zlacker

>>pseudo+(OP)
> Some parts of the moon are permanently shadowed and therefore extremely cold, as low as -173 °C. This means that no energy or water would need to be expended to cool the data center.

That doesn't sound right to me. If there's no air, then only black body radiation can be used to cool the data center. That means a massive radiator, a lot larger than a heat-to-air radiator+fan used on earth.

>>M95D+E6
A 1 meter square heat exchanger in a vacuum at 20C will emit about 1 kilowatt at -173C. So about as much as a small space heater per small panel. So a 1 megawatt datacenter would need about 300,000m^2 or 0.3 km^2 of surface area to cool it.

But geothermal cooling would be great on the moon too. Run a pipe 2 meters under the lunar surface and it is -21C.

I think the whole idea though is to make a low wattage space-stead so you can store copies of Moana out of reach of Disney cease and desist letters.

>>foxyv+Qs
> Run a pipe 2 meters under the lunar surface and it is -21C.

I would expect the regolith to be a poor thermal conductor. Not useful for heat exchanger

>>roboca+oK
Probably orders of magnitude better than hard vacuum, though.

>>LeifCa+hQ
The regolith is 0.004W/m2K. Less than aerogel. Less than an open vacuum! Ouch!

Although the regolith is only 4-5 meters thick, so you could probably just go under it and see what the subsurface is like with regards to conductivity.