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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

#111

Post by s_dev »

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?

It rewards originality over the long term rather than the fastest copy and paster.

Sort of like how we try link to the original YouTube video.

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

#112

Post by bhhaskin »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #106
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…

You could have a solar powered HVAC system that captures the condensed water, and then submerge the thing you’re trying to cool in that water! P.S. am not HVAC wizard.

The issue is the HVAC system itself creates a lot of heat. It normally doesn't matter in a traditional system as the heat is generated out side the areas being cooled.

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

tbabb wrote: post #33
reaperducer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reads like you have not done any calculation to determine whether the entire ocean can be heated by any plausible number of datacenters or not.

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by gpm »

mlyle wrote: post #66
shawkinaw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, it's way worse than that.

At the location of the hvac it puts 130% of the source heat into the environment.

But 30% of that heat put into the environment came from electricity generated in a power plant. Power plants are typically less than 50% efficient, so it put's out as much heat into the environment at the source of the electricity. Bumping the value to 160% (130% + 30%).

However waste heat is a small fraction of the heating that electricity generation produces. Very roughly 10 times as much heat is trapped via the CO2 released than heat is released by the power plant. Bumping that value up to 460% (160% + 30% * 10).

I.e. 4.6 units of heat are put into the environment for every unit of heat removed from a closed system.

(Obviously the details of this depend dramatically on the environment. Heat pump efficiency depends on the degree of temperature gradient, CO2 release and power plant efficiency depends dramatically on where the power is coming from, which changes with where you are located.)

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

#117

Post by skosch »

freehunter wrote: post #100
smaddox wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that this phrase predates the Torricelli experiment, in which he used a glass vial and mercury to produce a vacuum, and the eventual discovery that the vast majority of nature is a vacuum (outside of the atmosphere of planets and stars).

And if it wasn‘t for gravity, everything inside the atmosphere of planets and stars would be rushing to fill that vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, but that‘s only tempered by the fact that there are more powerful forces than vacuums.

That's not quite right. Even if there were no gravity or other forces, there would be no incentive for matter to go in one direction vs another, regardless of the distribution of matter around it. Over time you'd get a uniform-ish distribution, but that's a question of statistical mechanics, not one of pressure differences.

On earth, matter only rushes to fill vacuums because the surrounding air or water pressure pushes it in.

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

#118

Post by ses1984 »

badRNG wrote: post #98
xwdv wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get diminishing returns holding it down there for 5 years for no reason. If not much has happened after 2 years we're good to go. We need to get into the future as fast as possible.

The difference between 2 years and 5 is quite significant for server runtime above water. This argument of diminishing returns would hold better for placing it 1 year rather than 2, 9 months rather than 12, etc. If the concern is that you'd see significant failure after 5 (which is likely) which could undercut your future plans, I could understand cutting the plan short.

It seems reasonable to apply Bayes theorem. If the failure rate underwater after 2 years is less than normal..

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

#119

Post by JeremyNT »

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

Really, you have to isolate the variable you care about here, which is 'how much energy is spent on cooling.'

Consider, if you can achieve a fully passive cooling solution by dropping a datacenter into a lake, you've reduced the energy consumption in service of cooling by 100%.

(In reality, water cooling isn't "free," but I'm willing to bet the amount of energy required to dump heat into surrounding water is a whole lot less than the amount of energy spent for the compression cycles and forced air of above-ground HVAC systems. Water cooling using direct application of chilled water is already a thing, using lakes or retention ponds as places to dump heat; what being at the bottom of a lake gives you is a more consistent and proximate source of cool water than you might expect from a current chilled water distribution system)

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

#120

Post by smaddox »

freehunter wrote: post #100
smaddox wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that this phrase predates the Torricelli experiment, in which he used a glass vial and mercury to produce a vacuum, and the eventual discovery that the vast majority of nature is a vacuum (outside of the atmosphere of planets and stars).

And if it wasn‘t for gravity, everything inside the atmosphere of planets and stars would be rushing to fill that vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, but that‘s only tempered by the fact that there are more powerful forces than vacuums.

Don't forget, even within individual atoms, the overwhelming majority of the space is a vacuum.
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