America is always about building in the cheapest way possible. That's why these data centers look nondescript and are in more suburban/rural areas where land is cheaper.

Never.

takes a nickel from the profits of the power companies it also will never happen.

You get that in a lot of developed areas. This takes planning and the ability of navigating an antiquated permitting process. In a lot of instances it’s much easier to put these things in rural or poor communities where opposition is less organized than developed communities with the resources to oppose them.

GOP state legislators are ALL about 'creating jobs' by approving rural data centers to suck up what little water was left after they let rich Saudi horse fanciers use water to make the desert provide alfalfa hay to go to Arabia.

... that is seemingly better suited to adaptation to distribute waste heat from data centers

This type of "district heating" infrastructure is more common in countries that employ more geothermal energy. It is apparently a less common type of heating system here.

Perhaps it is time places in the U.S. that are in the most need of efficient heating start exploring such centralized options. Seems it would be feasible in many high-density areas (e.g., upgrades of old systems and implementation of new systems in high-density areas -- e.g., much of the corridor from Fairfield, CT, to NYC, to Hoboken, the Palisades, and Union City...)

Question (Yeah, I know, problematic construction):
"Where in the United States is the infrastructure for district heating through underground pipes, similar to what they have in Finland, used."

Answer from Gemini (take with whatever grains of salt you apply to any AI summary)

likes energy that someone can get rich off of like coal.

We as a society would rather collapse than be that altruistic.

GA, TX, AL etc may get chilly a few days a year but that waste heat and noise is going back into the system every day.

For the sort of "district heating" that could make use of the waste heat to make sense, you'd need densely populated cold places like Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, WI, Cleveland, OH, Marquette, MI, Buffalo, NY, Boston, MA (already has some district heating infrastructure), or even places like Grand Forks, ND.

More on district heating infrastructure in Finland, EU, and here in post 41:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220846448#post41

And we can’t have nice things here in America. 🫩

Sounds like a non starter under this administration to me. Perhaps even more deadly than a windmill.

I assumed anyone knew it would not help the oil companies, therefore an anathema for Trump. I even farcically added that he would dismiss this idea being deadly as he does windmills.

Perhaps you didn't read beyond the title and gave a knee jerk reaction. I'm not the troll you're looking for. haha

but I took you literally.

I knew you didn't believe I was an actual troll, but I wanted to throw in that Star Wars line as a symbol of defense.
From now on follow my ex-wives advice don't believe anything I say. /SARCASM haha

to run one of these data centers........What do you think the electrical power generation plants use for fuel for their generators??????

these data centers still need power to run. So expanding data centers will still need more and more "Bountiful Clean Coal" to run. We're just tapping their waste with this, and I'm sure they can figure out a way to profit from it.

Applies to the “waste” their creepy fellow travelers the “data as oil” creeps mine as well. That metaphor is so daft given climate change.

If those data creeps could use the “waste” towards something the data generator (is that what one is?) supported without qualms, it would be one thing. But transactionalism that myopically destroys democracy, the environment and civil rights never has any legs.
Unless you are resigned to an eternal hellscape which I am not.

The only thing MAGA likes from Finland is "rake the forests"

Forget about DJT for a moment. And treat this like a “Visualization” of what can be in some communities across this land of We The People.”

...with much more use of geothermal energy and the infrastructure to support it. The U.S. not so much.

But I bet some version of this does happen in many blue--and even red--states.

We just tend to use electricity for heating and cooling, so finding ways to convert the waste heat into electricity is the challenge here.

And, this is not actually a reliably red versus blue issue as we would like to think:

South Dakota--which hasn't voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1964--leads the nation in renewable energy production, with 92% of its electricity coming from renewable sources as of 2024.
https://www.sdnewswatch.org/fact-brief-south-dakota-wind-solar-clean-energy-production/#:~:text=South%20Dakota%20is%20ranked%20No,and%20Kansas%20third%20(74%25).

Note that "Iowa is second (83%) and Kansas third (74%)".

When you drive across Kansas to get to blue Colorado it is actually striking how many wind turbines there are between the billboards for Jesus and anti-abortion screeds in that very red state.

Will the Maniacal Orange Menace hate it? Yes. But I still don't think that will stop progress--because it really hasn't so far....

.... the heat generated by the huge computer that took up nearly their entire basement. This was happening in the early 1960s.
One of their officers was a relative of mine. And we shared computer stories for years. Out of respect for his age, I will only give you his initials, D.W., who has retired now and is still living in New England.

There's your answer

Frustrating as heck, but a good one nonetheless.

Besides, nothing outside of a classroom example is ever 100% efficient.

“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

In a lot of Europe there are "steam utilities." When they build your house they tap into the main city steam pipe to connect it to the radiators in your home, then when you want heat you just turn a valve. It's way cheaper than installing a furnace and it works.

Outside of the big cities they don't have this at all in the US, and even in the big cities this might not be for everyone. For instance, CenTrio sells steam in Seattle but they only sell it in part of the city.

I wonder...is there a way to recover the heat pulled out of data centers and use it to generate electricity? That would work better than trying to sell the heat directly.

Many many years ago I toured this building at the University of Minnesota. They mentioned that the building did not have central heating, only air conditioning. Even in the Minneapolis winters, the heat generated by the computers was enough to heat the building.

We have neither. Obviously the Finns thought this through before they issued permits. In Amerika we only think about how quick we can turn a quick buck.

I thought the entire mass of Fin citizens working, were out raking their vast forest floors......

just profit and/or ideology.

When countries that are the size of our states do great things for their people, that doesn't make us look bad, but just makes the point of how small countries can innovate as well as afford nationwide change faster.

One thing that does make us look bad is that we have 90+ percent of the nation's wealth concentrated at the top, and the highest poverty level out of 38 OECD countries. Another thing that makes us look bad, when you look behind the drama curtains -- it's the tech and Koch oligarch networks that are privatizing the country into a plantation.

Their corporate messaging says, "nothing personal, just business" as the collateral damage turns into national human wreckage.

See post 41 and 42:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220846448#post41

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220846448#post42