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Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

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Re: Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

#151

Post by Ntrails »

stcredzero wrote: post #96
jefflombardjr wrote: post #24

I'm all for exploring new approaches, however: a) Salt water is highly corrosive. Wouldn't maintenance costs be high? b) Isn't marine biology highly sensitive to heat pollution? For high latency services like Amazon Glacier, wouldn't it make sense to host in a place like Iceland? Really cheap hydrothermic/clean power. Highly educated local talent pool, and relatively consistent cool temperatures. If you're maintainin…

Essentially, I think it makes sense to get better at solar than to have Steve Zissou as a server admin. 1) In the original article, these server farms would be remote administration only. 2) Such facilities would make the secret construction of one's James Bond Villain underwater base much, much easier. (Wouldn't Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel all make great Bond villains?)

>Wouldn't Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel all make great Bond villains?

You know if Elon Musk tried to take over the world as a benevolent dictator I'm not entirely sure I'd fight against it...

Re: Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

#152

Post by megous »

Ntrails wrote: post #151
stcredzero wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially, I think it makes sense to get better at solar than to have Steve Zissou as a server admin. 1) In the original article, these server farms would be remote administration only. 2) Such facilities would make the secret construction of one's James Bond Villain underwater base much, much easier. (Wouldn't Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel all make great Bond villains?)

>Wouldn't Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel all make great Bond villains? You know if Elon Musk tried to take over the world as a benevolent dictator I'm not entirely sure I'd fight against it...

Lord Acton comes to mind.

Re: Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

#153

Post by mnw21cam »

cr1895 wrote: post #146
sathackr wrote: post #104

I really can't see the benefit of submerging these -- the complexity involved with keeping out several hundred PSI of sea water just doesn't seem to make sense to me. For the cooling aspect, they're already using pumped water and heat exchangers. What is the benefit of submersion vs just pumping sea water from a pipe to a land, or barge-based datacenter and using that to cool?

>the complexity involved with keeping out several hundred PSI of sea water just doesn't seem to make sense to me. Use immersed electronics. ROVs and the like have quite complicated onboard control systems. They're immersed in mineral oil (or something like that). They don't get wet and hydrostatic pressure is no longer an issue.

Spinning rust hard drives have an air-filled (or helium-filled sometimes) cavity in which the spinning rust spins. If you're building a computer immersed in oil, you generally need to leave that part outside the oil.

Provides great thermal conductivity though.

Re: Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

#154

Post by mnw21cam »

jsilence wrote: post #132

Why dissipate the residual heat into the environment when you could use it for residential heating and/or heating of green houses. This concept seems to be a design for waste of resources to me.

Thermodynamics. The exhaust temperature of the data centre has to be significantly higher than the temperature of the thing you want to heat, especially if that heat is to be transported any appreciable distance. Otherwise, the heat will not flow in the right direction.

With data centres these days trying to keep chip temperatures as low as possible, this really makes the temperature gradient very low.

An alternative would be to pump in a little bit more energy and use the exhaust heat as a source for a heat pump.

Re: Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

#155

Post by YokoZar »

jsilence wrote: post #132

Why dissipate the residual heat into the environment when you could use it for residential heating and/or heating of green houses. This concept seems to be a design for waste of resources to me.

The article mentions that data centers don't tend to be allowed near where people live for a variety of reasons.

Re: Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

#156

Post by aninhumer »

tim333 wrote: post #100
longerthoughts wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> b) Isn't marine biology highly sensitive to heat pollution? Impact on the marine environment is briefly mentioned in the last couple of paragraphs of the article, although they're a little dismissive and don't provide any evidence supporting their claim of negligible impact.

The sun provides over 1GW/sq km when it's shining. The biology seems to get by fine with that.

That the ecology is able to handle variations in temperature, even large ones, does not mean it can handle an absolute shift. 10±5 degrees is not the same as 11±5.

Re: Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

#157

Post by xg15 »

theptip wrote: post #86
longerthoughts wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> b) Isn't marine biology highly sensitive to heat pollution? Impact on the marine environment is briefly mentioned in the last couple of paragraphs of the article, although they're a little dismissive and don't provide any evidence supporting their claim of negligible impact.

The claim is: > The water just meters downstream of a Natick vessel would get a few thousandths of a degree warmer at most. Sounds negligible to me, but I'm not a marine biologist. Would be interested to hear a specialist weigh in.

I'm not an expert either, but one should keep in mind that this was an experiment with a single vessel. Even the shiny PR images in the articles show clusters of hundreds of vessels for actual operation. So it's more "few thousandths of a degree times X" and that seems less harmless to me.

A single coal power plant is negligible to the environment too. Half the world powered by coal isn't.

Re: Want an energy efficient datacenter? Build it underwater

#158

Post by andai »

jsilence wrote: post #132

Why dissipate the residual heat into the environment when you could use it for residential heating and/or heating of green houses. This concept seems to be a design for waste of resources to me.

I see a future where residential heating is powered by community owned bitcoin mining rigs.
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