Top Tweets for #ElectricPowerGeneration

16 days ago

#DataCenters #WaterUse #ElectricPowerGeneration WHO USES MORE WATER THAN DATA CENTERS: ELECTRIC GENERATORS, HYDRAULIC FRACTURING (FRACKING), GOLF COURSES & LANDSCAPING, INEFFICIENT AGRICULTURE, AND OTHERS People in Texas are raising data center protests, with recalcitrant landowners, municipal officials, and tort lawyers in the middle. Gov Abbott and other elected officials are responding asking for impact information. To date the fad of complaining has not spread to our new mega-factories for chips. We live on a water planet, yet we are running out of water to improve our lives. This is bad utilization of resources, not bad decisions to have data centers. Allocating available water among the various large industrial users of water—electric generators, frackers, manufacturers—chips, refining, chemical plants, construction materials—data centers, municipal users, agricultural users, and others is a near impossible policy task especially in the face of our spreading desert in the West and Central US. This is sudden uproar about data centers should not be used to “shake down” the entrepreneurs who own and operate the centers, although we are seeing a good deal of that. This uproar is somewhat like the political and environmental flap we had regarding hydraulic fracturing operations from 2009-2015 that all of a sudden just collapsed. Lawyers and municipal officials are blatantly shaking down data centers to fund their city wish lists: high property and income taxes for infrastructure, parks, raises. The NYT suggested that data center revenue should be used to balance our budget for entitlements (rather than cleaning up the fraud in entitlements). Governor Abbot has demanded a report regarding data centers and their impacts. This instant set of brief comments is just opening remarks about water, which may be the most difficult issue since there is only so much usable water if he requests formal comments from interested parties. “Data centers must operate in ways that reduce costs for residential electricity customers, do not drain water needed for our communities, and take into consideration the needs of our neighborhoods,” said Governor Abbott. (This is very odd, and I decline to address this now.) (Or in the case of data centers, you do not have to be part of the utility;) Abbott continues "you can form your own isolated or “inside the fence” self sustaining operation not tied to the power grid. This is fine for the electric use, but it does not solve the water issue at all. A utility is a communitized business operation. Central principles are that rates must be just and reasonable and must not shift costs unduly among customer classes. To achieve this the PUC must require data centers to fully fund the costs of electric infrastructure needed to serve their operations, preventing those costs from being passed on to residential ratepayers.) Gov Abbott’s directive continues: “The PUCT and ERCOT must identify additional actions under their authority to safeguard residential and small business ratepayers and submit a joint memorandum to the Office of the Governor by July 17, 2026. The PUC shall initiate action to reduce residential ratepayers’ transmission costs by July 31, 2026.” (This only applies if the data center chooses to interconnect to the grid rather than operate behind the fence.) Governor Abbott also pledged to work with the Legislature next session to codify these protections and ensure data centers add to Texas’ electric capacity rather than merely increasing demand. https://t.co/29ZvLsegms We live on a water planet. There should be a lot of available water and AI itself should help with the technology for improving water use. Our government and entrepreneurs have refused to look at this issue on the scale necessary to attack our spreading desert in the western and central North America and Africa and Asia. Commenters should look at other water users, electric generators being the largest. Responders note that some of these are spread across geographic areas such as golf courses, but several are as localized as data centers. Science Direct notes that: Cooling water is used by many industrial facilities. By far, the largest user of cooling water is the electric power industry. Chip manufacturing uses a massive amount of water. A single modern fabrication plant ("fab") can use anywhere from 2 million to 10 million gallons of water every single day. This water is vital for rinsing, cleaning, and polishing silicon wafers between microscopic manufacturing steps. Other significant users include the pulp and paper, chemical, iron and steel, aluminum, and petroleum refining industries. Power plants: their cooling power plants is a larger water use than the data center’s direct cooling in many cases. Compared to other plants, nuclear plants are less efficient than gas, especially CCGT, so they consume more water when you just look at the plant. A Natural gas plant can operate at 50% efficiency to 66% efficiency, with a significant chunk of air cooling. They require less heat rejection to water overall, minimizing water use compared to nuclear. But the fuel, i.e., the natural gas itself, through hydraulic fracturing methods, below, is very water-intensive. Fracking: while a single fracking well uses more concentrated water upfront, data centers consume vastly more water over time due to continuous operations and indirect electricity generation footprints. Permian Basin totals roughly 70 to 80 billion gallons/yr, while the Marcellus Shale region consumes an estimated 15 to 25 billion gallons per year, though precise annual totals fluctuate based on active rig counts and completion efficiencies. Per Well Average: Individual horizontal wells consume about 10 million to 16 million gallons of fluid. Recycling Rate: Roughly 50% to 70% of the water utilized in the Permian comes from recycled, highly salty "produced water" brought up from previous drilling instead of fresh groundwater. Marcellus Shale Water Use: Total Volume: Operators consume approximately 15 billion to 25 billion gallons annually across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and neighboring states, driven by lower overall active well completions compared to the Permian. Marcellus Per Well Average: Individual horizontal gas wells in the Marcellus average 4 million to 5 million gallons of water. Re Marcellus energy vs fracking water use, electric generation uses nearly 150 million gallons a day in the Susquehanna River Basin, while the projected total demand for peak Marcellus Shale activity in the same area is 8.4 million gallons per day. EPA COOLING WATER INTAKE REGULATIONS. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently developing regulations to implement section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act, which deals with cooling water intake structures. So Governor Abbott’s request for data and research should probably include this information as well as EIA and NERC data. We need to focus on water consumption vs. water withdrawal Data centers use water to keep servers cool. What methods are used. Methods are evolving that are more efficient and use less water. The Centers need to explain how data center usage compares to cooling for the power plants, all the way back to production of the natural gas. Methods: Air cooling uses no water but requires compression, i.e. more electricity Evaporative cooling (open-loop): A majority of large, modern data centers use water-based cooling for better energy efficiency. This often involves cooling towers or evaporative chillers. Closed-loop water cooling: In closed-loop systems, water circulates in sealed pipes or coils that cool the servers without directly exposing water to air. Because the water isn’t evaporated to the environment, losses are minimal – it’s mostly the same water recirculating (with some makeup water added occasionally). These systems can include water-cooled heat exchangers or liquid-to-liquid cooling loops. Direct liquid cooling & immersion: An emerging category is liquid cooling at the server or chip level. Direct-to-chip cooling uses cold liquid (water or special coolant) piped directly to server CPUs/GPUs, and immersion cooling submerges whole servers in a bath of non-conductive fluid. These methods transfer heat very efficiently and can significantly reduce water usage. Typically, they still need a heat exchange system to reject heat (often a dry cooler or a closed-loop water circuit), but because they target heat more directly, they require less bulk air conditioning. Immersion and direct liquid cooling are gaining traction for high-density AI and HPC (high-performance computing) data centers, especially in water-limited areas. In areas with scarce water, liquid cooling is ideal as it uses minimal water, whereas in areas with strained power grids, evaporative cooling is favored for using less electricity. ============================= SOURCES: Florida Water & Pollution Control Operators Association https://t.co/lBRpkrGfEE Cooling water use patterns at US nonutility electric generating facilities https://t.co/btpCDQxePG

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Jaya Plus

@jayapluschannel

almost 3 years ago

செய்த வேலைக்கு சம்பளம் கொடுக்கல .. போராட்டத்தில் குமுறும் மின்சார வாரிய ஊழியர்கள்! #TNGovt #ElectricPowerGeneration #PowerDistribution #ContractWorkersFederation #JayaPlus

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ePropelled Inc. @e_propelled

over 4 years ago

Learn more about our UAV electric power and #PropulsionSystems and download one of our educational whitepapers - https://t.co/6E9HJvBuHK #UAVElectricPowerSystems #ElectricVehicles #ElectricPowerGeneration #UAV #Technology #FutureOfElectricPropulsion #ePropelled

e_propelled's tweet photo. Learn more about our UAV electric power and #PropulsionSystems and download one of our educational whitepapers - https://t.co/6E9HJvBuHK

#UAVElectricPowerSystems #ElectricVehicles #ElectricPowerGeneration #UAV #Technology #FutureOfElectricPropulsion #ePropelled https://t.co/OrUBb02knd

CaterpillarInc @CaterpillarInc

about 5 years ago

Helping our customers meet their sustainability goals is important to us. The U.S. EPA says that using Combined Heat and Power is a great way to reduce air pollution & water usage associated with #ElectricPowerGeneration. Learn more at https://t.co/VeJXvi1tG7. #SustainablePower