UT Austin study models desalinated wastewater for data center cooling

University of Texas at Austin researchers modeled the cost and energy trade-offs of desalinating saline water, from brackish groundwater to oil and gas wastewater, to meet data center cooling needs, in a paper published in Water Research, per Anthropocene Magazine. Across three case studies, a Longview, Texas, project treating brackish groundwater with reverse osmosis scored lowest on local water stress, and even the most energy-intensive desalination option consumed a fraction of a data center’s total energy demand, the article reports. The Permian Basin produces about 8 billion gallons of wastewater a day, which is now transported long distances and injected underground, according to the article and UT Austin professor Vaibhav Bahadur.