Is Google Building a Floating Data Center In San Francisco Bay?

snydeq writes "CNET's Daniel Terdiman investigates an oversize secret project Google is constructing on San Francisco's Treasure Island, which according to one expert may be a sea-faring data center. 'Something big and mysterious is rising from a floating barge at the end of Treasure Island, a former Navy base in the middle of San Francisco Bay. And Google's fingerprints are all over it,' Terdiman writes. 'Whether the structure is in fact a floating data center is hard to say for sure, of course, since Google's not talking. But Google, understandably, has a history of putting data centers in places with cheap cooling, as well as undertaking odd and unexpected projects like trying to bring Internet access to developing nations via balloons and blimps.'"

Comments

"Secret"

[girlintraining]

Something big and mysterious is rising from a floating barge at the end of Treasure Island, a former Navy base in the middle of San Francisco Bay. And Google's fingerprints are all over it,'

It's hardly a secret guys. They were granted a patent on sea-based data centers... in 2009. They want to build a sea-water based data center, and given the mild seasons of California and abundance of internet peering points, this is the logical place to start.

The thing is, sea water isn't exactly computer-friendly... so they probably aren't going to get it on the first go. But the water a hundred feet down in the ocean is actually pretty cool. This makes sense... it all comes down to materials selection. Salt water is highly corrosive and they'll need something that can handle hoovering up large jelly fish and such without dying.

All in all, an interesting, and definately not very secret, project.

Re:"Secret"

[smittyoneeach]

For example, the Navy uses 2190 mineral oil to cool the 23699 synthetic oil in the LM2500 gas turbines that move most of the fleet. The 2190 is also used to lube the main reduction gear that steps down the RPM of that LM2500 by a ratio of ratio of 21.3746 to 1 (ISTR it was 27:1 on the old Ticonderoga-class, but this is a different drive train).
The 2190 mineral oil system has a heat exchanger, trading all that lovely hotness with seawater.
The rationale for using 2190 to cool the high-performance 23699 is that, in case of a heat exchanger failure, a bit of mineral oil in the synthetic (for which the engineers test repeatedly throughout the day) is a lot less damaging than getting seawater in there.

There'a another in Portland, Maine

[WaxlyMolding]

There is another barge in the harbor in Portland, Maine http://www.pressherald.com/news/Myserty_Portland_barge_and_San_Francisco_barge_appear_linked_.html

There's 4 of them

[wimh]

According to the US ship registration database (go to http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/CoastGuard/VesselByName.html and search for BAL0), there are four similar barges, with the convenient names:
BAL0001
BAL0010
BAL0011
BAL0100

Looks like there's a pattern there, and it does scream Google...