Why Is Google Opening a New Data Center In a Former Coal-Fired Power Plant? 40
HughPickens.com writes: Quentin Hardy reports at the NY Times that Google has announced it is opening its 14th data center inside a former coal-fired power plant in Stevenson, Alabama. While there is considerable irony in taking over a coal-burning plant and promoting alternative power, there are pragmatic reasons Google would want to put a $600 million data center in such a facility. These power facilities are typically large and solid structures with good power lines. The Alabama plant is next to a reservoir on the Tennessee River with access to lots of water, which Google uses for cooling its computers. There are also rail lines into the facility, which makes it likely Google can access buried conduits along the tracks to run fiber-optic cable. In Finland, Google rehabilitated a paper mill, and uses seawater for cooling. Salt water is corrosive for standard metal pipes, of course, so Google created a singular cooling system using plastic pipes.
Like... (Score:3)
Why not?
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The "Why Not?" aside. How about the why? ;)
Maybe it has something to do with the... "Alabama Data Processing Center Economic Incentive Enhancement Act" and the incentives it proffers
Why Is Google Opening a New Data Center In a... (Score:5, Funny)
Reasons
Mystery solved.
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Noooooooo ! ! ! ! And I thought that Google were the last remaining bastion of making major business decisions on the grounds of a Tarot hand.
What is the world coming to? What did that bastard Democritus start? We should never have banged those rocks together!
isn't it obvious? (Score:1)
it's because coal is the future, and google is getting into the coal power business. duh!
pretty soon, they'll be introducing a coal-powered autonomous car where the steering wheel is replaced with a simple search box, and all of the windows are replaced with ads.
i can't wait!
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I think I've run into a couple of dystopian stories which involve a resurgence of coal usage.
Some are kind of post-ecological failure, where the population lives in domed cities and is energy dependent to keep the domes functioning. I think one involved a crisis several years into a continent-wide drought that required a massive desalination and pumping project to prevent literally running out of water.
Irony? (Score:3)
Google takes over coal powerplant, converts to data center and installs a bunch of renewables?
That's...not irony.
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That's...not irony.
Might be... coppery?
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I agree, It isn't that Coal Power is competing against Google. Heck what took most coal power plants out of business wasn't "Green" or renewable energy, but the US current glut of Cheap Natural Gas. While much cleaner then coal, is still a carbon polluting source. I work in a hospital, they have purchased some old out of business convince store buildings and but offices in them... Is that any more ironic?
If I ran a business I would love to have refurbish an old Barn and turn it into an open office desig
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If I ran a business I would love to have refurbish an old Barn and turn it into an open office design. A tech company based in a turn of the 20th century barn. Would that have any more irony?
That reminds me of a guy I knew a little over 20 years ago back in the BBS era.
I was a wide-eyed youth at 15-16 years of age, and met another sysop from in town who prior I only knew as the guy with a massive 48 node BBS that put a lot of our setups to shame.
While I was still fighting with the phone company to have a third POTS line run to my apartment so I could finally add a Second BBS node (ofc it was really my moms apartment, and line #1 was the house phone line), many of us wondered just what sort of b
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The seawater cooled plant would have had ... (Score:2)
The only "irony" here is that power stations typically don't have a lot of floor space for the amount of area they occupy once you pull the boilers out, so maybe a one floor datac
Re: Floor space (Score:1)
A power plant that size would normally have a warehouse, a machine shop, and a training center, all of which could be converted to data center use without much trouble. The turbine floor can be converted as well, once you fill in the holes left by removal of the generators & turbines. Removal of the boiler house and pollution control equipment would leave room to build new data center space. The plant offices and cafeteria will probably be left as is and used for the same purpose by Google.
Power plan
Access buried conduits along the rail line? (Score:1)
I doubt it. More likely, TVA has already run fiber optic lines to the plant using fiber optic cables in the shield wire [aflglobal.com].
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The water in the Bothnian bay and Bothnian sea is not salt water.
Many Bothnians died to bring us this information.
Other Uses of Old Plant (Score:3)
The Tate Modern, London, formerly the Bankside generation plant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
irony (Score:3)
noun, plural ironies.
1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning:
the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.
2. Literature. a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.
(especially in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.
3. Socratic irony.
4. dramatic irony.
5. an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.
6. the incongruity of this.
7. an objectively sardonic style of speech or writing.
There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ironic about this.
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Definition #5 is pretty open. That is ironic, don't you think?
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Definition #5 is pretty open. That is ironic, don't you think?
No. In fact my point was that submitter was probably thinking of #5, but it is, in my opinion, blatantly moronic to find anything "unexpected" about google buying any large industrial building that fits its needs. In fact, I'd call it blatantly moronic to pull out the "how ironic" attitude for any purchaser of a defunct power plant. Plants of all kinds reach the end of their useful life and get de-commissioned. Then they get bought, and either re-purposed with some renovation or razed. Nothing unexpected th
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I knew I should have used the /s tag. Ah well.
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I knew I should have used the /s tag. Ah well.
Ah, I see I misread the antecedent of "that" ;-)
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We can just blame it on my poor communication skills. I have broad shoulders. ;)
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You'll never believe how this headline was chosen (Score:2)