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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

#61

Post by s_dev »

YawningAngel wrote: post #45
Etheryte wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ocean is host to a very wide number of creatures and bacteria, some live in arctic cold waters, others on volcanic vents, and every range in between. There's a good saying for this, roughly translated, that nature doesn't love an empty spot — if one type of plant or bacteria won't live in an area, someone else will quickly settle in.

We have "nature abhors a vacuum" in English

I think these quotes are coming from either end of the spectrum of physics and biology and don't necessarily say the same thing.

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

#62

Post by FpUser »

serjester wrote: post #46
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,…

It takes about 80 watts to heat up a liter of water 1° celsius. Global data centers used about 4.16 x 10^14 watts last year [1]. Let's assume we still have a lot more data centers to build so bump that number up 10,000X. Assuming every watt of energy is actually converted to heat and we moved every data center on earth underwater it'd raise the temperate of the oceans (1.3x 10^21 liters) about 0.01°C. This is a very…

"It takes about 80 watts" - Watt is a measure of power, you need energy instead (Joules / Watt hours / etc )

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

#63

Post by ChuckMcM »

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,…

The scale is off. Things that affect local ecosystems are cooling multi-gigawatt nuclear reactors with nearby ocean water, you would be lucky if one of these drew a megawatt of power.

That said, the physics are "heat is heat". If you put it into the air or you put it directly into the ocean the only way it leaves the planet is by black body radiation. As a result locally heating some seawater nearby has (on a global scale) the same impact as heating the air the same amount.

Now we know there are some ecosystems in the ocean that prefer thermal vents and you might find that around the data center itself you have a wider variety of sea life than is found in the general vicinity due to different thermal conditions. Not sure if you could map out that was a positive or negative change.

Generally though, the ecological impact of doing this at scale is not going to be different in scale than land data centers.

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

#64

Post by shawkinaw »

NathanKP wrote: post #21
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 j…

> 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.

Where do you get that idea? A typical EER 12 air conditioner will move 3.5x the heat energy that it consumes (COP = 3.5) [0].

[0] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/cop-eer-d_409.html

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

#65

Post by revax »

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 basic thermodynamics stuff. Looks like energy used in datacenter in 2018 was around 200TWh. If you use all this energy to heat only the mediterranean sea, you will have a change of temperature of 0.00006°C.

I used this calculator https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/specific-heat

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

#66

Post by mlyle »

shawkinaw wrote: post #64
NathanKP wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

> 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. Where do you get that idea? A typical EER 12 air conditioner will move 3.5x the heat energy that it consumes (COP = 3.5) [0]. [0] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/cop-eer-d_409.html

Another way to put this is it puts 130% of the source heat out into the environment.

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

#67

Post by eloff »

shawkinaw wrote: post #64
NathanKP wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

> 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. Where do you get that idea? A typical EER 12 air conditioner will move 3.5x the heat energy that it consumes (COP = 3.5) [0]. [0] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/cop-eer-d_409.html

I don't see the contradiction. The heat it moves plus the heat generated through inefficiency. It's always > heat moved.

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

#68

Post by t0mbstone »

serjester wrote: post #46
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,…

It takes about 80 watts to heat up a liter of water 1° celsius. Global data centers used about 4.16 x 10^14 watts last year [1]. Let's assume we still have a lot more data centers to build so bump that number up 10,000X. Assuming every watt of energy is actually converted to heat and we moved every data center on earth underwater it'd raise the temperate of the oceans (1.3x 10^21 liters) about 0.01°C. This is a very…

You are making the assumption that moving data centers underwater would also come along with a 10,000-fold increase in the number of data centers? That seems like an unnecessarily hyperbolic approach.

That would mean going from 8.4 million data centers to 840 billion data centers. I mean, come on...

But hey, let's roll with it. What would be the effect on the environment if we literally had 10,000 times more data centers ABOVE ground, for comparison? After all, you are neglecting to take into account the fact that a HUGE amount of the wattage used by existing data centers has been cooling via HVAC, and by switching to underwater cooling their overall watt usage would theoretically drop a good bit due to the efficiency gains.

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

#69

Post by jerf »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #58
serjester wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes about 80 watts to heat up a liter of water 1° celsius. Global data centers used about 4.16 x 10^14 watts last year [1]. Let's assume we still have a lot more data centers to build so bump that number up 10,000X. Assuming every watt of energy is actually converted to heat and we moved every data center on earth underwater it'd raise the temperate of the oceans (1.3x 10^21 liters) about 0.01°C. This is a very…

That assumes heat is distributed instantaneously, which it is not. There will definitely be local affects. The question is if those will harm or collapse native habitats.

There's quite a lot of ocean that doesn't hardly have a "native habitat". Most ocean doesn't look like a coral reef, most ocean looks like water sitting on top of dirt.

Unfortunately, the living parts of oceans are also the parts that tend to be easy to get to, and putting stuff farther away will be more expensive. But careful placement may be able to mitigate that.

It is still ultimately a 3D environment where the vast, vast bulk of the 3D environment is not thriving with heat-sensitive life. Our 2D surface intuition misleads us here. Our mental images of the ocean are of the exceptional locations, not the common ones.

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

#70

Post by zymhan »

Kydlaw wrote: post #51
angry_octet wrote: post #43

Another example of the journalistic malpractice of not linking to the original articles or data. https://natick.research.microsoft.com/ https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/project-natick... One of the facts left unmentioned is that this was built and operated by Naval, the French state-owned submarine and shipbuilding corporation.

I don't get your point? Why is it that relevant to you?

Breaking news: Experts on underwater vessel construction asked to construct underwater vessel.
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