Great, let's boil the planet
Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
41–50 of 397 posts
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#42At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
> Microsoft's Ben Cutler insists the warming effect will be minimal - "the water just metres downstream would get a few thousandths of a degree warmer at most" - and the overall environmental impact of the Orkney data centre will be positive.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#43At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
Well you're making it sound as if the data centers being cooled somehow wouldn't happen otherwise. Seeing as how the alternative is to cool using A/C, surely it's the case of causing less harm than the alternative?
Of course you could argue that the lower cost of this cooling method will create a larger demand for cheaper servers/data storage, which increases net harm, for which I have no answer.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#44At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
I was wondering the same thing.
>> "Microsoft's Ben Cutler insists the warming effect will be minimal - "the water just metres downstream would get a few thousandths of a degree warmer at most" - and the overall environmental impact of the Orkney data centre will be positive."
It's not like we've heard that before about carbon dioxide emissions and other environmental pollution. Companies have mostly a different interests than the protection of our environment, from past experience.
I'm very interested to see what scientists and researchers think of this.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#45At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
> At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water.
Makes as much sense as the people who think that windfarms will eventually stop the wind, or people who worry that smoking is contributing to global warming.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#46At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
If my calculation is correct, the total annual electricity production in the world (I used 20 279 PWh) would heat up the oceans (1 347 000 000 km³ of water) by 0,0129°C.
It's rather easy to calculate because one calorie is the energy required to heat up one gramme of water by one degree Celsius, the rest is just unit conversions, but I could have messed up anywhere of course.
Even if I'm off by a few orders of magnitude I'm confident that datacenters won't be noticeably heating up the sea for a long time.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#47At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
[deleted]
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#48At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
This will never become a problem.
Take the mediterranean for example, a relatively small ocean. It has a volume of 3.75e15m3, with a mass of 3.75e18kg.
We need 4kJ/kg/K to heat up water. To heat the whole mediterranean by 1K, we need an energy of 1.5e19kJ, or 4.16e6 TWh.
In 2008, total worldwide primary energy consumption was 1.32e5 TWh, 31x less energy than needed to heat the mediterranean by 1K.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#49At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
Well you're making it sound as if the data centers being cooled somehow wouldn't happen otherwise. Seeing as how the alternative is to cool using A/C, surely it's the case of causing less harm than the alternative? Of course you could argue that the lower cost of this cooling method will create a larger demand for cheaper servers/data storage, which increases net harm, for which I have no answer.
> Of course you could argue that the lower cost of this cooling method will create a larger demand for cheaper servers/data storage, which increases net harm, for which I have no answer.
That argument doensn't apply here: demand isn't currently being constrained by us being affraid of the environmental impact of datacenters.
Re: Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency
#50At what point does this become a problem? They're using the naturally cool sea water to regulate the temperature in the container, but that heat needs to go somewhere... it heats the water. If this becomes a popular alternative to classic server farms, at what point does it start to increase the temperature of the sea? I know, the oceans are big, but so is our data.
If my calculation is correct, the total annual electricity production in the world (I used 20 279 PWh) would heat up the oceans (1 347 000 000 km³ of water) by 0,0129°C. It's rather easy to calculate because one calorie is the energy required to heat up one gramme of water by one degree Celsius, the rest is just unit conversions, but I could have messed up anywhere of course. Even if I'm off by a few orders of magnit…
I understand that this is just a back-of-the-napkin calculation, but I feel like the heating will have a more noticeable impact on the local environment (think 5km³), rather than considering all of our planet's oceans all at once.