The Fjord-Cooled Data Center 195
1sockchuck writes "A new data center project in Norway plans to use a fjord-powered cooling system, drawing cold water from an adjacent fjord to cool data halls. The fjord provides a ready supply of water at 8 degrees C (46 degrees F), eliminating the need for an energy-hungry chiller. The Green Mountain Data Center joins a small but growing number of data centers are slashing their cooling costs by using the environment as their chiller, tapping nearby lakes, wells and even the Baltic Sea."
Nothing new to see here... move along (Score:5, Informative)
The industrial revolution was growing on chill-water supplied by nature long before the triode, never mind the transistor, had been invented. And all the environmental issues came up long before Al Gore was born.
Re:Nothing new to see here... move along (Score:5, Informative)
And all the environmental issues came up long before Al Gore was born.
Gore was just graduating from college when Environmental Impact Statements became required under law.
FYI, the straw that broke the camel's back and forced modern american environmental laws into existence was a *blowout on a drilling rig off the shore of California.
A couple years later, the EPA was created and the Clean Water Act was passed, along with a bunch of other environmental laws.
I'd hope that not everyone has to learn responsible stewardship the way we did.
*The largest oil spill of its time, currently the #3 largest oil spill in the USA
Re:Datacenter location is more complex than coolin (Score:4, Informative)
3/ Do you really think this is going to pump out much heat in comparison with realitively trivial heat sources like factories for making potato chips? Also since most of that heat is supposed to be going into the massive heatsink of a deep Fjord connected to a cold ocean it's not going to matter beyond a few metres from an outlet anyway.
4/ For most purposes within the same hemisphere is plenty.
Seawater cooling is an expensive pain in many ways but there's well over a century of experience with it. The data centre itself will probably have a freshwater loop and then a heat exchanger keeping that corrosive seawater out of the place.
Re:Queue the screams of hysteria (Score:5, Informative)
The results of the research, performed by the government agency for fisheries (not the nuclear industry) actually indicates that, on balance, fish growth is actually promoted, as are many other species of birds etc.
Opportunistic species appeared in very high abundances while species with more
narrow tolerances decreased or disappeared. The total production of macrofauna increased.
Total benthic biomass stayed at a high level in the Biotest basin up to 1989,
but during the later years there has been a general decrease in both
biomass and abundance of most common species and the risk that fish food
production is becoming critically low is evident. The scenario â" increasing
fish biomass â" heavy grazing â" benthic fauna collapse â" starving fish â" was
discussed already when the studies started in the Biotest basin. Today, ten
years later, we can see the first signs that these misgivings turn out to be justified.
Yeah, not quite exactly as you portrayed it. Plenty of other stuff in that report that is far, far more ambiguous than you made it out to be, like growth retardation and increased mortality rates for perch. There may be more perch but they are of suckier quality.
Re:Queue the screams of hysteria (Score:4, Informative)
The results of the research [fiskeriverket.se], performed by the government agency for fisheries (not the nuclear industry) actually indicates that, on balance, fish growth is actually promoted, as are many other species of birds etc.
In fact that very report says that in the short term opportunistic species will rise at the cost of the more vulnerable species and in the long run all species (biomass) will decrease
Re:Queue the screams of hysteria (Score:4, Informative)
Why would venting heat to the atmosphere be unproblematic but venting it to seawater be potentially problematic ?
RennesÃy isn't some deep-and-narrow inlet, infact it's hardly in a fjord at all, but more akin to in open ocean. Have a look at the map: http://g.co/maps/ucfvs [g.co]
Heating the ocean itself by dumping waste heat, would take *tremendous* amounts of power, many orders of magnitude more energy than any data-center could possibly use.
Re:Queue the screams of hysteria (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Less effective during the summer? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Queue the screams of hysteria (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder if someone would calculate how much power/heat would be needed to raise the temperature enough to affect it.
Considering that this "Fjord" Is actually the east side of a small island which has the North Sea on the west side - a huge amount!