[Beowulf] More about those underwater data centers

Prentice Bisbal pbisbal at pppl.gov
Mon Nov 5 12:45:44 PST 2018


Yes. Something exactly like that! Is that what that pond is used for? I 
would expect that is much larger than what is needed for a typical data 
center.

Prentice

On 11/05/2018 01:35 PM, John Hearns via Beowulf wrote:
> > Honestly, though, I think most of this is moot. With direct-contact 
> liquid cooling and warm-water cooling, I think for most data centers, 
> cooling to ambient air should be adequate. For  >places where that 
> isn't enough, I would think a shallow, man-made cooling pond on 
> premises would be an adequate heat sink, without having to go all the 
> way to the ocean. By keeping >it shallow, at night when it cools off, 
> the pond could dump a lot of its heat to the atmosphere.
>
> Something like this perhaps?
> https://youtu.be/0gCXfWCLZAA
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 5 Nov 2018 at 16:01, Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf 
> <beowulf at beowulf.org <mailto:beowulf at beowulf.org>> wrote:
>
>     Prentice
>
>     On 11/05/2018 06:02 AM, Stu Midgley wrote:
>>     As far as I can tell, they are just using the salt water to
>>     reject the heat to.  How they get the heat from the cpu/hot bits
>>     to the water is not clearly stated...
>>
>>     A passive heat exchanger would make energy sense... but would
>>     cost a bomb in engineering...  maybe direct fluid cooling
>>     (asetek) with a heat-exchanger to the salt water?
>>
>>     Either way, its stupid.  They could just easily pump the cool
>>     salt water from the ocean into a DC, reject heat to it using the
>>     same methods... and pump it back to the ocean.  Since no real
>>     delta in height, it would be efficient in energy.
>     The issue with this would be the increased maintenance cost of the
>     equipment pumping the salt water to the the DC, do to the
>     corrosion from the salt water, and overall 'dirtiness' of the
>     saltwater. A better approach would be to have a closed loop of
>     treated freshwater going from the data center to the a heat
>     exchanger submerged in the sea. This should reduce maintenance
>     costs for the system.
>
>     Honestly, though, I think most of this is moot. With
>     direct-contact liquid cooling and warm-water cooling, I think for
>     most data centers, cooling to ambient air should be adequate. For
>     places where that isn't enough, I would think a shallow, man-made
>     cooling pond on premises would be an adequate heat sink, without
>     having to go all the way to the ocean. By keeping it shallow, at
>     night when it cools off, the pond could dump a lot of its heat to
>     the atmosphere.
>>
>>     OR... just use a boat...
>>
>>
>>
>>     On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 2:27 PM <jaquilina at eagleeyet.net
>>     <mailto:jaquilina at eagleeyet.net>> wrote:
>>
>>         Probably a stupid question here,
>>
>>         What is the advantage of using salty sea water lets say over
>>         for example
>>         mineral oil? I have seen on you tube these guys showing that
>>         a pc will
>>         still run in a fish tank and all components submerged in
>>         mineral oil?
>>         Yes it will be messier to change components but would the use
>>         of mineral
>>         oil be more efficient?
>>
>>
>>         On 2018-11-04 14:10, Gerald Henriksen wrote:
>>         > On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 18:27:05 +0000, you wrote:
>>         >
>>         >> I’m not sure there’s a huge population of Xcloud-Xbox
>>         gamers in
>>         >> Orkney.  There's not much daylight this time of year, of
>>         course, so
>>         >> maybe that's what those Orcadians are up to.
>>         >
>>         > Likely just a convenient place for a second test unit.
>>         >
>>         > In a way this is just an extension of the idea/product Sun
>>         came up wth
>>         > where they put a datacentre in a shipping container with
>>         the idea that
>>         > you could quickly get the datacentre where it was needed.
>>         >
>>         > While I wouldn't say this won't fail, I think there is a lot of
>>         > attraction to the concept given not just the time lag do
>>         build a
>>         > traditional data centre (mentioned in the article), but
>>         even the cost
>>         > of real estate in many/most places people live these days. 
>>         Do you,
>>         > for one example, want to pay NYC rents or just throw a
>>         bunch of pods
>>         > in the Hudson?
>>         >
>>         > I guess once you accept the idea that we no longer maintain
>>         these
>>         > datacentres in the traditional way - we now just let
>>         hardware fail in
>>         > place and ignore it until it's time to replace all the
>>         hardware -
>>         > moving to smaller sealed units doesn't seem to strange.
>>         > _______________________________________________
>>         > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
>>         <mailto:Beowulf at beowulf.org> sponsored by Penguin
>>         > Computing
>>         > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit
>>         > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>>         _______________________________________________
>>         Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
>>         <mailto:Beowulf at beowulf.org> sponsored by Penguin Computing
>>         To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe)
>>         visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>>
>>
>>
>>     -- 
>>     Dr Stuart Midgley
>>     sdm900 at gmail.com <mailto:sdm900 at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Beowulf mailing list,Beowulf at beowulf.org <mailto:Beowulf at beowulf.org>  sponsored by Penguin Computing
>>     To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visithttp://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
>     <mailto:Beowulf at beowulf.org> sponsored by Penguin Computing
>     To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit
>     http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing
> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.beowulf.org/pipermail/beowulf/attachments/20181105/ed579d22/attachment.html>


More information about the Beowulf mailing list