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Amazon: Heat From Data Centers Will Be Used as a Furnace (vox.com)
Vox reports on Amazon's recent push for "corporate sustainability":
It plans to have 15 rooftop solar systems, with a total capacity of around 41 MW, deployed atop fulfillment centers by the end of this year, with plans to have 50 such systems installed by 2020. Amazon was the lead corporate purchaser of green energy in 2016. That year, it also announced its largest wind energy project to date, the 253 MW Amazon Wind Farm Texas. Overall, the company says, it has "announced or commenced construction on wind and solar projects that will generate a total of 3.6 million megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable energy annually."
But here's the most interesting part. GeekWire reports: Amazon is moving ahead with a unique plan to use heat generated from data centers in the nearby Westin Building to warm some of its new buildings downtown. The system transfers the heat from the data centers via water piped underground to the Amazon buildings. The water is then returned to the Westin Building once it's cooled down to help cool the data centers. The setup will be unusual. "Certainly there are other people using waste heat from server farms but you don't hear a lot about tying it in with buildings across the street from each other," said Seattle City Councilmember Mike O'Brien.
But here's the most interesting part. GeekWire reports: Amazon is moving ahead with a unique plan to use heat generated from data centers in the nearby Westin Building to warm some of its new buildings downtown. The system transfers the heat from the data centers via water piped underground to the Amazon buildings. The water is then returned to the Westin Building once it's cooled down to help cool the data centers. The setup will be unusual. "Certainly there are other people using waste heat from server farms but you don't hear a lot about tying it in with buildings across the street from each other," said Seattle City Councilmember Mike O'Brien.
They don't have to care about the conservation of resources, and yet, they do.
Measure this against countless corporate juggernauts who give less than a damn.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The colorado school of mines (i.e. MIT of the midwest) is heated largely by waste heat from the nearby Coors (yes that Coors) brewery. They run the steam vents under major sidewalks to help keep them clear of water and ice during the winter. Pretty cool to show up on campus and there's one sidewalk that's just bone dry all the time with green grass on either side. This has been going on since at least the 1950s, probably much earlier.
moox. for a new generation.