A conceptual closed-loop water-purifying framework for Larimer County data center planning
John Ferrone
Dear Ms. Ellis and Members of the Board of Commissioners,
I am following Larimer County’s work as you update your land-use code to establish guidelines for potential data center developments, particularly around water resource impacts. Living in Nebraska, I value our water and am concerned about our nitrates and other chemicals, which is why I conceived of a model and approach that turns data centers into water purification hubs. Along those lines I would like to tell you about my patent-pending conceptual framework and public/private partnership approach that together solve the problem of water consumption while reconfiguring the data center economics to allow communities to share in the wealth my model creates.
My concept is built on a modular scale for facilities up to 60 megawatts, higher depending on the availability of water. The baseline math requires a pass-through of approximately 2.5 million gallons of water daily per 15 megawatt block (scaled up or down depending on the size of the build). In the process of using community water to cool the servers via hydronic isolation, my model also purifies the community’s water before returning 100% of the water to the community. The model accomplishes this by incorporating a multi-stage purification sequence—using sediment filtering, dual Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) passes, and industrial Reverse Osmosis (RO)—so the water is actually treated and purified before and after cooling the servers, allowing the facility to act as a community water-purification asset.
I want to be clear that this is a patent-pending conceptual model, not a plug-and-play engineering blueprint, thus providing flexibility to both the community and the data center to collaboratively create a mutually beneficial design. Financially, the model achieves a 1.05 PUE, thus creating more compute capacity and thus more revenue for the data center. My approach results in the community sharing in that additional revenue through a public/private partnership.
As your team evaluates how to set standards for responsible digital infrastructure, I would be glad to share the high-level concept diagram as a reference point for your planning team and to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you for your leadership in protecting Larimer County’s water resources. I am not looking for consulting fees. I am hoping to receive a patent licensing fee from data centers that choose to implement my model in collaboration with the communities in which they are located. Please contact me if you have an interest in learning about my concept.
Sincerely,
John M. Ferrone
Patent-Pending Concept Developer, Closed-Loop Data Center Systems
John M. Ferrone
Principal, Ferrone Associates
1126 Country Club Dr.
Hastings, NE 68901
Cell: 402-462-0244