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Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

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Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#121

Post by karolist »

cooljacob204 wrote: post #84
Analemma_ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. A computer heater can only ever be 100% efficient, but most electric heaters are actually heat pumps and can be up to 400% efficient, depending on conditions. Heating your home with bitcoin miners (or any other computing device) is a staggering waste of energy.

Can you go into more details about what a heatpump is and how something can be 400% efficient?

Heatpump efficiency is quoted versus heating with resistive electric heaters. In northern europe most modern houses are heated by heatpumps and good ones achieve 5-6x efficiency as opposed to "dumb" electric heating. It's basically a reverse fridge - you cool down outside and dump the collected heat inside. When outside temps drop the efficiency drops dramatically though. Google "heat pump COP curve"

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#122

Post by zepearl »

rightbyte wrote: post #107
Sharlin wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To very good approximation, 100% of the energy used by a contemporary computer is turned to heat. The amount of negentropy generated by the computations is utterly dwarfed by the increase in entropy in the computer's surroundings. Computers are space heaters that happen to do some calculations as a side effect.

I wonder if WD and friends do generative braking on the hard drives.

:) Regenerative braking when the arm of the HDD starts getting near the target track.

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#124

Post by ithkuil »

repiret wrote: post #87
cooljacob204 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you go into more details about what a heatpump is and how something can be 400% efficient?

A heat pump is basically an air conditioner running backwards - it runs uncompressed refrigerant through a radiator outside to pick up heat from the outdoors, and compressed refrigerant through a radiator indoors to release the heat. Because they can move more heat than they dissipate (and some of the dissipated heat is indoors anyway) they can be more than 100% efficient. (edited to fix compressed/uncompressed sides…

(disclaimer: physics noob)

If a Stirling engine can be operate at 50% efficiency and a heap pump can operate at 400% efficiency, could we take a source of heat (e.g. heat side product of computation instead of burning fuel) use it to power the Stirling engine and use the movement of the Stirling engine to power a heat pump and thus turn computation into house heating at effective 200% efficiency? (under whatever assumptions were made in the claim of 400% efficient heat pump; I assume the temperature differential is key; I also assume that the optimal cold side for the stiling engine and for the heat pump is quite different, but you can tap one in cold air and the other in deep ground)

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#125

Post by dantheman »

satanspastaroll wrote: post #35
dantheman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A monopoly that keeps prices artificially low for years, drives everyone out of business, and then raises prices to make up for the years of lost profit -- I'd like to hear one example - it's never happened as far as i know. Most monopolies have been government granted - railroads through free land, AT&T by creation, etc.

I believe the Rockefeller's General Oil was dissolved as an illegal monopoly. It used it's massive, over 90% share of the market (and it's vertical supply chain) to deter competition, and made deals with other suppliers to make the inertia of competing a herculean task

During the rise of standard oil the price of oil went down, it did not go up. Competitors fought and complained that they couldn't compete because standard was vertically integrated and got it broken up.

But the price did not go up.

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#126

Post by dantheman »

nabnob wrote: post #48
dantheman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A monopoly that keeps prices artificially low for years, drives everyone out of business, and then raises prices to make up for the years of lost profit -- I'd like to hear one example - it's never happened as far as i know. Most monopolies have been government granted - railroads through free land, AT&T by creation, etc.

Amazon is doing exactly this - https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado... >This Note argues that the current framework in antitrust—specifically its pegging competition to “consumer welfare,” defined as short-term price effects—is unequipped to capture the architecture of market power in the modern economy. We cannot cognize the potential harms to competition posed by Amazon’s dominance if we mea…

They are claiming it could happen, not that it is happening.

Which is what I'm saying - people claim it happens, but it never has. It's near impossible to corner a market without the government granting the monopoly.

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#127

Post by on_and_off »

wolco wrote: post #116
on_and_off wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope it does something more useful than mining bitcoins. There are many research projects that could use some more computing power and that would bring a gain to humanity.

Powering billions of dollars worth of bitcoin not worthy enough? I get the feeling if money was not involved it may qualify as a worthy research project.

exactly what would be its value outside of the monetary one for you ?

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#128

Post by bduerst »

davedx wrote: post #64
nabla9 wrote: post #30

The Hamina data center is close to Russia without being in Russia. I guess it's the closest Google is comfortable at being when serving Russian customers. In the north data centers can double as heating power plants when coupled with district heating. It's unfortunate that Google puts the excess heat into the sea. Yandex has a big data center in Mäntsälä. Their cooling water is used for heating the area. There are al…

Hah that's amazing. I remember when I did bitcoin mining (only 1 GPU) and thinking it was getting noticeably warmer upstairs in our house, and how actually the bigger miners could use the heat to heat buildings. Great to hear this is being put into action. Computing -> heat.

That's reportedly how someone gave themselves permanent brain damage by mining bitcoins in their bedroom:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-minor-bitcoin-miner-injury/

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#129

Post by [deleted] »

adventured wrote: post #21
octosphere wrote: post #9

Anyone find anything that Google does these days to be aggressively competitive? As a one-man startup guy, I feel everything I do pales in comparison to what Google are doing and I feel nothing more than /eclipsed/ by them. I have found myself wondering: "If you can't beat them join them" on many occasions. I probably should just merge into Google one day and stop my worrying?

Google isn't doing anything new + interesting at all. I consider Google to be one of the giants that are entirely irrelevant in competitive terms. They almost comically stay in their lane: search, YouTube, search, Gmail, search, search, ads, search, Android, search, search, Google Cloud, search. Every ten years or so maybe they'll add something. I consider Google to be a company that never has to be considered when I…

[deleted]

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#130

Post by GhettoMaestro »

badrequest wrote: post #41

At Google Next in April, I attended a talk by the C-level in charge of Google's Datacenters, and they bragged about using machine learning to manage/anticipate their power draw, and the subsequent efficiencies those brought. They also bragged about how much they're trying to make these centers powered by renewables. When an audience member asked if they would be releasing their models that help them manage power, the…

Release of source-code and licensing of said code is typically a very significant consideration for a company like Google.

Even a "C-level" person in the singular sense most likely does not have the authority to approve such a thing. And if you don't have approval, you probably shouldn't talk or speculate about it in a public forum.

Don't hate the player. Hate the legal-liability game.

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