Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

Post by loeg » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

49bc wrote: post #381

loeg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Fail in place over the service lifetime. When enough stuff is failed that it isn't worth keeping down there, you pull it up and refill it.

Based on the picture, "pulling it up" looks like a fairly intensive task, requiring boats, persons, etc. That kind of thing eats directly into the ROI for a datacenter. I doubt it competes with a static building with a bunch of solar panels on top.

Post by grkvlt » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 8:31 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #142

sushid wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you're making it sound as if the data centers being cooled somehow wouldn't happen otherwise. Seeing as how the alternative is to cool using A/C, surely it's the case of causing less harm than the alternative? Of course you could argue that the lower cost of this cooling method will create a larger demand for cheaper servers/data storage, which increases net harm, for which I have no answer.

The overall heat increase is the same, but the localized effects mights not be: fewer beings live in the atmosphere, and air displaces that heat faster than water, reducing the local concentration.

Post by madrox » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #358

madrox wrote: post #335

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Exactly, discussing this requires the assumption that bitcoin has little value, instead of directly discussing its value. It may not be hypocrisy, but it's certainly fallacious. It only reinforces existing beliefs in the merit/demerit of bitcoin.

I cannot understand why people (certainly not just you) are so relentlessly obtuse about the destructive effect of Bitcoin mining and how it differs from other currencies. Say I trade a barrel of oil for $65. That barrel of oil is going to get burnt, (because otherwise it wouldn't have value to the recipient) but the process of burning it can produce something useful, like transportation. If I burn a barrel of oil to…

Post by criley2 » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:08 AM UTC

d0lph wrote: post #334

criley2 wrote: post #249

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"Right, diamonds just cost human lives." If we're going to play that game, where did the electricity come from for your watt-hour-sucking GPU? A coal plant? How many died mining it? How many got life long illness or injury/disability mining it? How much poverty did the abusive mining industry inflict on poor dependent communities? How many hundreds of thousands of people were affected by it's emissions? How many thou…

I like nuclear, it's the obvious choice, and incredibly safe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_the_United_S... "Uranium mining in the United States produced 3,303,977 pounds (1,498,659 kg) of U3O8 (1271 tonnes of uranium) in 2015" The US. I wasn't aware there were a significant number of uranium mining deaths? I also assume the US can process it and safely dispose of the waste. No despotic countries of…

Post by edhu2017 » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 6:16 AM UTC

usepgp wrote: post #318

edhu2017 wrote: post #309

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Here's the problem for me. These mining operations can be exploited to an extreme. Any scientist or professor with knowledge in protein representations will have an unfair advantage over normal miners. This gap will be even larger than the hashpower gaps we see between ASICs and "normal" miners in bitcoin, litecoin, etc because scientists will have access to not only hardware but also extremely specific domain knowle…

Isn't that good though? The scientists who make new discoveries get paid to do so, rather than just some random person with a gpu in their closet?