Texas oilfield wastewater could help cool data centers without draining freshwater

Can waste water from the oil and energy industry quench the thirst of data centers? Researchers at The University of Texas in Austin are betting it can. They suggest that established desalination technologies could allow data centers to use salty or contaminated water to meet their cooling needs, reducing their reliance on freshwater. Although there are various ways to separate salt from water, researchers said reverse osmosis, which uses pressure to push water through a semipermeable membrane, is more energy-efficient. However, the technology has one drawback: it struggles to treat water saltier than seawater. Heating water into vapor and then condensing it back into freshwater is another viable solution, but this method requires more energy. Turning wastewater into coolant According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day. The waste water generated by certain oil fields in Texas is over thousand fold higher than this amount. Data centers can become more efficient in their water usage if they reduce stress on local water resources without drastically increasing costs or overall energy demand, according to a recently published study in Water Research. “We’re not waiting for a futuristic technology to come along and solve this problem for us,” said Vaibhav Bahadur, who is a professor at the University’s Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and is one of the leaders of the research. Bahudur noted that though the desalinations methods are available but they incur a cost. These costs, however, will be a small fraction of a data center’s total energy footprint when compared even with the most energy-intensive water treatment. Texas oilfields offer alternatives He proposed turning attention to the Permian Basin. This geological region in West Texas generates approximately 8 billion gallons of produced water per day during oil and gas extraction. The researcher said this water could be put to better use instead of being transported elsewhere for disposal, where it could pose long-term risks. “The Permian (Basin) puts out 1,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools per day, and right now this water is transported over long distances and injected underground. This is problematic in many ways including the risk of seismic activity,” Bahadur said. “We’re also running out of space to bury that water, by as early as 2030. We need to find a way to use it, and cleaning it up for data centers is a great way to do that.” The research finding becomes significant given that only less than 4 percent of Earth’s water is freshwater, and only a fraction of it, just 0.5 percent, is accessible and safe for human consumption. Additionally, by 2028, water consumption by data centers is expected to reach approximately 33 billion gallons, filling nearly 50,000 Olympic-sized pools, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The study appears in the journal Water Research. Get the latest in engineering, tech, space & science - delivered daily to your inbox.