China Is Putting Data Centers in the Ocean to Keep Them Cool

Comments

• RagingRobot@lemmy.world ⁨29⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

  Cool

  source
• bloodfoot@programming.dev ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Right, humans are actually gonna boil the ocean… aren’t we.

  source

  • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Rain World (2017)

    source
• subignition@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  If we can't stop the energy from being used anyway, why not make a desalination plant out of it too? 🤦

  source
• SendMePhotos@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  There are already llava/magma vents in the ocean… But the thought of human heat being added makes me upset because it’s just another piece.

  source

  • techt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    I get it, truly, but we’ve been dejecting heat to the ocean for a good while. Ocean water cools marine engines and equipment, and heck we use rivers to cool lots of things – even reactors, which ends up back in the ocean. Data center cooling might be one of the more responsible uses because it’s (hopefully) not leeching petroleum or radioactive byproducts into the water.

    I’m actually a little more upset now than when I started this comment.

    :(

    source
• shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Sounds like a great idea. OTOH, impossible to calculate the damage to local ecosystems vs. traditional methods.

  Totally uneducated guess: Probably better? Cooling is a major power suck, as well as consuming water.

  Roughly 40 percent of the electricity consumed by an ordinary data center is for this purpose.

  We’re draining aquifers that take thousands of years to build up. Don’t read up on that, it’s horrifying. So if we have to have data centers, I’m gambling that underwater is the lesser of two evils.

  source
• winkly@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Quick! The oceans aren’t heating up fast enough! 🤦‍♂️

  source
• fubarx@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Microsoft and Google both prototyped it. FWIW, they didn’t take it to production once the data was collected.

  IIRC, cooling worked fine if placed in the right place with circulation, but maintenance and part replacement was a major issue.

  source

  • lunarul@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    maintenance and part replacement was a major issue

    That was my first thought: who’s going to be the underwater IT guy?

    source

    • fubarx@lemmy.world ⁨50⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      Image

      source
• scottmeme@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Microsoft did it first

  source