrastructure already existing, it could still be a model going forward. 

If you want to build a data centre you need to also build affordable housing nearby and the housing gets free heating/hot water in exchange. Build them with solar panels and EV chargers to also give the houses somewhere slack with electricity bills. 

Id still rather not have this rapidly expanding data centre issue at all, but at least this helps someone in someway. 

[u/cr0ft]

Honestly it's nuts that all data centers don't harvest the heat energy. That's just pure waste.

[u/HanzJWermhat]

What are they doing about the noise pollution? Won’t that heat get wasted on the travel between the Data Center and the city?

We can’t ignore all of the many other downsides of data centers.

[u/Equivalent_Resist_82 → u/HanzJWermhat]

I live in Odense, and there’s no noticeable noise at all, even close to the facility. Soundproofing is one of the easiest things to address. US companies just don’t want to spend the extra 0.0001% of the total cost it would take to do it properly.

[u/sschueller]

This is also done in Switzerland, sometimes they heat homes or public swimming pools.

[u/Expert_Garlic_2258]

Okay great. What about summers?

[u/Appealing_Apathy]

We have a heat recovery system at my work since there is year round cooling demand and we have still have office space to heat. We eliminated the need for boilers which is pretty cool.

[u/LordKyleCurze]

Not today cia

[u/VinnyMaxta]

Don't give them ideas, they will start selling that water back in the us!

[u/Metropolislang]

I don’t know if this is a dumb question: why don’t they do those AI centers in the ocean instead?

[u/redheadedandbold]

AI Data Centers can be built to generate their own power. They can be built smaller, so they don't make that property values-damaging, horrific hum. They are planning HUNDREDS of data centers around the US. We need to stop what they are building, and require they build self-sustaining units instead. Here's another example of a self-sustaining AI data center: https://x.com/charise_lee/status/2056381582559355035?s=20

There are smart ways to run Data Centers. US Corporations and the US ultra-rich just don't make the effort. It's "r*pe, pillage, and move on" for almost every US corporate deal, be it an AI Center or other effort.

[u/EasyPin6440]

District heating integration is one of the most practical solutions for data center energy efficiency. Connecting cooling loops directly into municipal systems turns waste heat into a genuine local resource.