Texas has long been defined by oil, heat, and huge infrastructure projects. Now, it’s also at the center of a growing environmental debate. Microsoft’s Stargate campus in Abilene is leading a data center boom that is drawing concern over water use, right in the middle of a prolonged drought. According to a July 2025 investigation
could we not use the data center as water heaters and distribute the hot water to households?
is that technically possible? sure. it’s called district heating. that wikipedia article mentions examples of it being used in the Roman empire, 14th century France, the 19th century US Naval Academy, and early 20th century MIT campus.
in practice…houses already have a “regular” water connection running to them. in order for this to be practical, you’re talking about having to run plumbing for a 2nd hot water connection. to every house.
come up with an estimate for how much you think that would cost. then go look up the actual cost that Flint spent on replacing their primary water connection pipes. then go look at your estimate again.
when it’s feasible, usually you see it on a college campus, or somewhere else with high population density and a centrally-located physical plant providing the hot water / steam.
we’re talking about data centers in Texas here. they’re probably in some warehouse district in exurban sprawl, and the homes you’d theoretically want to run the pipes to would all be detached single-family homes in suburbs miles away. hope your pipes are well-insulated.
uh-huh. do you have the source data for that infographic?
it’s a bit hard to read because it’s ridiculously low-res (almost a full quarter of a megapixel), but I can at least make out the caption, which says “European cities with district heating systems (population)”
from that alone I suspect it’s a bit misleading - it’s ambiguous whether the population they’re highlighting is the population of the city total, or the population served by the district heating system.
eg, if there’s a city with 100k population, and a college campus in that city that serves 1000 students with district heating, does that show up on the map as a dot representing 1k population? or 100k?
as I said, this depends heavily on high population density. I don’t doubt that it can work in European cities, or on American college campuses (because those tend to be some of the few places in the US that have population density approaching a European city, as well as the political tolerance for that sort of centrally managed infrastructure)
but the OP I replied to was talking about trying to do district heating in suburban / exurban Texas. I don’t know if you’re from the US, or if you’ve ever been to Texas. if you haven’t, you probably don’t understand the sheer scale of the sprawl we’re talking about here. go pick one of the cities on that infographic, look up its population density (in people per square km), and compare it to the population density of suburbs in Dallas / Fort Worth. if they’re even within an order of magnitude of each other, I’ll give you a cookie.
huh, i had no problem reading it. the source is the page i hotlinked it from, just follow the parent url.
the legend lists three city sizes; 5k-80k, 80k-500k, and 500k+.
if i’m reading it correctly, dallas/fw has a population density of 1370/km^2. my city, which is fully district heated, has 1190/km^2. my parents live in a community of around 5000 people, with a density of 680/km^2, also fully district heated.
i also used to live in a steel town (1600ish/km^2) where most of the district heat came from the steel mill. no extra heating necessary unless it was really cold. they have heated sidewalks too.
all to say, i think you’ve underestimated the size and diversity of europe. the average population density of sweden is about equal to canada.
in practice…houses already have a “regular” water connection running to them. in order for this to be practical, you’re talking about having to run plumbing for a 2nd hot water connection. to every house.
many places, get their heating from such a 2nd pipe carrying NG to their house. While water needs a bigger pipe, it is low pressure, and can be thinner using less metal (or plastic) overall.
is that technically possible? sure. it’s called district heating. that wikipedia article mentions examples of it being used in the Roman empire, 14th century France, the 19th century US Naval Academy, and early 20th century MIT campus.
in practice…houses already have a “regular” water connection running to them. in order for this to be practical, you’re talking about having to run plumbing for a 2nd hot water connection. to every house.
come up with an estimate for how much you think that would cost. then go look up the actual cost that Flint spent on replacing their primary water connection pipes. then go look at your estimate again.
when it’s feasible, usually you see it on a college campus, or somewhere else with high population density and a centrally-located physical plant providing the hot water / steam.
we’re talking about data centers in Texas here. they’re probably in some warehouse district in exurban sprawl, and the homes you’d theoretically want to run the pipes to would all be detached single-family homes in suburbs miles away. hope your pipes are well-insulated.
yeah, that sure makes it infeasible 👀
uh-huh. do you have the source data for that infographic?
it’s a bit hard to read because it’s ridiculously low-res (almost a full quarter of a megapixel), but I can at least make out the caption, which says “European cities with district heating systems (population)”
from that alone I suspect it’s a bit misleading - it’s ambiguous whether the population they’re highlighting is the population of the city total, or the population served by the district heating system.
eg, if there’s a city with 100k population, and a college campus in that city that serves 1000 students with district heating, does that show up on the map as a dot representing 1k population? or 100k?
as I said, this depends heavily on high population density. I don’t doubt that it can work in European cities, or on American college campuses (because those tend to be some of the few places in the US that have population density approaching a European city, as well as the political tolerance for that sort of centrally managed infrastructure)
but the OP I replied to was talking about trying to do district heating in suburban / exurban Texas. I don’t know if you’re from the US, or if you’ve ever been to Texas. if you haven’t, you probably don’t understand the sheer scale of the sprawl we’re talking about here. go pick one of the cities on that infographic, look up its population density (in people per square km), and compare it to the population density of suburbs in Dallas / Fort Worth. if they’re even within an order of magnitude of each other, I’ll give you a cookie.
huh, i had no problem reading it. the source is the page i hotlinked it from, just follow the parent url.
the legend lists three city sizes; 5k-80k, 80k-500k, and 500k+.
if i’m reading it correctly, dallas/fw has a population density of 1370/km^2. my city, which is fully district heated, has 1190/km^2. my parents live in a community of around 5000 people, with a density of 680/km^2, also fully district heated.
i also used to live in a steel town (1600ish/km^2) where most of the district heat came from the steel mill. no extra heating necessary unless it was really cold. they have heated sidewalks too.
all to say, i think you’ve underestimated the size and diversity of europe. the average population density of sweden is about equal to canada.
many places, get their heating from such a 2nd pipe carrying NG to their house. While water needs a bigger pipe, it is low pressure, and can be thinner using less metal (or plastic) overall.