[falsenapkin]

I don't think this addresses the comment you're replying to. Sure evaporative is more effective, I don't see an argument against that, but I think the point of GP is that fully enclosed (like a dry cooling tower) is possible and we can be critical of these companies for not doing the arguably more responsible/moral thing.

[strken]

Is it more responsible to waste electricity and save water? That sounds like a damned if you do, damned if you don't trade-off between two bad things, not a clear good vs bad choice.

My understanding is that a closed cooling tower uses more energy because evaporation is so much better than radiation at removing heat.

[krasin]

1) It should be possible to build a mostly passive dry cooling tower. It will cost more to build, but the cloud companies are not particularly struggling.

2) Electricity is much more portable than water. Droughts are regional and there's little that can be done about it (other than avoiding waste), but electricity can be and often is transferred from out of state. And we do have a lot of solar+wind power nowadays, should be a good fit for cooling.

[john-radio]

Yeah, the "oh well, it's evaporated already, so no getting it back without spending even more energy" tack of the post that you're responding to to is insane. That's not how water cooling works!