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Using the Sea To Cool Your Data Center
1sockchuck writes "We haven't yet seen signs of the Google Navy of seagoing data centers that use the ocean for power and cooling. But data center developers are planning to use sea water air conditioning in a new project on the island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Cold water from deep-sea currents would be piped ashore to be used in a heat exchanger for the data center facility. A similar system has been used to replace the chillers at Cornell University, which draws cold water from Lake Cayuga. The Cornell system cost $50 million, but has slashed cooling-related energy usage by 86 percent."
But what are maintenance costs and lifespan of such a piece of equipment,
I can't image Saltwater not eating the hell out of all the piping.
So Cornell transfers heat from its datacenters into Lake Cayuga. This is understandably good for the datacenters, but what's the impact on Lake Cayuga?
The Mauritius system sounds interesting, though, because the heat gain in the water seems less likely to have an impact on ocean temperatures, even on a very localized scale. For minimal environmental impact, use large, deep bodies of water with good currents. Take note, Cornell!
That really depends on what treaties the ....zzzz put myself to sleep even trying to explain it.sorry
Generally speaking, humans are not believed to have the capacity to directly affect the global climate on any significant scale. We can only affect it indirectly by altering the amount of heat received from the Sun and the amount emitted back into space. While the heat emitted by these projects may have localized effects, it's highly unlikely to produce any global climate effects. I suppose there is a tiny chance of disrupting ocean currents, but that's indirect, and only redistributes heat, it doesn't affect the global average. Global warming also redistributes heat, but the global average also climbs, it's not zero sum (within the Earth's atmosphere; everything is zero sum eventually).
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Although this solution is certainly "low power" by no means should it be considered to be entirely green. I work as an engineer on many projects that involve sea water, and when you're using it for a cooling source you typically need to inject some sort of chemical to sterilize the water to keep growths off your heat exchangers (barnacles are sort of a pain in the ass in your exchangers). As a result, using sea water for large scale cooling operations is prohibited in large regions of the United States (specifically the gulf coast) mostly over concerns that the large amounts of warm bleached water will damage the ecosystem. Although, that issue aside, using the ocean as a cooling medium is a great idea, and has been used reliably by power plants for many years.
So maybe it would be more environmentally sound to run a closed loop out to the current to cool the water and bring it back? Salt water is nasty, evil shit.
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Raising the temperature of a body of water by even a few degrees can have disastrous consequences; from outright killing species, to producing algal blooms that deplete oxygen levels (and then kill species). I mean, think about it. Water resists temperature change much more than air, so a sudden increase is bad news to creatures that just aren't made to deal with it. Also, a recent study has found that increased carbon dioxide levels are making marine life more susceptible to fluctuating temperature and oxygen levels.
But, of course, just one place in the ocean using this method isn't going to have that much effect. It's if and when this cooling strategy starts to catch on that we have to worry about affecting our environment, and weigh the consequences of air conditioning (fossil fuel emissions) versus heat pollution.
Not really. There is no real escape from national laws with respect to the internet. The reason is simple - everyone is connected! Google has a physical presence in the US, so the company can be penalized in the US for actions of the company abroad.
Hypothetically, say you have a ship in the middle of the ocean. You, nor your company have no physical presence anywhere other than the ship. You still need peering from someone on the internet. Whether that be joe blow or AT&T, you need peering. So you decide to host the pirate bay on your ship. RIAA sues your peering provider to terminate your internet access. Your peering provider is in the US. Your peering provider loses the copyright battle(assuming, in this fairy tale land they actually fought it) and shuts off your internet access. Ok, that's fine and good, you can just move the ship and find another peering provider. Repeat ad nauseum. Eventaully, you run out of people willing to peer with you.
You need to get peering from someone with sufficient political clout that THEIR peering provider isn't willing to cut them off, AND is willing to stand up to international pressure to terminate your access. I think there's a reason a lot of nefarious activity on the internet comes from Russia. Nobody has the clout to take russia offline and russia doesn't mind having all the crooks using their tubes.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
The heat certainly doesn't disappear, but you're just pumping heat into cold water with this system. The transfer of heat from a warm to a cold substance is a process which increases entropy, which means it's a spontaneous process (it doesn't take any energy to do it).
Air-conditioning, on the other hand, transfers heat from a cold to a warm substance (the cooled air inside becomes cooler, the warm air outside becomes warmer), which is not a spontaneous process, meaning you're using extra energy. This extra energy is ultimately wasted as extra heat in the warm substance.
Also, the extra energy which A/C uses generally comes from burning fossil fuels at relatively low efficiencies, emitting even more heat into the atmosphere.
All in all, you're putting a LOT less energy (heat) into the earth if you're using a spontaneous process to cool your stuff.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Other than a set up for your gag, I don't see why you call paint a thermal insulator. It does not have to be so. many kinds of coating promote thermal coupling.
One thing that does bother me is dumping waste heat in someone elses backyard for free promotes the inefficient use of energy. that is, I can decrease my cooling costs by using more efficient but more expensive computers which incidentally produce less waste heat, or I could use less expensive inefficient computers and take advantage of public domain cooling, like cayuga lake.
Is Cornell paying a tax to use Cayuga lake as a heat dump? that would help internalize the economic externalities that drive them to consume more electricity because the cooling is free.
likewise for sea water cooling.
This might seem like worry much about a small thing: isn't the cooling resevoir comparatively infinite? the answer is surprising no, not only is it not infinite, it's never going to grow, and we have already saturated it in much or the US and Europe. For example the big limit on Nuclear power plant growth is now availability of cooling. SOme rivers in Tenesee are known to heat up to 80 degrees when the power plants operate a full power in summer.
thus this needs to be publicly regulated now.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You could... and thus defeat the purpose of using it as a coolant.