Pundits continue to run stories on how energy-intensive Bitcoin mining is, but they leave out the fact that it also generates huge amounts of heat. Most cryptocurrency enthusiasts use multiple graphics processing units tied together in parallel to provide extra computing power in order to solve blockchain transaction equations faster than would otherwise be possible. Immersion cooling techniques allow users to completely submerge their mainframes in a fluid that doesn’t conduct a significant level of electricity. Doing so removes heat far more effectively than the air ever could.
Different opinions exist regarding the best material for use as a dielectric fluid. Professional data centers are slowly moving over to synthetic oil products, which could potentially move much more heat than most other competing technologies. Cooling off hot semiconductors could represent something like 30-40% of energy usage in professional data centers. Since Bitcoin miners tend to be hobbyists who work alone, it’s harder to get verifiable figures for them.
However, it’s likely that it represents an even greater amount of energy for those in this field. Immersion cooling is therefore looked at as a far more sustainable option than trying to run an air conditioner at full blast all of the time to get server racks cooled off. Miners who operate in their basements or their own homes are likely to lose money if they try to run their equipment this way since they’d end up spending more in electrical costs than they’d make in cryptographic transactions.
Professional immersion cooled Bitcoin mines lead the pack when it comes to the adoption of this kind of gear. Individual Bitcoin enthusiasts who are concerned about power consumption are encouraged to join these groups so that they can move all of their equipment off the premises. Professional miners will normally run multiple coolant lines from some outside source of liquid in order to pipe all of the heat their servers generate to some other location. This is the most efficient way to tackle the problem, but it’s usually difficult for hobbyists to try.
Engineers recommend that miners switch to immersion cooling if they exceed around ten kilowatts of capacity, but many individuals will have done so long before they go to that point. Open bath cooling systems are generally preferred in these situations. Setting one up involves submerging a computer in fluid, which absorbs literally all of the waste heat produced by the system. It’s then vented to the ambient air around it. While this is somewhat less efficient than a dedicated closed bath system, it’s far easier for residential enthusiasts to maintain. Closed bath systems are generally the purview of professional miners.
In spite of the wide adoption among Bitcoin mining operations, immersion cooling technology can theoretically work with any rack-mounted computer system. Telephone company central office buildings and social media data centers were among the first to make them known to members of the general public. Nevertheless, they serve a special need with those who generate a lot of heat when they make cryptocurrency tokens.