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Why Waste Servers' Heat?

Posted by timothy on from the because-heat-makes-us-murderous dept.

mikejuk writes "A new paper from Microsoft Research (PDF) suggests a radical but slightly mad scheme for dealing with some of the more basic problems of the data center. Rather than build server farms that produce a lot of waste heat, why not have distributed Data Furnaces, that heat home and offices at the same time as providing cloud computing? This is a serious suggestion and they provide facts and figures to make it all seem viable. So when it gets cold all you have to do is turn up the number crunching ..."

10 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Not new. by forgotten_my_nick · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This isn't a new idea. Some buildings like this already and IIRC IBM also marked this as one of their next 5 in 5.

    1. Re:Not new. by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 3, Funny

      Some of them are cold inspite of the actual temperature ;)

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  2. What a novel idea by suso · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nobody's ever thought of that before. I thought this "paper" was going to have some kind of design for a way to do it or something. Actually, recently I've been thinking about the way some barns are constructed. Where they have have windows at the apex of the roof. I guess that channels the heat up and lets it out right? Is it possible to put turbines up there that are driven by heat?

    1. Re:What a novel idea by suso · · Score: 4, Informative

      Oh really, then why when I search for datacenter in a barn, this comes up first: Microsoft puts data centre in a barn (Jan 2011)

      Yeah, I'm done alright.

  3. Combined heat and power by pfafrich · · Score: 3, Informative

    Combined heat and power (CHP) schemes are a increasingly common using the waste heat from some process to provide district heating. Temperatures from a server farms might be a bit on the low side but it changes the situation when you look at the heat as a resource to be used rather than a waste item.

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  4. Been there, done that... by julf · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/20/helsinki-data-centre-heat-homes

  5. Why limit the conversation? by bradgoodman · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Why limit the conversation to just servers, when this occurs everywhere in common life?

    Why does my refrigerator take heat out of the inside, and dump it into my house - requiring my A/C to then take it and again put it outside?

    Why does my A/C in a house take all the heat and discharge it outside into the atmosphere, which meanwhile a pool heater is running 5 feet away using energy to generate more heat for the pool?

    Why do people call incandescent light bulbs "energy wasters", when then can (in the cooler months) defray the work needed to be done by a household heating unit?

    Why does the Pizza place down the street run their heater in the winter yet has these giant metal exhaust ducts running from their pizza ovens, venting heat to the outside world? (Why no fins/blowers on these ducts to disperse heat into the pizza-joint?)

    The point is - people think of heating and cooling on a "unit" basis - and not on a systemic basis of an overall building - or even area. HVAC systems in buildings get this - sort of - they are not single machines - but a system of different, interconnected machines which are each interconnected, performing different tasks - sort of like organs in a human body. This approach needs to be thought of everywhere where cooling is required, and/or heat is generated.

    1. Re:Why limit the conversation? by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Still, it has always stricken me as peculiar that in the wintertime people spend energy to heat the kitchen up to 20-25 C, and inside it there is a little fridge working as hard as it can to bring the temperature back to exactly the same value as outside.
      Not to mention that this refrigerator is typically located just next to the electric cooker...

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    2. Re:Why limit the conversation? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Still, it has always stricken me as peculiar that in the wintertime people spend energy to heat the kitchen up to 20-25 C, and inside it there is a little fridge working as hard as it can to bring the temperature back to exactly the same value as outside. Not to mention that this refrigerator is typically located just next to the electric cooker...

      Convenience and cheap energy. For residential buildings, the money saved generally doesn't amount to enough to support the infrastructure required to transfer and control heat. However, in larger buildings, this sort of thing is rather normal. In theory, you could make smaller units for the house that would take hot air from the refrigerator and dump it into the living room in the winter or preheat the water for the hot water heater, but the ducting involved would either be rather ugly or have to be built in to the house. Wait until heating / cooling gets really expensive, then the savings might justify the hassle.

      The other big problem is that we're not talking about a lot of heat. Put your hands on the back of a modern refrigerator - it's warm, not hot. To move energy with low heat values gets harder (read bigger ducts / fans) and less worthwhile. Put your hands on the exhaust of a city sized natural gas fired thermal power plant and you've got some significant BTUs pumping out - it then becomes worth your while to do something with it.

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  6. Re:Energy wasting technology by hackertourist · · Score: 3, Informative

    The 'aside' you mention is actually the main point. Even the most efficient power plants top out at 60% efficiency. Assuming your house is heated with gas, not electricity, this means that the light bulb is slightly over half as efficient as your gas furnace.
    For a recent (less than 15 yo) gas furnace over here (.nl) efficiency is in the 95%+ range, thanks to government incentives towards more efficient systems. Dunno about the US situation.

    Also, heat and light needs don't overlap: you'll be running those same lights in the summer, when your AC will be running overtime to pump out the excess heat from the damn bulbs.

    Finally, the effect of light bulbs on heating is negligible. My central heating is rated at 25 kW, and I have 13 light fixtures. If I installed 100W incandescent lights everywhere I would generate ~1300W in heat, or 5% of the peak capacity I need.