Repurposing abandoned mine lands for cooling data centers

Abandoned mine lands (AMLs) present environmental liabilities, while data centers face constraints on land availability and sustainable cooling. This study explores repurposing AMLs for data centers by utilizing surface pit pools as natural cooling sources. We develop a heat transfer model quantifying the cooling capacity of mine pools and apply it to the Morea mine in eastern Pennsylvania. The mine pool can reliably support cooling for data centers with at least 9.5 MW of heat load with conventional air cooling, and at least 30.6 MW with liquid cooling technologies. Further analysis shows the capacity is conservative and robust to variations in weather and hydrological conditions. Statewide analysis identifies 160 AMLs with sufficient pool areas (>0.01 km²) for data center applications. This work establishes technical feasibility and evaluates the economic performance for simultaneously addressing data center siting challenges and accelerating mine land reclamation, transforming legacy industrial sites into digital economy assets.