this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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I’m far more concerned with the suggested floating datacenters. Just dumping more waste heat into the ocean. WCGW.
That space data center might end up dumping more waste into the oceans with all thise launches but certainly more into our atmosphere.
Does it actually make much of a difference whether it's dumped into the ocean or into the atmosphere? I thought the ocean warming happens because the atmosphere is hotter.
You wildly underestimate the size of the oceans. If they're going to be built anyway, and if they can have a long lifespan even in salt water, this would be far better for the environment than the currently popular method of using rivers for cooling - rivers can be warmed by perceptible and significant amounts until they carry that extra heat into the oceans, plus fresh water is more rare, precious, and in need of protection than salt water.
If the heat made by the data centers can warm rivers, and those rivers can warm the oceans... Aren't the data centers already warming the oceans? Which would mean that putting data centers directly in the ocean would definitely warm the oceans?
Temperature is what matters. The same amount of heat out into a river can significantly warm the whole river downstream, but have no detectable effect on the ocean temperature, just because the heat is diluted so much.
Like, dilute a bottle of tequila with two liters of cola, sure you'll get drunk - but pour that same tequila into a full swimming pool, and you'd never get drunk even if you drink the pool water all day.
You understand rivers largely empty into oceans, right? Your tequila analogy leaves that part out. Eventually, you're still dumping tequila (heat) into the pool (ocean).
It's a matter of size. You'll be dumping the tequila into the pool, but the alcohol percentage of the pool is in all practical sense, still 0.
The size of the pool is of no importance globally. You're still creating the same amount of heat
The only real difference is that the river heat can get higher because it's more localised and, therefore, can cause more trouble along the way.
But from the pov of the ocean ? Rounding error