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Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea. (taranis.ie)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 15 points 8 months ago (18 children)

What's going to be performing convection to dissipate heat from the radiator in a manner to support the heat generated by an AI data center?

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Obnoxious as he seems to be, he's actually right, there will be no convection, but they'd radiate heat in a vacuum, by IR IIRC.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    To do that they'd have to be filled with something other than something water based to be able to do that over a large area which would require constant maintenance to do so. It's not easily feasible and I doubt people who want to do this or defend it realize that. I have to look it up but it takes Anhydrous Ammonia to perform that in the ISS. Like this is a bad idea and it fries my brain people trying to defend this.

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  • [+] -7 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    What part of radiator don't you understand?

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    What you don’t understand is the size requirements those radiators would need to have to cool an entire data center.

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  • [+] -9 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    It's conserved.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Right. Exactly zero understanding on your part.

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  • [–] -4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Zero effort shit post. Cool.

    Do you ever make posts that demonstrate what your opinions are or what your own thoughts are or do you just like to talk about other people and put them down cuz it makes you feel better?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    My opinion and thoughts: dunking on idiots online brings me joy.

    So I guess the last one I suppose. If I just had to pick one.

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  • [–] -3 points 8 months ago

    You really don't seem particularly bright. So I did the math, just to double check.

    A 1 gigawatt datacenter radiating at 100C would need a square kilometer in radiator surface area to sufficiently reject/emit the heat.

    But then you need energy. With solar panels you'd need 2-3 sq km to sustain 1 GW.

    So.... The math checks out. I don't understand your arguments from ignorance.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Tell me you don't know how radiators actually work without telling me. They dissipate heat via convection through the air surrounding them or gasses in general. What does space lack a significant amount of?

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah so there is some confusion here. The are radiators on cars or in houses, but those are more accurately heat exchangers. Then there are things like heat lamps, which are really IR radiators that convert electricity to infrared light that feels hot.

    Most of the heat you feel at a camp fire is radiant from the flame, unless you are down wind and feeling some convective heat, but most of that heat goes straight up with the smoke.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    There's a difference certainly but do you think the people who seem to be floating this idea know the difference?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)

    Hard to say, but they’ve been using resistive radiative cooling In space a long time.

    Also a tech ingredients made a neat video about building one and radiating heat out into space from the ground. It was cool to see what happened when it was cloudy and stopped working.

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