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Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#21

Post by NathanKP »

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Why heat the oceans indirectly when you can just place the heatsource directly in them? Much less chance of losing precious ergs. Seriously though, what is the direct ecological impact of doing this at scale, would the local increase in temperature have an immediate effect on the life around it? If so how much of an impact? What about the effect on surface life and life in intermediary layers of the water? After all,…

An HVAC system above ground would generate far more heat. The advantage of sinking the data center would appear to be that it can function with passive cooling from the surrounding water only, no HVAC. This means less electricity consumption (meaning less energy generation required, and fewer resulting greenhouse gasses). And HVAC systems create far more waste heat than they do cooling, so this passive cooling will just be moving the source heat to the water, not dumping extra waste heat as well.

Overall an underwater data center should generate far less heat overall than an aboveground one.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#22

Post by reaperducer »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #16
jacquesm wrote: post #10

Why heat the oceans indirectly when you can just place the heatsource directly in them? Much less chance of losing precious ergs. Seriously though, what is the direct ecological impact of doing this at scale, would the local increase in temperature have an immediate effect on the life around it? If so how much of an impact? What about the effect on surface life and life in intermediary layers of the water? After all,…

From what I remember, the impact was pretty minimal. Water has a huge capacity for heat so the temperature was elevated only when very close to the data center.

the impact was pretty minimal

We used to say that about plastics in the ocean. And landfills. And light pollution. And noise pollution. And space junk. And on and on and on.

Heck, not that many decades ago there were responsible people who thought that air pollution was no big deal because there's plenty of air, and it's just fine if California allows rich car collectors to keep buying leaded gasoline long after other states outlawed it. The impact is "minimal."

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#23

Post by mc32 »

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Why heat the oceans indirectly when you can just place the heatsource directly in them? Much less chance of losing precious ergs. Seriously though, what is the direct ecological impact of doing this at scale, would the local increase in temperature have an immediate effect on the life around it? If so how much of an impact? What about the effect on surface life and life in intermediary layers of the water? After all,…

I guess the impact would be much less than that from underwater volcanoes and fissure vents that exist already.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#24

Post by golergka »

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Why heat the oceans indirectly when you can just place the heatsource directly in them? Much less chance of losing precious ergs. Seriously though, what is the direct ecological impact of doing this at scale, would the local increase in temperature have an immediate effect on the life around it? If so how much of an impact? What about the effect on surface life and life in intermediary layers of the water? After all,…

I don't have any numbers, but on intuitive level, cooling servers with ocean water directly sounds a lot more efficient and eco-friendly than burning coal in order to generate electricity in order to power AC in order to cool the whole giant room full of air and people in order to cool some servers.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#25

Post by gzu »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #19
ericmay wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another question to ask is what the effect of pumping these data centers full of cold air is, and how the excess heat from that may be affecting the atmosphere. Not to discredit your point or anything, it's a very good one. I think we just also have to answer it in conjunction with what we are currently doing. Maybe we can sink some data centers and have little to no impact while also realizing energy and cost saving…

Slightly off-topic, but this is how I feel when people discuss the risks of nuclear power. You can talk all you want about the disasterous consequences of a reactor meltdown, but what about the disastrous consequences of sticking with fossil fuels? I agree that switching to wind and solar would be better, but it's not obvious whether we can switch without transforming the world economy in ways people seem unwilling t…

We need underwater, seaborne, or subsurface nuclear power plants.

Radiation release is contained to within the largest stratum available on the Earth: ocean and rock. Anything avoiding our thin atmosphere is a win.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#26

Post by datameta »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
kzrdude wrote: post #11

In the final product, you could build the data center underwater in-place, and have the servers partially accessible - they only need to be connected to the structure in one end, and can be surrounded by water on all other sides. (Visual idea - the data center parts are like fingers on the main structure).

Any seal in that construct would be a single-point-of-failure for the whole, not just one fraction.

I would imagine bulkheads can mitigate some unforeseen leak. They can also be built in relatively shallow water without a substantial amount of water pressure.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#27

Post by sradman »

> Microsoft’s Project Natick team deployed the Northern Isles datacenter 117 feet deep to the seafloor in June 2018. For the next two years, team members tested and monitored the performance of the datacenter’s servers. [1]

[1] https://natick.research.microsoft.com/

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#28

Post by golergka »

reaperducer wrote: post #22
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I remember, the impact was pretty minimal. Water has a huge capacity for heat so the temperature was elevated only when very close to the data center.

the impact was pretty minimal We used to say that about plastics in the ocean. And landfills. And light pollution. And noise pollution. And space junk. And on and on and on. Heck, not that many decades ago there were responsible people who thought that air pollution was no big deal because there's plenty of air, and it's just fine if California allows rich car collectors to keep buying leaded gasoline long after othe…

This is a non-argument, because it can be used on literally anything, up to lighting one match.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#29

Post by alex_duf »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #9

I must ask, apart from the renewable energy factor, why do it in Orkney? There are many islands and archipelagos in Scotland, the Hebrides which are closer to the mainland but still out of the way of fishing. Many of them are going to be setup with tidal and wind generators. Would be interesting to see how it was tethered to the shore with networking and power. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/17/10me…

I've heard about Orkney quite a lot, I think it must simply be an innovation hub.

That I can think off the top of my head:

- Orbital marine, making tidal turbine https://twitter.com/Orbitalmarine

- Their grid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXe1hBvlylw

- Their Hydrogen facilities, using extra renewable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rybpaqhg5Qg

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