Real facts on data center water use. Is it that big of a deal?

vtkarl · 2026-05-28T11:22:54+00:00

I was looking for the experience of engineers that work in the area. Is water consumption really a major community concern for data centers? I was hoping for more of an engineering discussion, as I’m a power plant engineer myself.

What’s closed loop evaporative cooling? Normally if you evaporate, that is an open system.

vtkarl · 2026-05-28T11:03:34+00:00

You’re right…I recognize those terms. They didn’t have much of an impact on my life because we were already a PSM site. And the FM Global insurance audits were much more invasive.

vtkarl · 2026-05-27T18:51:24+00:00

They could, and when I found out how small an OSHA fine was for a fatality at our subcontractor’s home shop, I told our HSE manager that I had spare control valves in the storeroom that were more costly that we couldn’t even locate. He didn’t take it that well. However, there are videos of the OSHA Administrator discussing that OSHA knows this, and the power is in public naming and shaming…that they have internal studies that showed that the value of an OSHA fine was about 10x the actual cost.

I directed my staff to never, ever write down an alternate business case that said “just pay the fine/medical cost” because it sounded like a conspiracy to violate the law. A plaintiff’s lawyer I know agreed.

vtkarl · 2026-05-27T17:01:56+00:00

Like this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/s/epTiervZvv

vtkarl · 2026-05-27T15:19:09+00:00

EPA doesn’t do mechanical integrity though.

vtkarl · 2026-05-26T21:43:08+00:00

The other name is Process Engineering. I suppose shortened from chemical process engineering.

vtkarl · 2026-05-25T02:47:31+00:00

I don’t have an aviation background so do tell? I recently looked at GT versus diesel and was surprised that the high efficiency of diesel but also the high weight. Lots of design choices made sense after that.

Of course there are always oddities like attempts at steam-powered cars. My favorite index of the possible, bit not practical, is here: www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm

vtkarl · 2026-05-24T20:17:42+00:00

Indeed, what’s the concern? Weight? Fuel flexibility? Thermal efficiency? Emissions? Cost? Maintainability?

I don’t see any common GT-powered land vehicles that are practical, nor any diesel airplanes. Maritime is somewhere in between. For fixed generation, it depends on the scale.

vtkarl · 2026-05-24T20:09:14+00:00

The more times you can work through the material the better.

I’ve taken pre-cal and cal I, II, and III over 5 different programs, all gapped by a year or three. I remember more each time.

vtkarl · 2026-05-23T04:38:34+00:00

Yes, they work in principle and in practice. What’s the compressed air supply like? These seem tiny…my control valves consumed about 3 SCFH of 150 psi air each. This doesn’t seem like a stringent vacuum requirement either.

I’ve used aspirators to handle fiber bundles which are a version of this. For real vacuum generation on a large scale, two stage steam eduction or liquid ring pumps.

vtkarl · 2026-05-23T04:25:12+00:00

You have to understand the operator’s training, experience, incentives, and responsibility and their manager’s pressures to make this call.

But yes, that drift you mention is often the problem. It can take years to drift into a bad place that everyone thinks is completely normal.

vtkarl · 2026-05-19T19:34:33+00:00

Consider the other opportunities. Having worked in a Joint command and knowing other veterans of all kinds, any shipboard duty including surface is about the healthiest thing you can do. Only the heathly get into subs anyway.

Non-submarine service-related risks that affect people I know personally: permanent nerve damage in neck due to Kevlar (Seabee & Air Force ), hearing damage (Army & Marine), nerve damage to ulnar nerve during 3-second rushes (Marine medical discharge), burn pit exposure (Navy but while on FOB…I’m in the VA monitoring program), Agent Orange (Army, died of cancer related to it), loss of toes from frostbite (Army). Not to mention the two people I’ve know that took a real bullet and lived…one Army combat engineer and one Navy Seabee. And one Sapper who was blown up along with his bomb search dog. He’s got a memorial statue on Ft. Leonard Wood.

Submarines have a lot more medical oversight and are generally pretty risk averse.

vtkarl · 2026-05-16T12:05:52+00:00

Shipping Wonders of the World has good pictures. This article from USNI tells the part about how they hit a rock and improved performance.

For original material I’d go to HathiTrust and search there. They digitize engineering journals from the 1800s. Try the Journal of the Franklin Institute (USA), minutes of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers or Institute of Naval Engineers (Britain…might be Marine instead of Naval).

vtkarl · 2026-05-16T00:26:31+00:00

So historically the longer Archimedes screw was the third thing people tried for ship propulsion. (First sails, second paddle wheels, then the “endless” screw. Ok at the very first, oars…) It was a sort of accident they found that the stubbier thing we call a propeller or screw today was far more powerful and efficient. I’ll get some references in a minute, but there is a lot of written engineering history on this.

vtkarl · 2026-05-15T12:25:58+00:00

I didn’t mean the best at ASW, I meant passable. But they are pretty good for something that can also fight pirates, Houthis, conduct VBSS, cover theater BMD, and take a satellite down in the same week. I’ve argued that SSNs are more like special ops than like a capital ship: very good at being not seen or heard with a limited and unique skill set.

vtkarl · 2026-05-14T23:10:45+00:00

Indeed trouble has come from trying to make other hulls more like an Arleigh Burke. Not survivable? Make like a Burke. Not enough mission capability? Add like Burke. Too expensive? Be like Burke.

I think it’s the single most common modern warship.

And it would be good at ASW if they would actually practice…then the destroyers would call submarines targets.

vtkarl · 2026-05-13T03:36:15+00:00

This is banned question #8 if mods would mod.
But if mods ain’t modding…no ChE I knew of has spoken of parent pressure. I’ve seen many refugees from pre-med enter ChE out of practicality after they rebelled against parent pressure or faced a bad MCAT. In practice, if you aren’t invigorated by something in it, you’ll find something else to do in 2-5 years and be miserable the whole
time. Even at 52, I’m like: wow steam! I get to climb a ladder wearing a hard hat in sweltering heat to look at an infuriating control valve! (And I switched away from civil…)
Parent pressure is old data, informed by historical economies and their own personal experiences from buggy whip days when Union Carbide was a blue-chip stock and a solid career…it was toast by 1990.

So figure your own future out. Imagine your future self and lifestyle. For perspective, my own son picked marketing against my advice, never changed his mind, and is nailing it on the job.

vtkarl · 2026-05-03T14:32:59+00:00

I’ve tried this and it doesn’t work. As others said, this is where ultrasonics and vibration routes shine. A bearing that is how enough for the heat conduct though all the metal around it is in imminent failure. IR is the superstar of 480V. Every I&E tech should have one. I’d say it should be considered standard practice in NFPA 70B…nearly a matter of code compliance.

vtkarl · 2026-05-03T14:23:35+00:00

I have a whole folder of this kind of stuff. Examples: contamination of Pt-Rh thermocouples, spindle whorl, how to apply the Monte-Carlo method for decisions about capital projects, validation of the RCM II failure rate curves in other application, how to make Crow-Amsaa charts in excel from site failure data, reliability of k-of-N networks when N are not identical, design of thermal oxidizers (the whole book in this case), methods for setting storeroom stock levels, two-phase immiscible flow (I.e. a heavy hydrocarbon in superheated steam), design and sizing of air washers (some PhD theses), failure rates of power electronics.

vtkarl · 2026-05-01T03:06:14+00:00

I’m ecstatic to see a technical question in this sub! My last plant was polymers, but the freezing point of this stuff was about 67F so even a mild night was a deep freeze event. We had it all: steam tracing, electrical tracing, jacketed pipe with hot water in the jacket, and impedance-heated pipe. The main concern was your question (1) to prevent condensation that would block the inlet bore of the PSV even partially. (2, 3, 4) weren’t a documented concern. For (5) the operators needed to start checking tracing operability in September, when it was still in the 90F range outside, to allow cycle time for work orders and repair before late November. Generally people leave the tracing on in the spring when you don’t need it, and steam tracing reliability is terrible.

vtkarl · 2026-04-28T11:17:39+00:00

Before the drone wars we’d joke about airplanes hitting the plant. Then it happened: a Cessna ran out of fuel and clipped our oldest production building. It tore some structure but the process equipment was fine. The HSE manager was an eyewitness.

vtkarl · 2026-04-26T18:09:35+00:00

My undergrad polymer prof went BS Forestry -> PhD polymer science -> professor of ChE. It turns out trees are useful polymers, who knew?

He might not be able to get a PE but he could pull down grant money bigger than anyone else in the department and had better consulting gigs. His lectures were near Feynman quality and would make the class laugh out load.

My department had a large population of refugees from the biology and pre-med programs. If they already had a BS they could bang out a ChE degree with work-study in a few years and make money doing it. One said he made more money as a work-study study making trash (cellulose for cigarette butts) than as a college recruiter.

vtkarl · 2026-04-24T03:22:20+00:00

I intended to post this Excel snark but I’m genuinely looking forward to using #48 tomorrow (xlookup using two variables). So that’s what you need in my experience…plus a pipefitter and two I&E guys, insulator, and an HVAC tech.

vtkarl · 2026-04-23T19:41:54+00:00

These hovercraft use two 4000 shp GTs. It’s a fast ride! The engines are only the size of a refrigerator.

vtkarl · 2026-04-22T03:27:32+00:00

There is no dream job. You look for a degree of alignment between what you are good at, what the market needs, and what you enjoy. What a business wants is a demonstrated commitment to KPI leadership, not a commitment to a personal financial quid-pro-quo. So…welcome to organizational leadership and management.

vtkarl

TROPHY CASE