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Project Cuts Emissions By Putting Data Centers Inside Wind Turbines (cnn.com) 168

Posted by BeauHD from the two-in-one dept.
CNN reports on a new German-based project called WindCORES that operates data centers inside existing wind turbines, making them almost completely carbon neutral. "If you look at the sustainability pyramid, the highest form of sustainability is using things that already exist," said Fiete Dubberke, managing director of windCORES, which was founded in 2018. From the report: The concept uses existing wind turbines to power data centers on site, while fiber optic cables provide a constant internet connection. Planning for a project like this began 10 years ago, Dubberke said, when WestfalenWIND realized the electricity grid was too weak to handle the huge capacities of electricity being produced by its wind turbines during peak wind hours, resulting in their windfarms being switched off due to grid security issues. WindCORES estimates that the unused electricity generated during this period could power one-third of all German data centers.

Its solution was to bypass the "middleman" (the grid) altogether, and instead, power IT servers from directly inside the large concrete wind turbine towers. Each tower is 13 meters wide and could potentially hold server racks up to 150 meters high. As the area is mostly empty space, Dubberke calls the concept a "no-brainer." According to Dubberke, an average of 85-92% of the power needed to sustain a windCORES data center comes directly from the host turbine. When there is no wind, electricity is obtained from other renewable sources, including solar farms and hydroelectric power plants, via the electricity grid. "The German data center average is 430 grams of CO2 released per kilowatt hour," he said. "For windCORES, it is calculated at just 10 grams per kilowatt hour."

Since launching, windCORES has acquired around 150 clients through co-location and cloud solutions, from very small start-up companies to bigger, more established ones, such as Zattoo, a leading carbon-neutral Swiss TV streaming platform with several million monthly users. Zattoo joined windCORES in 2020, when it moved one of its six data centers into a wind turbine in Paderborn. Currently, 218 channels are encoded with windCORES, and by the end of next year, the company hopes to relocate more existing servers to the wind farm, making it Zattoo's main data center location. [...] WindCORES has recently opened a larger, second location called "windCORES II" at the Huser Klee windfarm in Lichtenau, Germany. Built for a new large automotive client from Munich (the name is yet to be revealed), it is over three levels and around 20 meters high.
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Project Cuts Emissions By Putting Data Centers Inside Wind Turbines More

Project Cuts Emissions By Putting Data Centers Inside Wind Turbines

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  • Inside the turbine? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Thursday December 07, 2023 @03:13AM (#64062833)

    The drives that rotate inside will sing with joy! https://youtube.com/watch?v=oG... [youtube.com]

    Or maybe you need to proof-read your headlines?

  • Germany is clearly not taking CO2 emissions seriously if they continue their policy of not building new nuclear power plants. Here's a statement published by nations taking CO2 emissions seriously: https://www.energy.gov/article... [energy.gov]

    In that commitment to increase nuclear energy capacity is over 20 nations, and that list includes a few of the largest CO2 emitters like USA, Canada, South Korea, and Japan. A few nations that are large CO2 emitters that didn't sign on are currently building more nuclear power p

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      Germany is clearly not taking CO2 emissions seriously if they continue their policy of not building new nuclear power plants.

      You might be right but you are suggesting there is only one way to reduce emissions. You provided a single data point. I provided you with a counter point and you went quiet. Would you like more data?

      • You might be right but you are suggesting there is only one way to reduce emissions.

        First, I'm suggesting nothing, I'm giving a report from the US Department of Energy that they are joining 20+ other nations on a commitment to increase nuclear power capacity in an effort to lower CO2 emissions. Second, you apparently didn't read the link since it includes the words "partner well with renewable energy sources" so there is no suggestion to use nuclear power to the exclusion of all else.

        You provided a single data point.

        I'd think the IPCC reports are a big data point. There's also reports from the US DOE, the UK government,

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
          You made a contention elsewhere that coal could not be displaced by wind and used Germany as an example. I showed with another example that this was incorrect.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            You made an anti-reality example? Because coal use is increasing in Germany. This is factual and undeniable, in spite of claims by your types for over a decade now that mass wind as used in Germany would reduce it.

            Remind me, what is Einstein's definition of insanity? Though in this case, I would question is this is insanity or malevolence.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
              No, I did not make an anti-reality example (whatever that means). Germany is a single data point. Other data does not support the assertion that wind cannot displace coal. Using an example where it does and that only is just cherry picking.

              by your types

              What is 'my types'? Those who can use more than one data point?

              Because coal use is increasing in Germany. This is factual and undeniable

              https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]. The long-term trend is down. This is a fact. The number of years of increase? Just the last two. If we see it increase for another two or three you might have a point. At th

    • Why hasn't Germany made a commitment to expand use of nuclear power?

      Because unlike you they realise that getting a nuclear plant built in any reasonable timeframe to meet their emissions targets won't happen, and also realise, again unlike you, that there's more than one way to reduce emissions. Incidentally Germany is actually reducing emissions.

      Germany doesn't care about you. On the other hand I hope you realise that few people here are taking *you* seriously.

      • Incidentally Germany is actually reducing emissions.

        Germany electricity emissions from the last 3 years [nowtricity.com]:
        - 2020: 314g CO2eq/kWh
        - 2021: 355g CO2eq/kWh
        - 2022: 380g CO2eq/kWh

        This looks like a trend going up.

        Germany overall emissions are decreasing though I will give you that. Mainly because they are losing a lot of [politico.eu] industries [ft.com] due to their energy policy. They are basically getting poorer, which means less emissions. Nice plan.

        Germany doesn't care about you.

        Nor do we care about Germany. Physical laws on the other hand, cannot be ignored, and Germany should care about them. They are the reason w

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Uecker ( 1842596 )

          I don't think looking at the last three years tells you much about whether Germany in on the right track or not.
          1990: 764 g/kWh, 2000: 644 g/kWh, 2010: 555 g/kWh, 2019: 401 g/kWh
          (source: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de... [umweltbundesamt.de]
          This is hardly a failure to decarbonize the electricity grid. One can argue that it is too slow, but not that it is not working.

          I have this discussion since at least a decade with nuclear proponents on Slashdot. Every single time something gets worse for a brief period, they take it as clea

          • The main reason the emissions changed from 1970 to 2019 is because they switched from using coal to using natural gas. Although it's called "natural," gas still releases 50% to 80% of the CO2 that coal does. Some of these emissions aren't always counted accurately, making the numbers seem lower than they really are. Before the war in Ukraine, Germany got gas from Russia through pipelines. Now, they import a lot more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US, which is less efficient because the gas has to be t

        • Germany electricity emissions from the last 3 years [nowtricity.com]:

          Anytime I see someone post statistics narrowed down to a very specific time of geopolitical turmoil, one that has created outliers in an otherwise different looking trend, I don't even consider them stupid, I consider them dangerous. You sir are a dishonest piece of shit and you know it.

          • I see someone post statistics narrowed down to a very specific time of geopolitical turmoil

            Because you think the geopolitical turmoil is going to calm down anytime soon? This is a direct result of political instabilities caused by climate change. As climate change will increase, geopolitical instabilities will increase.

            You are in for a rude awakening. Call me when Germany emissions per kWh are at France or Norway level. I won't be holding my breath.

            You sir are a dishonest piece of shit

            Coming from you, that's a compliment. What's with the recent personal attacks though? Ran out of bad arguments?

        • Germany electricity emissions from the last 3 years [nowtricity.com]:
          - 2020: 314g CO2eq/kWh
          - 2021: 355g CO2eq/kWh
          - 2022: 380g CO2eq/kWh

          This looks like a trend going up.

          Cherry picking data is fun!

          What happens if you look at the previous 7 years? Oh, emissions are down. And even including the previous 3 years where they have gone up, it's still down over 10 years, indicating a overall downward trend. And if you look at all available data, you'll see that Germany's CO2 emissions peaked in the 1970s and have been on a sharp downward trajectory ever since 1990 [ourworldindata.org].

          You cherry-picked some noise out of the trend line, which can clearly be seen elsewhere on the overall downward tre

    • Remarkable how much you can choose to confuse yourself with a few carefully-selected facts.

      Then you look at the bottom line [umweltbundesamt.de], and see something else entirely - germany has steadily slashed its total CO2 emissions 30% since 1990.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Germany, like most progressive Western states understands that underlying reality is irrelevant. Only perception matters.

      This is why German Energiewende solutions are about giving the masses a perception of a very green nation. Look at all the subsidies. Look at all the wind turbines being built. Look at all these quirky, interesting sounding solutions like one in the OP. It must be a green grid! Just compare it to those evil, archaic French with their weird culture, who stick to their archaic nuclear power

  • Maintenance (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jgfenix ( 2584513 )
    And how easy is the maitenance of a server when you have to change a hard disk in a tower 150 m tall? This is so freaking stupid. When I began to read the news I thought that the innovation was that the turbine provided free refrigeration but that doesn't seem the case.

    • Better than the recent story of a Chinese data center that is under water

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      Indeed. It doesn't make a lot of sense. I could see, maybe, the logic of having a small data center next to a wind farm so Bob can replace a cog and a disk. But where do you put the data center for an offshore farm. It's not a very sensible idea. It's a hammer/nail type solution when you have a screw.

    • Re:Maintenance (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Thursday December 07, 2023 @04:52AM (#64062943)

      And how easy is the maitenance of a server when you have to change a hard disk in a tower 150 m tall?

      In the story they say "could potentially" which is media speak for "will probably never". If you look at some photos of turbines they are wide at the bottom and taper at the top in order to increase stability. They have lots of space low down and less higher up. So to begin with you will probably have simple standard height racks in the base. Then, once the concept is proven and you have lots of customers, you might have a two or three story construction inside the base of the turbine but with normal stairs and floors so that data service engineers never need to have working at height certification. Even now, wind turbines are big enough that they have lifts inside [youtu.be] so space for a data centre isn't a problem.

      By the time you got to 150M high up inside, I'm not sure if there's enough space for all the access needed, though probably some of the new ones which can be up to about 300M high [euronews.com] have lots of space at that level.

      This is so freaking stupid.

      I really don't get the level of negativity here on Slashdot on everything related to renewable energy. I think this must be coming from massive levels of fossil fuel propaganda. This is a fairly clear and really interesting technology

      When I began to read the news I thought that the innovation was that the turbine provided free refrigeration but that doesn't seem the case.

      A wind turbine is an incredibly tall pipe with a hole at the bottom, for the door, and at the top (for the connection to the nacelle). That's otherwise known as a chimney. If you put a small amount of heat at the bottom of a tall chimney then you get a huge draw of air caused by the buoyancy of the heated air. They don't mention it but I'm almost 100% sure that they can't avoid using that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        >I really don't get the level of negativity here on Slashdot on everything related to renewable energy.

        It comes from the fact that basic math and logic is understood by a larger percentage of users here vs general populace. Has to be, because much of IT is driven by basic math and logic.

        It doesn't stop people like yourself who have been thoroughly propagandized to leave their math and logic skill behind when talking about "data centers in the clouds" (literally in this case!), and then project this propa

      • I really don't get the level of negativity here on Slashdot on everything related to renewable energy

        There is little to no negativity here on Slashdot when it comes to renewable energy. Most here are proponents of it and recognize that our dependence on fossil fuel is a dead end. However, most "renewable energy" products tend to be gimmicks and there is strong negativity towards them.

        As an analogy, there is no negativity here on Slashdot when it comes to medicine. But if most "medical innovations" were snake out, you would see a lot of negativity in articles about supposed medicine.

      • And I thought my computer's fan was too big and noisy.

        A wind turbine is an incredibly tall pipe with a hole at the bottom, for the door, and at the top (for the connection to the nacelle). That's otherwise known as a chimney. If you put a small amount of heat at the bottom of a tall chimney then you get a huge draw of air caused by the buoyancy of the heated air.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vadim_t ( 324782 )

      Very easy. See, it's a tower, and towers have a bottom sitting on the ground. So you put your servers down there. And if you want go higher, you put a ladder and have floors inside it.

      They also get pretty darn big, so things can be pretty roomy inside.

      • Go to their website. There is literally a short video showing that the hardware is installed at the base of the tower.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      And how easy is the maitenance of a server when you have to change a hard disk in a tower 150 m tall?

      Like those underwater data centres, they won't bother. The machines will either be diskless or just have some high reliability solid state storage. If they break they will be retired, not replaced. The failure rate will be calculated to be low enough that over the expected lifetime of the product that there is no need for on-site maintenance.

      When the hardware becomes obsolete and of no use to anyone, it will have already made a profit and will simply be abandoned until the turbine itself reaches EOL.

    • And how easy is the maitenance of a server when you have to change a hard disk in a tower 150 m tall?

      Simple, you walk up the internal stairs or climb the internal ladder. I know, I know, actually getting to a place without a mobility scooter is a scary thought for an American.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I see you are stuck in the past. Modern servers do not have hard disks.

    • Perhaps the data center is located at the bottom of the windmill?

    • I know this is a hard one to visualize, but maybe put the higher maintenance equipment in racks at the bottom so it's easier to get to them?

      Like, say, all your storage racks with mechanical devices that have a reasonable expectation of failure? And then you know what you put at the top, which is the least accessible? The shit you never have to physically touch.

      Man, that was a hard solution to come up with, wasn't it?

  • So either Germany has a poor electric grid that cannot handle the currents needed, or the wind farm was so poorly planned that they forgot to check if the transmission lines can handle their power when the location was chosen. The workaround is to try to move the load into the farm to avoid the electric grid altogether.

    Perhaps they could plan better the next time when they choose a location for any kind of power generation? Maybe make sure the transmission lines can handle the power generated first?

    • The electric grid in Germany is having problems. I found one report on this as an example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]

      I'm not a fan of Bloomberg as they like to hide things behind a paywall but that was a link that came out on top of my search.

      I can recall this going back years with Germany trying to get more power lines running north-south. I recall it was something like they had an abundance of wind power in the north but needed that electricity in the population centers to the south, or something

      • A problem with this plan is what to do when the wind isn't blowing. Do they shut down all the computers?

        Right there in TFS: "According to Dubberke, an average of 85-92% of the power needed to sustain a windCORES data center comes directly from the host turbine. When there is no wind, electricity is obtained from other renewable sources, including solar farms and hydroelectric power plants, via the electricity grid."

        The grid connection is bi-directional. Who knew? ;-)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          It's almost like grid is there for a reason, and instead of putting a small scale data center in the clouds, it makes sense to just put it in an existing large data center with economies of scale, and use that same bidirectional connectivity that exists across the grid to feed that?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jsonn ( 792303 )
        Bavaria is governed by a party that is very similar in mind to the MAGA republicans. They've been blocking building new power lines or wind turbines for decades, classic NIMBY tactic. Their neighbors aren't exactly better. Ironically, the same states also categorically rules out the placement of any long term nuclear waste storage facilities, even for the waste they produced locally.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Six degrees of separation to blame Trump is real. A mind of a fanatic is truly a fascinating thing.

          • Six degrees of separation to blame Trump is real. A mind of a fanatic is truly a fascinating thing.

            Nope, the Bavarian Christian Social Union is slightly smarter than MAGA (for example they don't think Jeebus wrote the King James Bible in English) and they have fewer guns but they are basically not that far removed from being a German version of MAGA.

        • Bavaria is governed by a party that is very similar in mind to the MAGA republicans. They've been blocking building new power lines or wind turbines for decades, classic NIMBY tactic.

          I'm getting the impression that you don't know what it means to be a "MAGA Republican". I don't know of any Trump era policy that was blocking power lines or windmills, though there's plenty of examples of Democrats doing so. Trump made an effort to improve America's energy independence, though arguably that would have been diminished with support for natural gas pipelines from Canada. Democrats don't like pipelines.

          Their neighbors aren't exactly better. Ironically, the same states also categorically rules out the placement of any long term nuclear waste storage facilities, even for the waste they produced locally.

          Trump appointed Rick Perry as Secretary of Energy and Perry said to put the nuclear waste

        • I'm not aware of any MAGA initiatives to block expansion of the grid, and am darn sure the farmers in my area (mostly MAGA country) don't mind leasing their land for windmills. They're everywhere here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

        The electric grid in Germany is having problems. I found one report on this as an example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]

        That's grid management of the type that has been offered in most Western nations for five or more decades, such as the UK's Economy 7 which has been going at least from the 1970s.

        I can recall this going back years with Germany trying to get more power lines running north-south. I recall it was something like they had an abundance of wind power in the north but needed that electricity in the population centers to the south, or something like that.

        That's planning rather than a problem per se.

      • A problem with this plan is what to do when the wind isn't blowing. Do they shut down all the computers?

        Why do you have such a problem understanding that electricity can flow both ways through a wire, and bi-directional metering exists? You repeatedly bring up this "problem" even though it's been solved for literally decades.

    • You overbuild generation capacity. Energy sources often come with the potential for excess energy, but unlike conventional power sources, for renewable sources that excess energy doesn't come with a fuel cost, so you might as well use it. It hardly matters where the servers are. Other energy intensive industries also colocate with power sources, because building long distance transmission lines is expensive.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by khchung ( 462899 )

        Other energy intensive industries also colocate with power sources, because building long distance transmission lines is expensive.

        Only when you have no other choice. Transporting materials in and products out is also expensive, so is trying to hire people to work in far away locations. Anything you need takes longer and more expensive due to the extra transport.

        When you setup your factory or whatever in a remote location just to stay near power source, everything else got more expensive and you lose out to your global competitors who can locate where it makes the most economic sense without worrying about getting power (i.e. in coun

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jsonn ( 792303 )
          Germany is well known for its abundance of natural resources - not. Almost all materials necessary for refinement are already transported. The big difference is that they will be no longer shipped up the Rhine, but stay in the north. Also, have you ever looked at a population map of Germany? Three of the traditional deep water ports are Hamburg (population: 1.8m), Bremen (570k) and Rostock (208k), so hardly backwater areas where you can't find worker.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

        building long distance transmission lines is expensive.

        For wind generation they will be put in place anyway. Yes, it's an issue on a continental scale but on a national scale those interconnections are going to be planned anyway. Sure, sometimes building of wind farms might exceed the transmission lines for a while but you are going to put those lines in anyway to ensure your country has the flexibility to place industry relatively straightforwardly. Yes, there might come a point when you think you are always going to have excess in a particular spot and transp

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      So either Germany has a poor electric grid that cannot handle the currents needed, or the wind farm was so poorly planned that they forgot to check if the transmission lines can handle their power when the location was chosen.

      Neither. It's someone pitching a business proposition.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jsonn ( 792303 )
      It's not so much poor planning, but a terrible legal framework. Most projects to build new transmission lines are massively delayed by legal battles and bullshit requirements like moving high voltage lines underground so they don't disrupt the landscape. This happens especially in areas that already have various high voltage lines running through and by people that don't even understand what they are requesting. NIMBYs at their best.

  • "the highest form of sustainability is using things that already exist"

    Wrong, the highest form of sustainability is not using them in the first place.

    • True, but telling people that they have to decrease their standard of living is a tough sell. So, for the same amount of input energy, you often have a more beneficial impact on the overall system by focussing on 'reuse' and 'recycle' than you do on 'reduce'. It's similar to the way that Just Stop Oil is having a negative impact on the willingness of people to consider doing _anything_ to fix the problem.

  • How do you make a power generating facility an even more attractive terrorism target? Oh, wait, I know! Co-locate a bunch of server farms!

    OTOH I guess this could count as an increase in resiliency, if the servers would otherwise be located with others in a bigger cluster elsewhere.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      Blowing up wind and/or server farms are unpopular approaches to terrorism because it doesn't result in obvious physical suffering or death. To a first approximation, nobody would be terrified by such an attack.

      Nuclear power plants are a special case because of the radiation and the possibility of going critical. Other power plants would just be an economic inconvenience.

      • Nuclear power plants are a special case because of the radiation and the possibility of going critical.

        Nuclear plants are special, because of dumb claims like this one (either said on purpose, or throug sheer ignorance). In a nuclear power plant, the term "critical" doesn't imply a dangerous situation; rather, it refers to a stable state of nuclear fission reactions within the reactor core. A nuclear reactor operates in a critical state when there is a balance between the rate of neutron production (from fission reactions) and neutron absorption in the reactor core. This critical state allows for a sustained

        • Let's take an even worse situation, what actually happens during a meltdown in the middle of a Tsunami with waves 10m height? Well, this is what happened in Fukushima in 2011. Guess how many deaths resulted from the meltdown? 1.

          That was one suspected death that was paid insurance as if caused by radiation from the meltdown. It's difficult to track the cause of any cancer so it's as easy to blame radiation as secondhand smoke, assuming the victim wasn't a smoker. I believe it was wise to pay out, disputing the cause would not likely do well for the insurance company costs and would only add fuel to the fire of how heartless and/or dangerous the nuclear power industry is in Japan. Had there been more cancer deaths blamed on the m

  • Built for a new large automotive client from Munich (the name is yet to be revealed), it is over three levels and around 20 meters high.

    Seems that BMW fit that description.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      I should have RTFA. I imagined they were talking about putting a single server in the nacelle of wind turbines. Slight egg-on-face - this makes a little more sense. This seems like it's more a way, then, of overcoming objections to putting a DC next to a wind farm as people might object to a big shed full of computers but by putting it in the base of the wind turbine it hides it in a sense. So the clever bit is side stepping planning permissions and legal objections about a DC?

      • That's part of the clever bit. The other part is because they have a large on-site customer for the power they are generating, they can continue generating when the grid otherwise wouldn't be able to accept the energy they are over-producing. So they essentially get to operate the "data center" for free under those conditions.

  • warning wind to low server shutdown underway!

    • warning slashdot poster can't be bothered to read the summary; nonsense post underway!

      Copper wires don't give a shit which direction electricity flows.

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