5 ms·

Though marine fouling is primarily of concern for fiberglass boats because it massively increases drag which admittedly is less of an issue for a datacenter. It

Though marine fouling is primarily of concern for fiberglass boats because it massively increases drag which admittedly is less of an issue for a datacenter. It's still an issue for the pods as mentioned in the article, but I'd expect it to be less grave than on a boat.

baking 10y ago
Marine fouling of the heat exchangers is probably the biggest technical hurdle.
- Xylakant 10y ago
  Yes, as well as keeping all kinds of marine life out of there.
walrus01 10y ago
But I require a datacenter with a hull speed of at least 7.5 knots.
- Xylakant 10y ago
  let me double check the hull speed formula for datacenters.
  - amygdyl 10y ago
    and buoyancy from unvented exhaust from fuel cells ... Edit: I'm very silly, confusing a few thoughts: e.g natural gas > hydrogen conversion in a cell, assuming some storage of the hydrogen, and less dense non salt water from that - all reducing the pod density but hardly exhausts one traps like a submarine vents. What would please my errant mind, growing up by the sea, and startled at effluent pipes i could never believe were far enough out, at low tide, would be biomass conversion fuel cells, attached to sewage pipes otherwise dumping into the sea, but i don't know if treatment renders the mass useless as a energy source. The vision in my head was of container pods popping up, floated from their submersion, for maintenance, kinda being hooked in like exhausted tuna, winched aboard a maintenance vessel once a year, for a data catch... or being fed denser storage or servers... However, what this might do well for, is submerging compute jobs that are expected to run for a long time without much or any external communication. Are there any simulation jobs where enough compute fits inside such a container, so requires mo networking to other containers, and can be retrieved when job complete, to gather results? Would the energy savings make any sense from a cooling pov, if a hypothetical internal power source could last say a year or two?

baking 10y ago

Marine fouling of the heat exchangers is probably the biggest technical hurdle.

Xylakant 10y ago
Yes, as well as keeping all kinds of marine life out of there.

walrus01 10y ago

But I require a datacenter with a hull speed of at least 7.5 knots.

Xylakant 10y ago
let me double check the hull speed formula for datacenters.
- amygdyl 10y ago
  and buoyancy from unvented exhaust from fuel cells ... Edit: I'm very silly, confusing a few thoughts: e.g natural gas > hydrogen conversion in a cell, assuming some storage of the hydrogen, and less dense non salt water from that - all reducing the pod density but hardly exhausts one traps like a submarine vents. What would please my errant mind, growing up by the sea, and startled at effluent pipes i could never believe were far enough out, at low tide, would be biomass conversion fuel cells, attached to sewage pipes otherwise dumping into the sea, but i don't know if treatment renders the mass useless as a energy source. The vision in my head was of container pods popping up, floated from their submersion, for maintenance, kinda being hooked in like exhausted tuna, winched aboard a maintenance vessel once a year, for a data catch... or being fed denser storage or servers... However, what this might do well for, is submerging compute jobs that are expected to run for a long time without much or any external communication. Are there any simulation jobs where enough compute fits inside such a container, so requires mo networking to other containers, and can be retrieved when job complete, to gather results? Would the energy savings make any sense from a cooling pov, if a hypothetical internal power source could last say a year or two?