Iceland Woos Data Centers As Power Costs Soar 142
call-me-kenneth writes "Business Week covers the soaring demand for power and cooling capacity in data centers. Electricity consumption for US data centers more than doubled between 2000 and 2006. Among the other stats: for every dollar spent on computing equipment in data centers, an additional half dollar is spent each year to power and cool them; and half the electricity used goes for cooling. Iceland, with its cool climate and abundant cheap power, is courting big users like Google and Microsoft as a future data center location. (Can't help thinking they're gonna need a bigger cable first, though.)"
CCP (Score:3, Interesting)
Greed, simple as that. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Bullshit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Make use of the waste heat (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Make use of the waste heat (Score:3, Interesting)
So you point is good. Such a solution would have to be designed appropriately. But a poorly designed campus in the Midwest does not mean that the idea will not work in practice. I have seen many buildings that suffer from the symptoms you described (it reaches -50C here). All is good until it gets real cold then some rooms are freezing while others are like saunas. It all comes down to design - something the described buildings lacked (wrt heating).
Re:Make use of the waste heat (Score:3, Interesting)
As for Alaska, it has some advantages, but if the energy problem is as bad as TFer_Atvar says, that would be hugely prohibitive. Iceland not only has a cold climate, but has abundant geothermal energy. Unfortunately, it seems a little light in terms of the internet connections to the outside world, and only a single direct connection to North America. Compared with something like the US, this might make companies somewhat reluctant to place too much of their data there.
Canada might be another interesting choice. It has all the climate benefits of Iceland, but lacks some of the disadvantages. Datacenters could be easily connected over ground to the US, from which there are ample connections to the rest of the world. As Canada's tar sands are increasingly utilized, the energy costs for the area will likely be at least comparable to most other areas in the world. In fact, as cheaper oil sources are exhausted, the energy costs near the tar sands will likely become relatively cheap. It certainly isn't the most environmentally friendly option, but it will likely be an attractive one for businesses looking to cut costs.
Re:CCP (Score:2, Interesting)
Manitoba: Hot New Data Center Market (Score:4, Interesting)