this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Would waste heat go into the air or water? What affects could that have?

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 3 points 21 hours ago

If the electricity comes from renewable sources, it is no (global) problem. In that case, you've just taken the sun's energy from one place (solar panel, wind turbine, etc.) and moved it elsewhere (the ocean). That's fine, that energy was going to end up heating the Earth in any case.

This is very different from greenhouse gas emissions, as those increase the total amount of energy the sun delivers to Earth, changing the global balance.

[–] bajabound@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'd probably be more concerned with them using bunker b or c for power generation.

[–] ZMoney@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Came here for this comment. The image is suspiciously free of smokestacks.

[–] mech@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It would go into the water, and it would have basically no effect at all.
The amount of heat is many, many orders of magnitude too low to heat the oceans up.
As long as you don't park in very shallow waters where it would have a local effect.

[–] valar@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Isn't this the attitude that got us climate change in the first place?

[–] mech@feddit.org 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

True. But the scale is still a bit different:
Climate change added 400 ZJ of heat energy to the oceans so far.
If we piped the heat of all datacenters that currently exist into the oceans, that would add 0.001 ZJ per year.
The major issue (for global warming, not local warming) isn't waste heat, it's greenhouse gasses.

[–] markz@suppo.fi 3 points 1 day ago

Heating the oceans globally would require insane and totally unrealistic scale, but the effect on ecosystem on the immediate surroundings is a good question.

[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 1 points 1 day ago

A single ship? Ye, no impact.

Thousands? Well, that will be very noticeable.