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Open Compute Wants To Make Biodegradable Servers
1sockchuck writes "The Open Compute Project has challenged students at Purdue University to develop a biodegradable server chassis. Although the steel used in most server chassis can be recycled, the OCP says it wants to "explore designs that retain the needed resiliency but push the boundaries of sustainability," even allowing a chassis to be composted. The project aligns with Facebook's goal of separating the technology refresh cycle for CPUs and other components from the surrounding chassis and racks. The Purdue students will tackle this issue next semester, but Slashdot readers can brainstorm the issue now. Is a biodegradable server chassis viable? If so, can it be affordable?"
But the steel in the chassis is probably the most environmentally friendly part of a server.
And then you can make a nice little fire when the server gets too old.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
These are servers. Making a quick-swap motherboard standard for them sounds like a win, but no reasonably priced competitive substance offers the strength and RF shielding of a steel box.
And why would we care about biodegradable when we have steel? It is reusable until obsolete and then recyclable into other useful steel objects.
If the goal is to make the chassis and CPU lifetime different, make the chassis strong and easy to upgrade. Which means the chassis has the potential to have the longest lifetime, so why make it degradeable?
Test your net with Netalyzr
I'd suggest a rigid cardboard (think egg-cartons)... or even some kind of wood... but the steel in the present chassis isnt there for just structure, it provides a degree of electromagnetic shielding. Having a Faraday cage around your compute systems is beneficial.
The stench of PR gibberish is overwhelming.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Who among us has not run a 'puter with the chassis taken apart for months at a time? Get some good airflow, and don't spill your coffee on the components.
I'm thinking there is some UL or ISO or Euro standard that makes it difficult to make server chassis out of flammable materials, and stack dozens of them in a rack, while running 240VAC through them and with lots of cooling air to fan the flames.
Don't.
Really. There are SO MANY BETTER TOPICS to explore instead of wasting time with this... mess.
Pretty please.
I don't want insects and fungi eating away at a computer chassis while the computer inside is still operating. Recyclable materials sound like a better idea than something that prematurely falls apart and rots away.
soy-plastic or maybe mdf?
As everyone else already explained...
The chassis not only provides structural support, it serves as EM shielding.
Steel is 100% recyclable, unlike most other computer components.
If you want to avoid even that... standardize boards and other components and reuse the chassis.
mold it from HMW PLGA, I'm going to guess a good mole ratio for this project will be 80:20. It will be pretty stable as long as you keep it dry, then throw it away after a couple of years. It will biodegrade into glycolic and lactic acid.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Don't they call a biodegradable server chassis a brain?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Lets start writing code in more efficient languages so they can use fewer servers. Does anyone have a data on the relative performance of code written in different languages? Which ones have the lowest carbon footprint for various tasks?
Seems more practical to design chassis that can be re-used, and manufactured out of a 100% recyclable material.
Part of the reason why systems use metal is because the metal can pull static away from sensitive components. Using a biodegradable option (like plant polymers) wouldn't allow the static to go anywhere, and cause the static to arc once built up enough. The static build-up from just dust blowing around your chassis would be disastrous to sensitive components.
There are much bigger fish to fry when looking at computer design than the metal chassis. One such would be to come up with a lead-less solder. That would have much more environmental impact.
Composting? If it's biodegradeable plastic, or wood they're thinking of, it sounds a little iffy from an EMI/EMC perspective. (electromagnetic compatibility, not EMC Corp. :)
There are metallized paints or metal vapor deposition techniques that might be used to mitigate these problems if the students insist on using plastic or wood or some such nonsense.
From Purdue: What would happen if these chassis could be placed in compost instead?
I reject the question for reasons of silliness.
How about designing a reliable chassis that lasts a decade or two so it doesn't need to be trashed/recycled/composted(ha) after a few years?
The PC case really has not changed significantly since the 1980s, since everyone figured out that separate keyboards are better than integrated ones. Most of the differences are fairly trivial, but often just enough to make it more convenient to buy a new case. One thing I find surprising is that the size of the average desktop computer case hasn't changed much. I would have thought they'd all have shrunk to the size of a shoe box or smaller by now. Seems the driving force keeping the size constant is the need for heat dissipation.
We could do better. Still, we've done fairly well. The CD and DVD drives are the same size as the old 5.25" floppy drive. Hard drives also standardized on that size for a while, then moved to another standardized size, 3.5". We still see the AT style power supply space and mounting points. The physical expansion slot of the XT and the Apple ][ is still with us even though the underlying bus has changed dramatically. The old RS-232 serial port is still around in places, and where it has been replaced, it's with another standard, USB.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Biodegradation is wasteful. The only reason to do it is you can't keep the item out of the environment after it's (usualy short) useful life and you want to reduce the harm when this happens.
But a server chassi isn't anything like that.
1) It can be reused for quite a long time, saving a lot of energy and waste that would be required to make new short-live biodegradeable units
2) When it can no longer be re-used, it can be recycle quite easily.
3) Even if it does (stupidly) end up in the environment, it's made out if iron and iron is not harmful to life. Eventually it will rust but iron-oxide isn't harmful to life either.
Stupid idea. Aluminum is easily and profitably recycled. On the other side, there's more biodegradable sludge available than anyone can use.
I can see the benefit in doing this for desktops: most cases are non-standard, which means throwing it out when upgrade time comes around. I've toyed with the idea of making a standard ATX case out of paper pulp.
But servers? Ideally, they would be mostly caseless: think blades, or using the rack as the case; just slap a face on the front (to maintain proper airflow), and you're done.
Now, if we could make circuit boards more recyclable, that would be terrific. Though FR4 is already fiberglass; I suppose it could be dissolved in hydrofluoric acid and the metals recovered, though I have no idea how environmentally (un)friendly that is.
It used a magnesium case. When you were done with it you just burn it.
The chassis is the most sustainable and longest lived part of the system. I have cases that have seen multiple systems put into them. They last a long time then are easily scrapped for recycling. The problem isn't the chassis, but the pc-boards that make up the internal components. Make those easier to recycle for raw materials and you'll go a long way to making computers more environmentally friendly.
Maybe some composite that when applied some catalyzer turns into degradable. So after service time is reached, just dump them into a catalyzer bath and let it rot away.
... brains. Someday we'll just bio-engineer servers using wetware with light amplification to enhance the signal for distribution over the fiber-optics network that will be used get the signal out for broadcast over the ansible network.
In the mean time it would be nice to be able to build computers w/o toxic materials that don't leach out of the landfills they end up in, but biodegradatinon isn't really the answer. What we need is manufacturing systems engineering that builds things to be reclaimed so that there's a zero-loss materials loss between reclamation and re-use.
Cow dung? Yeah... you can shape it into all kinds of shapes ... add new enclosures. Perfect substance.
They bio-degrade, but the DELLs will still break down first
They put the chassis in water?
http://recomputepc.com/
But the steel in the chassis is probably the most environmentally friendly part of a server.
Durable too. Why not just reuse the chassis? Replace power supplies, boards, drives, etc as needed.
On the PC side I purchased some nice(*) Antec cases 10+ years ago and they are still in use. For some the motherboards and hard drives have been upgraded three times. I think one power supply had to be replaced.
(*) In the sturdy and easy to work on sense, not the transparent doors and blue LEDs sense.
Cutting down trees is not green at all.
Trees are renewable, cut one down plant a replacement.
Wood products sequester carbon.
Biodegradeable? No problem. Make a system box out of plywood.
But, of course, the big companies won't do that. They'll use a plastic which degrades in sunlight, or a cellulose degrading plastic like supermarket bags. Then, after a 5-year life, your keyboard will go into disintegration mode. And you'll have to buy another. Making planned obsolescence into a politically correct procedure.
Long live the consumer-supported capitalist system...
HEMP COMPOSITE MATERIALS
Now you cannot be sure if someone is stealing from your bank account, or it's just the server rotting away.
For the desktop, it's been done already HERE.
"Lighter but less durable than steel"
and
"More durable than steel"
are not necessarily inconsistent statements, depending on how you're measuring - dimensionally a 1" bamboo rod will be considerably lighter than a steel tube with the same cross-section, but will likely be less durable. On the other hand a 1lb bamboo rod may be considerably more durable than a 1lb steel rod since the bamboo will be much thicker to reach the same weight, not to mention its extensive organic structural reinforcements.
Note that I have no idea what the reality is, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that both claims are 100% valid. As for composites - well I can't say I'd be at all surprised if an organic structure micro-engineered at the cellular level were both stronger and more durable than the crude human-made composites, there's a reason bio-mimicry is an increasingly popular engineering strategy.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
No one's claiming iron oxide isn't biologically valuable, but when you see a rusty piece of equipment or old iron can sitting in a field the odds are that it didn't rust *because of* biological activity, hence it is *not* bio-degradation (i.e biologically-driven degradation).
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Guess the term finally comes to its real meaning.
Just because something's biodegradable doesn't mean it's sustainable. Biodegradable materials usually require plant-derived cellulose, which is inevitably grown on land that could be used for agriculture instead. Given the population boom and the effects of climate change on crop yields, growing anything but food on arable land isn't sustainable. Just make a chassis you can recycle more easily, and then make sure it's actually recycled