Engineering Data Center Cooling Systems: A Case Study of Project Blue

Data centers house the cables, switches, routers, and servers that store and process all of the information that we upload to, or download from, the internet. There are several thousand of them in the United States alone, and together they are expected to account for as much as 12% of domestic electricity consumption by 2028. But data center servers don’t just run on electricity; the cooling technologies that prevent them from overheating also consume water.

This case study explores the sociotechnical challenges of data center cooling in the specific context of Tucson, Arizona, by tracing the development of a multi-site data center complex known as “Project Blue” from 2023 through June 2026. It prompts students to compare the tradeoffs of closed-loop air cooling and direct evaporative cooling in Project Blue’s data centers, and to analyze how these different approaches to thermodynamic regulation distribute the risks and benefits of data center development.

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Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session, students will be able to:

• Identify the sociotechnical dimensions of data center cooling systems
• Compare the tradeoffs of direct evaporative cooling and closed-loop air cooling
• Analyze the downstream impacts of key design choices on Tucson’s power and water infrastructure
• Evaluate how developer transparency, stakeholder engagement processes, and distribution of risks and benefits impact public trust in engineers and engineering projects

Key Themes

• Heat Transfer
• Thermodynamics
• Refrigeration Cycles
• Stakeholder Identification
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• Sustainable Engineering
• Science Communication

Where Might You Use This Resource?

• First-year students in a foundational Industrial & Operations Engineering course
• First-year students in an introductory Mechanical Engineering design course
• First-year students in an Engineering Ethics course
• Sophomores and juniors in a Thermodynamics course
• Sophomores and juniors in a Heat Transfer course
• Seniors in a Sustainable Engineering and Design course
• Seniors in an Engineering and Public Policy course

What You Get

Facilitated Learning Package

For instructors teaching the material in an 80 minute session.

• Instructor Orientation Guide
• Lesson Plan for 80-minute class session
• Student Pre-work
• Slide Deck with Facilitation Notes and Supplemental Annotations
• Student Handouts and Worksheet
• Assessment Questions
• Independent Learning Version of Case Text (for instructor preparation)
• Supplemental Reading for Instructors
• References

Independent Learning Package

For learners to complete asynchronously.

• Instructor Orientation Guide
• Independent Learning Document with embedded activities and questions
• Assessment Questions
• Supplemental Reading for Instructors
• References