[Beowulf] More about those underwater data centers

Prentice Bisbal pbisbal at pppl.gov
Mon Nov 5 12:55:23 PST 2018


 From the wikipedia page:

> The building is accompanied by a series of artificial lakes: one 
> formal lake directly opposite that completes the circle of the 
> building, and a further four 'ecology' lakes. Together they contain 
> about 50,000 m³ of water. This water is pumped through a series of 
> heat exchangers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger> to cool 
> the building and to dissipate the heat produced by the wind tunnels. 

So this water could definitely be used to cool the data center. I wonder 
what that extra heat in the water does to the 'ecology' in those 
'ecology lakes'.

Prentice

On 11/05/2018 03:51 PM, C Bergström wrote:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_Technology_Centre
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 4:50 AM C Bergström <cbergstrom at pathscale.com 
> <mailto:cbergstrom at pathscale.com>> wrote:
>
>     Building cooling maybe.. Then again in the UK I doubt the need
>     would be so strong. The building from aerial view is ying/yang so
>     it's probably just design
>
>     On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 4:46 AM Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf
>     <beowulf at beowulf.org <mailto:beowulf at beowulf.org>> wrote:
>
>         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.
>>>                 > _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>             -- 
>>>             Dr Stuart Midgley
>>>             sdm900 at gmail.com <mailto:sdm900 at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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