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

best guess

[Kevin Fishburne]

A giant cage to trap Cthulhu for their Japanese R&D branch. Google Tentacle; the perfect accessory for Google Glass.

Re:best guess

[auric_dude]

Best to sink that rumour right away.

Re:best guess

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Googlelingus

Admit it. They have you licked.

Re:best guess

[smittyoneeach]

"Don't be evil" is just lip service?

Re: best guess

[grcumb]

Googlelingus....

Puts the Zune squirt in a whole new light, doesn't it?

"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"

[jo_ham]

Why use the seawater as your working fluid?

Just make a closed cycle and put a heat exchanger down there. No need for the seawater to be exposed to anything except the exterior radiators.

Re:"Secret"

[MightyYar]

I assume they'd use some kind of a binary system, with fresh water in the cooling loop and pumping salt water through the heat exchangers. I don't think you'd want to rely on natural heat dissipation, as you'd need a very large radiator, and sea life would love to grow all over it.

Re:"Secret"

[umghhh]

This is not the point actually but even if it were - secret is not that the big artificial island is built but what is its purpose. From all the movies I have seen last few decades, this never ends well - the evil starting from the artificial construction destroys civilization leaving small group surviving if at all. That is actually a good solution because it tends to show idyllic surroundings and Tom Cruise (or other Hollywood world savior) with some nice female over a newly born that is a hope for the human kind etc.

Alternatively James Bonds arrives and destroys the damned thing and the human kind continues its pointless existence. Either way this thing is going to sink. Possibly in flames.

Re:"Secret"

[umghhh]

Japanese use seawater for cooling their nuclear reactors so I guess there must be some advantage in doing exactly that.

Re:"Secret"

[John.Banister]

Glycol is better in non phase change cooling loops as it has a higher specific heat. However, using cold sea water to condense refrigerants is very common. One nice way would be with Alpha Laval plate heat exchangers (or the Indian copies), and a hypochlorite generator on the sea water side to control (kill) the marine life internal to the apparatus.

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.

Re:"Secret"

[TheResilientFarter]

Usually the Navy (and others, I'm sure) mitigates contamination with pressure. The system of greater concern will operate at a higher pressure, so when there is a leak it goes in one direction.

Re:"Secret"

[ColdWetDog]

Japanese use seawater for cooling their nuclear reactors so I guess there must be some advantage in doing exactly that.

You can use tsunamis to rapidly cool your core after the earthquake shuts the system down.

Oh. Wait.

Re:"Secret"

[icebike]

Seems like a big investment to build on a barge that can get swamped by the first storm that comes along.

You then have the problem of power, and communications that have to be fed to the barge. If you run your own
generators you have a refueling problem, with risk of spill at every refueling.

Once you get out of the bay, you have a police protection issue. Pretty hard to call the cops. Pretty risky
to start shooting at lookie-lews.

You have transport to and from issues as well. And if you think anyone is going to allow you to avoid taxes this way, well good luck with that.

In the first world, this makes no sense, and even the sea water cooling could be accommodated by cheaply laid pipe to land.
In the third world, this might make sense, because towed to Africa and guarded by some friendly government you
could use it as a base to handle all your balloon wifi or what ever hair brained scheme you might be planning.

Re:"Secret"

[rtb61]

Add warmth in deep cold water and you get sky rocketing growth and your heat exchange fails. Coat your heat exchanger with sufficiently toxic products to prevent growth and you not only limit heat exchange but you also pollute the environment. The commute is now also a huge problem especially in stormy whether, you limit you possible work force to those who will accept being trapped at your whim or the weather's whim. Salt corrosion will occur through out the vessel, water vapour droplets generated through wind turbulence (not evaporation) are very salty (as a result of partial evaporation) and will be a permanent nightmare to block, clean, prevent corrosion.

This has nothing to do with cooling as pumping the water would be car cheaper and everything to do with what is becoming a rather douchy company simply cheating on property taxes. Of course this will blow up in their faces when, it comes to supplying energy to the thing, removing waste especially sewerage, supply fresh water and food, especially during extended inclement weather and one power disruption and profits gone.

Note also I would have to side with coastal inhabitants who complained that they hunk of junk spoiled their view and who demanded a block to the permanent mooring unless it was far enough out to sea not to obstruct or interfere with their view.

San Francisco?

[BlindRobin]

They'll have to sail it around the horn or teleport it because everyone knows they only place to put a floating data centre is at the centre of the Bermuda triangle so that it can take advantage of all the free energy from the astral vortex.

Treasure Island

[Black Parrot]

as well as undertaking odd and unexpected projects like trying to bring Internet access to developing nations via balloons and blimps.

In this case they're trying to bring internet access to pirates.

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

Re:There'a another in Portland, Maine

[EdZ]

Google are outgrowing intercontinental fibre-optic cables. Too expensive, and insufficient bandwidth! Instead, they're implementing an extension of RFC1149, with the avian carriers replaced with bulk cargo shipping. A station wagon full of tapes has nothing on this!

Structure Envy

[SuperKendall]

Apple going to build a fancy Spaceship? Fine, Google will just build a goddam giant undersea fortress!

Re:'google' these days

[smith6174]

By 'Google', you mean that intelligence organization we keep hearing about with unlimited cash provided by ads nobody has ever clicked?

1. Take operations into international waters.

[__aaltlg1547]

2. Deliver all ads from those servers.
3. Evade taxes in every jurisdiction by declaring that all ad revenue is generated in FloatingAdServer1 through FloatingAdServer14.
4. Profit!

Re:Sail Away...

[JustOK]

with black jack and hookers

Re:Wrong

[davester666]

No, they just want to be able to charge the NSA for the data, rather than just turning it over for only a small charge.

gurgle

[GrimShady]

maybe they will change their name to Gurgle

Re:Neal Stephenson

[Jeremi]

How can they get a patent on this? Wasn't pretty much the same thing done in Snow Crash, albeit for a different reason?

Are you suggesting that Google is building a prototype depleted-uranium railgun? If so, this is going to be awesome... Redmond will never know what hit them.

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...

Re:"Secret" of the secret

[hebertrich]

see sacrifice rods

Re:To quote Betteridge's law

[EETech1]

It seemed to me like it was going to be wave powered.

If your power is free and your cooling is free a project like this makes a lot of sense.