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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

#271

Post by CydeWeys »

sktrdie wrote: post #267

Why not put them in... space? Lots of energy (direct sun) and cold temperatures up there. I guess space debris could be an issue.

Contrary to popular belief, space in the vicinity of Earth's orbit is not cold. Indeed, it's very hot. You get the full unfiltered force of sunlight (hotter than noon on the equator), and you don't have any material available nearby like air or water to convect the heat away. Cooling is actually a huge problem in orbit, way harder than on Earth where you can just use fans.

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

#272

Post by malwrar »

sktrdie wrote: post #267

Why not put them in... space? Lots of energy (direct sun) and cold temperatures up there. I guess space debris could be an issue.

Besides the obstacle of it being difficult to cool objects in space (you need atmosphere to do convection cooling, i.e. heatsinks), you need to somehow actually get everything in space. It costs a lot of money to get heavy things into orbit, whereas it costs nothing to sink those same objects in the water which naturally has better thermal conductivity to boot. As another bonus, you can get at it much easier if you need to perform maintenance by e.g. attaching pods to a crane rig and simply raising it.

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

#273

Post by CydeWeys »

geophertz wrote: post #237

The thing is that if putting data centers underwater solves the cooling problem, all the heat produced is wasted, so it this really a good solution?

It's literally waste heat, what else are you going to use it for? You won't efficiently generate electricity with it or anything like that. About the best you could hope for is warming up inhabited spaces in winter, but that ends up not being cost-effective because you'd rather have the data centers in the middle of nowhere where land is cheap (and you can't really transport the heat to where it's actually needed).

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

#274

Post by tehbeard »

sktrdie wrote: post #267

Why not put them in... space? Lots of energy (direct sun) and cold temperatures up there. I guess space debris could be an issue.

Yeah, temperature is a little more complicated than that in space...

You're only option of removing heat is radiating it away (no atmosphere/fluid to conduct/convect to). You're also roasting on one half of the orbit, freezing on the other side.

If you look at the ISS they have HUGE radiators for what's little more than a small outpost.

Solar's only good for half-ish of the orbit, you'll be reliant on batteries for the darkside (more mass, limited lifespan)

Not to mention the dV costs of orbit.

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

#275

Post by kamel3d »

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,…

Well you could ask same question about lava floating from volcanos to oceans, that much hotter and would have greater impact, or if the sun light would have an ecological impact on the water because it heat it everyday! I don't know what would few degrees increase in temperature around the capsules would do to the environment, keeping in mind that water is changing all the time due to sea current also that temperature is very local I mean it does not extend more than few inches in the water, if you have any knowledge about thermodynamics you would know that the temperature of two bodies should reach an equilibrium and since the ocean is much bigger the effect of the temperature coming from the data centres is negligible, but all this was an experiment and I am sure the ecological factor was taken in account, but still your question was kinda stupid!

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

#276

Post by kamel3d »

uluyol wrote: post #39
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…

I think the question is what is the local impact of the temperature increase? It would be good to know if it harms certain types of ecosystems ahead of time rather than after the fact. It's also possible that a direct increase in ocean temperature has undesirable knock-on effects that don't take place if you operate on land.

Well this was all an experiment itself and I am sure the ecological factor is being taken in consideration

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

#278

Post by nomel »

hangonhn wrote: post #182
mips_avatar wrote: post #3

It seems an additional hurdle is anti-fouling. Those barnacles and algae act as an insulator, making the cold-water cooling advantage less and less of an advantage.

Is that really still an issue? From my understanding, it's sort of a solved problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AdW030xQB4

I can't imagine a field of these (which I assume is the eventual goal), covered in biocides, would be that great for the environment.

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

#279

Post by nomel »

Dahoon wrote: post #256
crazygringo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heat is awfully hard to transfer in the first place, especially when it's not even that hot. It's handy if you can put your data center underneath a swimming pool, for example. But I'm not aware of any large-scale heat recovery projects from data centers. Data centers generally spend extra energy to remove the heat... But honestly who cares if your power comes from renewables in the first place -- solar and wind? It…

There are towns in Denmark getting heat from Google and Facebook datacenters so I don't see why it shouldn't work elsewhere. The way MS does it here the heat is 100% waste and should be taxed like other waste. Not to mention what about the noise? The sea is already noise polluted. Here's a source (in Danish). Wind energy in -> 25 MW/h of heat out (to heat up 12.000 houses): https://www.computerworld.dk/art/252732/fac…

If the power is generated from waves, wouldn't the energy would have gone to waste at the shoreline/breaker anyways?

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

#280

Post by nomel »

adrianmonk wrote: post #189
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.

> journalistic malpractice of not linking That disease is very prevalent, and I don't understand why. My less-cynical guess is that the industry is stuck in the past, and journalists need better training and tools. My more-cynical guess is that they are afraid of irrelevance, so they are defensively trying to keep you in their walled garden of information instead of encouraging you to get into the habit of getting in…

I've always assumed it's the fear of dead links hurting their SEO.
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