Does the NSA Need More Electricity?

An anonymous reader writes "The Baltimore sun (NSA watchers can't live without it) reports that the NSA worries about overloading the Baltimore energy grid if it were to install new computing capacity at it's Fort Meade HQ. This includes two multi million dollar supercomputers. Some systems are reportedly not getting the cooling they need. The temperature in NSA buildings is raised two degrees to conserve energy, according to the article. The NSA is Baltimore Gas and Electric`s (BGE) biggest customer the sun reports. Former NSA employees fear that a power outage at Fort Meade would have worse consequences than the 2000 "information overload" related outage. The NSA does apparently not have the backup power generation capacity to power the whole facility during power outages. Some point a finger at a new mall build in the area, but a BGE spokesman says the mall is "fairly easily accommodated". Some sources say the problem was identified in the late 90`s. But "keeping the lights on" wasn't a priority. A $4 million computer upgrade to the system that allocates power was postponed for budgetary reasons. (the NSA budged is estimated at $8 Billion) The article reports that the budget documents for listening posts around the world report similar infrastructural problems, in the budgets for 07 as well as previous years. It should be noted that the huge "groundbreaker" IT infrastructure upgrade program is reportedly over budget and late, but not yet fully operational."

Comments

No way

[dattaway]

No Such Agency needs that kind of power.

Obvious solution

[SnowZero]

From the outside, we don't really know enough about their problems to suggest a solution. So, clearly the NSA should bring in an unbiased outside consultant, and brief him/her fully on every project that they need to accomodate. As an honest patriot, I am willing to volunteer.

Back it up

[Anonymous Coward]

"You've got an awfully big computer plant and a lot of precision equipment, and I don't think they would handle power surges and the like really well," -- WTF?

I've worked on several jobs for credit card companies, as an example, an office with 4,000 workstations. The power was connected to the electric company's grid in two different places from two different substations; in case one of the substations went out, the whole building could be handled from the one still going. All of the servers and almost all of the workstations were connected to a UPS with 15 minutes of batteries AND an emergency generator with 24-hours of fuel. About half of the non-computer loads, including elevators, emergency lights, sump pumps, 1/3 of the occupants air-conditioning, all of the A/C for the server rooms, etc. were connected to the emergency generators. Even the refrigerators and freezers in the cafeteria were on emergency power. And this was for a call center. But a facility upon which our national security supposedly depends can't handle power surges?

Free cooling

[debrain]

Maybe they should have built their systems near a deep lake, and instead of paying ridiculous prices for AC, they could just pump water from the lake and circulate it. The water at the bottom of lakes is always around 4C, and the cost of pumping it through a radiator type system is relatively very-cheap, reliable, and consistent. It's quite a popular method of cooling near the great-lakes region, I do believe.

Re:Free cooling

[Acid-Duck]

The City of Toronto is already using such a system. Here is the link:

http://www.toronto.ca/environment/initiatives/cool ing.htm

Just to quote a snippet from the page:
"Enwave Energy Corporation, through partial financial backing from the City of Toronto as one of the two shareholders of Enwave, developed the Deep Lake Water Cooling system that uses the cool energy in cold water to air-condition high-rise buildings in downtown Toronto. The system benefits the City by:

        * reducing energy consumption by up to 90 per cent (compared to conventional chillers)
        * reducing carbon dioxide emissions
        * improving the water supply by using new intake pipes that are deeper
        * investing in a corporation in which the City is a shareholder

Enwave's three intake pipes draw water (4 degrees Celsius) from 5 kilometres off the shore of Lake Ontario at a depth of 83 metres below the surface. Naturally cold water makes its way to the City's John Street Pumping Station. There, heat exchangers facilitate the energy transfer between the icy cold lake water and the Enwave closed chilled water supply loop.

The water drawn from the lake continues on its regular route through the John Street Pumping Station for normal distribution into the City water supply. Enwave uses only the coldness from the lake water, not the actual water, to provide the alternative to conventional air-conditioning.


Additional data found on the page (such as savings in energy (precise figures for Metro Hall in toronto) and other stuff. Enjoy.

Erik

Re:Thank the environmentalists

[evilviper]

For example, in California, we've been trying to build new power plants for ages. Too bad coal/natural gas generate CO2, wind power kills birds, solar panels generate more waste being manufactured than they can ever make back in their lifetime, and nuclear energy is OOOOH SO EVIL.

Coal is an absolute no-go, but natural gas is a big green-light. Private companies all around the state have put up their own private natural-gas power plants to get off of the ridiculously expensive grid electricity, and related problems.

The power companies (like Edison), however, are happy making lots of money on the inflated electricity costs, and building new power plants is like cutting open the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Actually, the only power generation facility I've heard of being built in the past 20 years was SoCal Ed's new parabolic-reflector-stirling-engine solar plant,

That says a lot about you, and the sources you read, and very little about the facilities themselves. The location for the Stirling-SCE solar facility (which is scheduled to start construction in 2008) happens to be dammed-near to a brand-new 30 Megawatt (IIRC) natural gas facility.

which I think is the only kind of power all the hippies here can agree on.

Lots of coyotes, jackrabbits, lizards, tortises, hawks, ravens, doves, etc., will be harmed by 6 square miles of open desert land being bulldozed. There are a lot of Joshua Trees (protected species) on 6 square miles, so I have to wonder what their plans are for relocating them.

No, I really don't care, but the point remains, this solar facility will have just as many serious environmental consequences as windmills, and other solar. This time, though, it looks like it will be profitable enough for Edison that they actually want to build it, instead of continuing to scapegoat a tiny minority of "environmentalists".