[Beowulf] Fwd: Project Natick

[Lux, Jim (337K)]

On 6/7/18, 7:48 AM, "Beowulf on behalf of Michael Di Domenico" <beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org on behalf of mdidomenico4 at gmail.com> wrote:

    On Thu, Jun 7, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Prentice Bisbal <pbisbal at pppl.gov> wrote:
    >
    > I imagine it would have to be filtered, too, to keep small marine life and
    > debris from clogging up the piping. I wonder if any forms of marine life in
    > that part of the ocean would  like the warm water inside the heat exchangers
    > or at the exhaust and try to make it their homes.
    
    my guess it's probably a low risk.  not only are the pipes likely full
    copper, which is toxic to most marine life, but the flow rate inside
    the pipes is probably high enough that nothing has much of a chance to
    stick.  there's probably just some course basic filters that need to
    scrubbed clear every once in a while.
    
    i'm not sure i see a point in all this anyhow, it's a neat science
    experiment, but what's the ROI on sinking a container full of servers
    vs just pumping cold seawater from 100ft down
---
Yes, copper is your friend.

I like the idea (from Michigan?) - have a huge pit full of pipes next to the server center and spray water during the winter to form ice, then melt the ice during the summer.
Pumping cold water around is *much* easier than sinking a server farm in the ocean.

On the other hand, there *are* people who would be interested in a sea bottom computational capability to process data from, oh, an array of pressure, acoustic, and other sensors, so that the link to the surface doesn't have to carry a huge volume of data.  Tsunami detection, for instance, or tracking sea life migration.