Amid the outcry about data centers' extreme use of energy, it's worth turning the situation on its head. What if all that power — and the heat it generates — could be used to warm homes?
"Climate experts are skeptical that consumption is the most sustainable solution," Architectural Digest reported. But in just over a year, global electricity demand for data centers will match that of the entire nation of Japan: over 1,000 terawatt-hours.
A small-scale experiment is underway that could determine whether corporations go down this road to a significant degree. In Hamina, Finland, Google uses seawater to cool data center servers. The subsequently warmed water is then used to produce heat for the company's offices and a local utility, making its way to 80% of the homes in the town of 20,000 people. The facility uses 97% carbon-free electricity as a result of this as well as on-site solar and wind energy farms, per Architectural Digest.
🗣️ Do you think all new homes should use heat pump technology?
🔘 Definitely 💯
🔘 Let each state decide 🇺🇸
🔘 Let homeowners decide 🏘️
🔘 No way 🙅
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
Across the southern end of the country in Satakunta, Marathon Digital Holdings is keeping people warm by selling the thermal energy created by its cryptocurrency mining operation. In Paris, a joint venture between Equinix and a utility company is warming the pool in the Olympic Aquatics Center and will heat up to 1,000 homes in the area.
This method, of course, is not a charity either, as it can be profitable for a business. In New York City, a luxury spa called Bathhouse doubles as a bitcoin mining facility, using the heat needed to warm its pools, and earns roughly one bitcoin per year from the mining operations — currently worth $100,000.
Since most energy grids rely on dirty fuels such as coal and natural gas, these data centers, crypto miners, and supercomputers are major contributors to the production of planet-warming pollution — unless they source their own electricity needs off-grid using 100% renewable energy. Even those notorious artificial intelligence-generated search results are part of the climate crisis.
Architectural Digest reported that a solution is to invest in renewable energy; unless data centers and other major consumers make this commitment, their damaging power usage will outstrip any good they do. That is at least beginning to happen more commonly, such as at companies like Gryphon Digital Mining, which uses hydroelectric power in New York.
In the meantime, as such efforts to align cryptocurrency mining with renewable energy scale up, the consensus is that it is at least better to make use of excess energy by using that heat for other needs rather than letting it dissipate — or using more water or energy for cooling such operations. Yet it's not a solution that can undo the polluting effects of mining efforts that do not solely rely upon renewable energy.
As the Architectural Digest story concluded, "Passive heating for nearby residences is an effective use of a data center's waste product, but it might not [be] a perennial solution to counteract its industry's contributions to global warming."
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
