Point ＂water＂ into gold! Do a good job of ＂water article＂ in high-quality development and transform green ecology into digital economy
CCTV News:March 22nd is the 32nd World Water Day. In order to commemorate World Water Day and China Water Week, the theme of our country is "Make good use of water resources carefully, and make good use of water resources strictly". From mobile phones to data terminals that support computing power, these information technology industries, which are closely related to our production and life, need to consume a lot of water resources behind their manufacturing, operation and maintenance.
This is a wafer, that is, a silicon chip used to make silicon semiconductor circuits. It is necessary to burn the circuit pattern on the wafer to make the chip, and this process needs to be washed with a lot of ultra-pure water with extremely low impurity content. Manufacturing an 8-inch wafer consumes 250 cubic meters of water per hour, while the water consumption of a 12-inch wafer reaches 500 cubic meters, which means that an average production of a 2-gram computer chip requires 32 kilograms of water resources.
What is the energy consumption of the information technology industry?
Wang Hao, academician of China Academy of Engineering and honorary director of the Institute of Water Resources of China Academy of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, said that the demand for water in the electronic information industry is mainly reflected in two processes, one is manufacturing, cleaning and cooling in the production process. In order to meet these water challenges, the electronic information industry can take some measures, such as improving the efficiency of water resources utilization, popularizing water resources recycling technology and strengthening wastewater treatment. At the same time, these water-saving and emission-reduction measures such as reclaimed water are vigorously applied to reduce the consumption and pollution of water resources and achieve sustainable development.
"Screen" water meets reclaimed water "Show your talents"
Nowadays, there are many new technologies in the protection and utilization of water resources in China. How do these technologies help the development of new quality productivity? Beijing Yizhuang Economic and Technological Development Zone is home to more than 2,000 high-tech enterprises. Here, water has become extremely "precious". How can we meet the daily production needs without "new water"?
In Beijing Yizhuang Economic Development Zone, an enterprise that produces LCD panels, every production process needs to be washed with water, which not only consumes a lot of water, but also requires extremely high water quality in the production process. If it is not filtered layer by layer, the conductive ions in water will interfere with electronic components.
Feng Bin, general manager of Beijing BOE Display Technology Co., Ltd. said that according to different process requirements, they treated the production water for reuse, and the secondary utilization rate reached over 80%, which was equivalent to saving 4.72 million tons of tap water every year on the original basis.
Save consumption and replace tap water with high-quality reclaimed water.
Beijing is a city short of water. How to produce high-quality reclaimed water to meet the water demand of thousands of high-tech enterprises?
At present, in Yizhuang Economic Development Zone, three high-quality reclaimed water plants have been built and one is under construction. According to statistics, high-quality reclaimed water has reached nearly 30% of the total water consumption in the whole region, accounting for 40% of industrial water consumption.
Wang Hao said that from 2012 to 2022, the amount of reclaimed water conservancy in China increased from 3.6 billion cubic meters to 15.1 billion cubic meters, an increase of 11.5 billion cubic meters, and the utilization rate of reclaimed water increased from 8.4% to 20.2%. Compared with the development of new water resources, reclaimed water has many advantages such as economy, ecology and stability.
Using natural cold water resources to cool the data center
Careful use of water resources is not only reflected in the production stage, but also runs through the operation and maintenance stage of the information technology industry. In Chenzhou, Hunan Province, the local use of natural cold water to cool the data center not only makes efficient use of water resources, but also further reduces the operating costs of enterprises.
In Dongjianghu Big Data Industrial Park in Chenzhou City, Hunan Province, more than 3,600 server racks are running at the same time every day. Without external cooling, the indoor temperature will rise to 50 degrees Celsius in just 3 minutes. In such an environment, refrigeration facilities are particularly important to ensure the efficient operation of the unit.
According to the staff of the park, under normal circumstances, 3,600 server racks operate at the same time, and the electricity required for cooling alone will exceed 60 million kWh a year, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of 30,000 households in one year. Behind the Big Data Industrial Park, which is located on the lakeside, is the Dongjiang Lake with more than 8 billion cubic meters of water resources. The water temperature here is kept at around 8 degrees Celsius all the year round, and the abundant cold water resources make the data center here no longer worry about "high energy consumption".
At present, there are many newly settled data centers in the park that are under construction. In 2024, four new large-scale data service enterprises will be put into production.
The whole process of ecological protection and deep cold water cools the computer room
In Danjiangkou, Hubei Province, the core water source area of the Middle Route of South-to-North Water Transfer Project, the deep cold water resources of the reservoir are used to cool the computer room of the technology company, and the unique water resources are transformed into a digital economy.
At the lower end of Danjiangkou dam, a water supply pipeline with a diameter of about 800 mm is drawn out from here. Through this pipeline, the deep cold water of Danjiangkou Reservoir can be sent to a big data center 800 meters downstream of the reservoir. This big data center mainly provides data storage, calculation and other services for Internet companies and e-government.
In the freezing station of the data center, the cold water drawn from the reservoir passes through a plate heat exchanger to cool the internal circulating water of the data center, thus cooling the computer room of the data center.
According to the person in charge of the data center, there will be no contact between the cold water and the internal circulating water in the data center, and then it will be discharged to the Han River, which is eco-friendly and does not cause any pollution.
Turn green ecology into digital economy. In the future, the local government plans to use the warm water flowing out of the data center to build swimming pools and other facilities. While keeping and protecting water, we should make rational use of water resources and promote economic development.