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Google Cools Data Center With Bathroom Water
judgecorp writes "Google is cooling its data center in Douglas County, Georgia, using 'recycled' water that has been through the bathtubs and toilets of the surrounding community. So called 'grey' water is perfectly adequate for the data center's cooling system which relies on evaporation (the wet T-shirt effect), says Google."
What do they do with the shit and other solid matter like hair plus the corrosive chemicals in urine and other chemicals people flush down the drain?
does not have the electrolytes data centers crave.
I...I am not even sure what say to that...
Palm trees and 8
...be ~higher~ if I was there, expecially after the two-bottle-of-vodka bender that would precede my visit...
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
(rimshot)
Apparently evaporation is the tendency for young women on spring break to get drunk and engage in civil disobedience of public indecency laws. Somehow, this is related to cooling.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
"I love the smell of vaporized toilet water in the morning". I just hope they find a way to clean the tubes as well.
Herb: Damn Jim, the server room evaporator is leaking again Jim: I just called roto rooter, they should be here in an hour Herb: I guess we can just mop this piss up
That's a pretty crappy way of cooling a datacenter.
(I'm sorry. I had to.)
"Graywater" is water that does not contain human waste, but has been used for other purposes and isn't fit for drinking.
"Blackwater" is sewage water containing human waste (and easily confused with the mercenary business formerly owned by Erik Prince).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Engineers have been considering approaches like this for ages. It's good to see it being put into practice.
As best I can tell, one of the biggest hurdles is local waste-handling laws. When we had a local drought a few years ago, we were saving wash water to put on our outdoor plants -- but that was a violation of local policy, because cooties from your dirty clothes might get into The Environment, contaminating all the bird and squirrel and cat and dog waste that's already there.
I'm sure Google's treatment policies have satisfied the local authorities, and if they're proceeding with the project, I'm sure they've found a way that's cost-effective.
I am afraid that my opinion of the IQ of the average /. reader just dropped an infinitesimal amount.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The pipes that carry water to the systems would likely not exist.
Rather, like most cooling systems, the water is likely used to cool a heat exchanger, which in turn cools air that's blown into the server rooms. If a pipe gets clogged (which is unlikely, since the pipes have little reason to be as small as household ones), that heat exchanger just won't be as cold for a while.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Kirk: The cooling system to the warp drive is down again Scotty. How soon can you fix it?
Scotty: Ach Jim, I'm a warp drive engineer, not a plumber....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I'm no potty expert, but I thought that water that is output from a toilet is called black water, water collected from the bathtub, and kitchen are called grey water, and what they are actually using is called treated water.
Am I just behind the times on the terminology or is the article's writer just being sloppy?
Pooping in the sink,
pooping in the sink,
I'm clogging up their coolers
'cause I'm pooping in the sink!
Shower, bathroom sink, maybe clothes washer - not toilet.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
They need to stop the free soda and lemonade bar.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Google has just won first place in a wet t-shirt contest" was all I read. I don't think that was even written anywhere.
What comes from toilets is 'black water', but 'grey water'. Grey comes from showers, washing machines, etc. It's specifically that which has been used, but has a low risk of pathogens in it.
From the article, it sounds like they're using a blend of the two ... but they never linked to the March 15th Jim Brown blog post. From reading his blog, he states, "We worked with the WSA to build a side-stream plant about five miles west of our data center that diverts up to 30 percent of the water that would have gone back into the river", while the article linked to states "about 30 percent of the water is diverted from the WSA system".
The article makes it sound like they're getting the water *before* it would have been cleaned by the water treatment plant ... from the blog post, I'd say it's after it's been treated, and getting it before it would have been sent back to the river. So it's treated wastewater, which would've already gone through some sort of system to remove pathogens.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I think that's error 002.
Usually "gray" water is water from showers, sinks, etc. -- everything but toilets. Water from toilets, including human wastes, is called "black" water. Some systems keep these separate, although most municipal systems (including, it appears, Douglas County, Georgia) mix them together. So this water starts out as "black", but according to TFA, it's partially cleaned up before being sent to the data center. Apparently it's treated enough to be called "gray", but still isn't potable. Then Google finishes the water treatment and releases the result into the river which is where it would have gone after the county treatment center anyway.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
OT but possibly of interest: the daughter of a friend of ours studied environmental biology at university. Her mother wondered what use it could possibly be. As a researcher into water treatment, she is now into her second paid postgraduate placement with the prospect of a very well paid international job at the end of it. Oil may be sexier, but water is actually the more important resource.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Given the high humidity of the South East I would think they could be better served with high efficiency air conditioners and some sort of solar to help offset the costs.
Garbage in, Garbage out?
From TFA:
"With the evaporative cooling method employed in the data centre, cold water is brought into the facility, where it’s used to cool the hot air from the servers. Some of it evaporates into the air via cooling towers, while the rest remains as a liquid."
There, I've spoiled the fun. Sue me.
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
I cool my servers with the frost piss
Let me guess.
The servers are all going to overheat on Seis de Mayo. All the spicy food the day before will be warming up the cooling water.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
until the shit hits the fan...
They're not using greywater. Greywater is untreated non-human-waste water, like from sinks and showers. Google is using the water which has already been treated by the waste water treatment plant and would otherwise be delivered back to a river. It's not pure enough to drink, but it isn't bathwater. It's purity is somewhere in between tap water and river water, with almost zero "floaties".
But yay poop jokes. Who knew /. had so many 4th graders?
It's almost a reality?
http://www.google.com/onceuponatime/tisp/install.html
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
My g/f's from Japan and when we went to visit recently I noticed a lot of homes had toilets with a sink built into the top of the toilet tank. When you flushed, the water to fill the tank came out a faucet and you could wash your hands with it. Not only recycles but saves room in a 1/2 bath... a simple little thing we should see more of here in the states. As an example...
Flush the queue!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wow, a reporter doesn't understand a concept as well as a SME, shocking.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Sounds like a pretty crappy design to me.
Just another ignorant American.
There are small systems that can produce recyclable water even for single family homes. The National Sanitation Foundation now has NSF Standard 350 so manufacturers can test to a protocol and become certified. The water can be used (depending on state code) to fill toilets, urinals, water the lawn, wash your car, lots of non potable uses. Right now there is only one device certified, the Bio-Microbics Bio-Barrier http://www.biomicrobics.com/?p=59 However several other manufacturers are now testing. Recycled water is no longer limited to large facilities.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Um, why? Why would you want to intentionally contaminate a water source? Besides being all kinds of illegal (federal crime under the clean water act for starters, if not seen as terrorism for messing with a water treatment plant), it's also highly unethical. Google is trying to be a good environmental citizen by making use of grey water instead of requiring fully treated water which requires significantly more energy and chemical usage, what possible reason could you have for trying to dissuade this behavior?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
someone has to do the dirty work on saving the planet.
does not have the electrolytes data centers crave.
Unless they are running puppy linux. My dogs love the big white drinking fountain.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
...but a giant floating corncob.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Well, the three water treatment specialists I know include two PhDs and a mere MSc, who between them have done research into everything from rural water purification in Africa to the adhesion of bacterial colonies on permanent water hardness deposition in domestic pipes. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I have to admit I had to read the TFA in order to understand how the hell this system works.
So they use open circuit cooling towers with cleanish water coming from a sewage treatment plant.
Those wet cooling towers are known for being prone to Legionellosis, even when clean water is used.
This problem probably becomes worse with dirty water.
I wouldn't like to be the technician cleaning and repairing those towers.
Anyway, thanks for the epithets.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
stephen
Facts don't matter. It's the feeling that matters.
I think you are perfect for a career opportunity with the TSA!!!
It would make more sense to move server farms to the arctic where the heat could be used to keep greenhouses warm.
Epitaph: At last! Root access!
Where I am from water from the toilet is black water. Grey water is water from shower/sink.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Instead of even more tediously refuting a long post point by point, let me just ask this: what does a thousand cubic kilometers of salt water in the middle of the Pacific have to do with a California desert neighborhood full of people who want to water their lawns, golf on natural greens, and wash their cars weekly?
an interesting claim from someone who advocates using the ammo box "starting now" to defend liberty. maybe he already ranted about; voted against; and sued google, and is just taking the next step in protesting google's data retention policies?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky