Comment by direwolf20

1 month ago

Data centers and power plants can and do return cooling water from a river back to the same river but warmer. What do you think is inside their heat exchangers but metal and water?

What do you think is inside their heat exchangers but metal and water?

It's a bad idea to drink hot water from the tap because of the concentration of metals that accumulate in the water heater. Don't assume that a little metal in your water is perfectly safe. As for agriculture, now the metals can concentrate in your lettuce.

And, as other commenters have pointed out, what else is in there? How about Legionnaires Disease?

  • How is that different from the metal pipes through which drinking water goes through to reach your kitchen tap, some of which are over 100 years old if you live in the UK? The contact with metal shouldn't be the problem in itself. Legionnaires disease either, the water from the river isn't drinking water to start with and the water out of the datacenter wouldn't be drinking water either.

    • When you start of with 'a stupid question' and people then give you lots of reasonable answers and you persist with more such questions at some point you cause me to doubt if you were really asking your first question in good faith.

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