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Google's new data center in Finland

royal.pingdom.com

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Re: Google's new data center in Finland

#21

Post by chewbranca »

paulitex wrote: post #16

Was anyone able to glean Google's plans for the huge volumes of heated sea water 'waste'? I sure hope they're not planning on just pumping it back into the Baltic - warming of the world's oceans and seas is a very serious problem (see http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/temperature-ocean-... for a summary). It seems this only shifts their heat dissipation problem from having to cool servers to having to cool la…

In the video linked from the article, they mention that they are going to pump the outgoing water around the complex back to the sea and it will be nearly the same temperate as the sea water when it reaches back. I imagine they are going to use the cold air of the climate to reduce the heat.

Re: Google's new data center in Finland

#22

Post by herdrick »

I've been wondering for a while why Google and others don't put data centers in Iceland. Electricity there is almost free of charge and has zero carbon footprint - in fact zero emissions of any sort. (It's geothermal.) The location is remote so you would have some extra latency but for lots of stuff that'd be fine.

Re: Google's new data center in Finland

#23

Post by The_Fox »

Retric wrote: post #13
mhb wrote: post #12

How big an issue is corrosion when using sea water for cooling? I thought this was why fire departments don't use salt water to put out fires.

They probably use a two loop system so most of their pipes are not filled with salt water.

Additionally, they can use sacrificial anodes to reduce corrosion and apply an electric current to reduce growth of living things.

Re: Google's new data center in Finland

#26

Post by [deleted] »

avar wrote: post #7

Google page about the data center: http://www.google.com/datacenter/hamina/ I can't see it on Google Street View, unless it's that area of tents on the map. But I don't see anything that looks like a paper mill there. Maybe they just dropped the marker in a random location. Edit: Yes they did, here's an actual Google Maps link: http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=60.536944,27.116944&#3... The street view doesn't show t…

[deleted]

Re: Google's new data center in Finland

#27

Post by Alleyfield »

jonknee wrote: post #17
paulitex wrote: post #16

Was anyone able to glean Google's plans for the huge volumes of heated sea water 'waste'? I sure hope they're not planning on just pumping it back into the Baltic - warming of the world's oceans and seas is a very serious problem (see http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/temperature-ocean-... for a summary). It seems this only shifts their heat dissipation problem from having to cool servers to having to cool la…

Many power plants heat sea water (either for steam or cooling), I think the ocean can handle a data center just fine. Update: I should add that I'm all for environmental study to make sure that they aren't venting it out in a sensitive ecosystem or at a radically different temp. Done correctly this can be an important development towards sustainable data centers.

We're talking about the baltic sea here. Its average depth is 55m.

Besides, it's already quite contaminated so there is a lot of environmental protection going around it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/BalticSea...

As you can see, there really isn't places for the water to flow back and forth, so it's not a case of "the ocean is going to handle it"

Always consider the context.

Re: Google's new data center in Finland

#28

Post by hoprocker »

paulitex wrote: post #16

Was anyone able to glean Google's plans for the huge volumes of heated sea water 'waste'? I sure hope they're not planning on just pumping it back into the Baltic - warming of the world's oceans and seas is a very serious problem (see http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/temperature-ocean-... for a summary). It seems this only shifts their heat dissipation problem from having to cool servers to having to cool la…

It's definitely important to do a measured environmental review when installing a large infrastructure.

However, the world as it stands now is going to have data centers, and these take energy. Direct environmental cooling undoubtedly has less of an impact than producing energy, powering a compressor, and using that to cool circulated air. Think of the relative number energy conversions (0 vs 2+).

Re: Google's new data center in Finland

#29

Post by jodrellblank »

herdrick wrote: post #22

I've been wondering for a while why Google and others don't put data centers in Iceland. Electricity there is almost free of charge and has zero carbon footprint - in fact zero emissions of any sort. (It's geothermal.) The location is remote so you would have some extra latency but for lots of stuff that'd be fine.

I wont find it on my iPhone, but there was a recent article about companies doing just that, datacenters being built and fast links run to the UK and mainland Europe.

It's quite remote from a get-servers-and-techs there perspective too, though. Might not get a 4 hour onsite warranty as easily.

Re: Google's new data center in Finland

#30

Post by jodrellblank »

icco wrote: post #18

I'm kind of confused why we care. It's another data center, big whoop. I am worried about the waste from warming sea water, but other than that, meh?

If you don't care, why comment?

I am impressed at Google putting datacenters in cold climates for cheaper cooling. You know they have enough datacenters and custom software that they can migrate heavy compute jobs around the planet, keeping them running in night regions where the temperature is lower and cooling cheaper?

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