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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.
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.
Toronto already uses cold water cooling for air-conditioning many of its office towers in the downtown core and has for many years. (see: http://www.enwave.com/dlwc.php). Unless winter never visits Canada again, this is cold body is self-replenishing.
The Cornell project was actually incredibly controversial prior to beginning operation for exactly that reason. Studies since have shown that any detrimental effects are negligible, though, so the controversy has died down in recent years. (I was at Cornell when the system went into operation and for a few years afterward)
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
Most of downtown Toronto is cooled by lakewater - enwave energy provides district cooling for most of the major buildings in the downtown core. This includes 151 Front St., one of the major datacentres in the area. See here
Not a subjective judgment in either direction, but for what it's worth, this paper abstract quantifies the heat imparted to Lake Cayuga as "equivalent to an additional two hours of sunlight each year".
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Can't you just heat it up to sterilize it?
The total mass of the oceans is about 1.4*10^21 kg. The total mass of the atmosphere is about 5*10^18 kg. That means the oceans weigh about 300 times as much as the atmosphere.
The heat capacity of water is about 4000 J * kg ^ -1 * K ^ -1. The heat capacity of air is about 1 kJ * kg ^ -1 * K ^ -1, or about 1000 J * kg ^ -1 * K ^ -1.
So since there's 300 times as much water as there is air, and the heat capacity of water is 4 times larger, heating up the atmosphere by 1200 degree Celsius would take the same amount of energy as heating up the oceans by 1 degree Celsius. This may not prove or disprove your point, I just started thinking about numbers when you said "raising the temperature of a body of water by a few degrees".
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.