4 ms·

Nuclear power plants usually dump their tertiary cooling water into the ocean. That's not a great situation for the local sea life (within a few hundred meters,

by nkoren 10y ago

Nuclear power plants usually dump their tertiary cooling water into the ocean. That's not a great situation for the local sea life (within a few hundred meters, IIRC), but doesn't have much significance beyond that. That is several orders of magnitudes more heat output than could conceivably come off a data centre. So their dismissiveness is likely warranted. A bit more concerning is the notion of relocating these data centre pods. Long-term "reefs" that are relocated around the world could perhaps be a new and different vector for transmitting invasive organisms. I'm not an expert, but I'd want to hear a few of them opine as to whether this creates any risks that ordinary shipping does not.

marze 10y ago
A 1 GW reactor puts 2 GW+ heat into the sea, a river, or lake. A server sub would put 200W * (say) 1000 servers, or 0.0002 GW.
verelo 10y ago
> "A bit more concerning is the notion of relocating these data centre pods" What are the requirements for cargo ships? I suspect they run into this regularly when in a dock for extended periods or undergoing maintenance that doesn't require a dry-dock.
paulcole 10y ago
>Nuclear power plants usually dump their tertiary cooling water into the ocean The heated water from a power plant can actually provide a refuge for manatees and other wildlife that prefer warm water during cold winter. They're actually known as good fishing spots in Florida!
refurb 10y ago
Nuclear power plants usually dump their tertiary cooling water into the ocean. Nuclear plants also use cooling towers to lower the temperature before it dumped back into a lake/river/ocean. You can do a Google search, but those towers are hollow on the inside. Water runs down the inside walls and convection currents move up.
- bnegreve 10y ago
  Yes, but not always. When the body of water is big enough, they don't need cooling towers.
thisnotmyacc 10y ago
I don't think the plan is relocations. More than likely, MS see server numbers growing over time, at the very least for the foreseeable future, and they'll be located once, and then decommissioned, not moved. That may change, but I doubt there are less server farms in 2020 than now. As a side note, isn't that also Google's plan - the server farm as a single entity, where nothing is really fixed, just turned off and eventually replaced? In such a world, where a server farm exists then dies, underwater seems a great place for them. No regulations, no repairs, locally powered via means that no one can complain about (NIMBYism is a powerful force) just run until decommissioned.

by nkoren 10y ago

marze 10y ago

A 1 GW reactor puts 2 GW+ heat into the sea, a river, or lake. A server sub would put 200W * (say) 1000 servers, or 0.0002 GW.

verelo 10y ago

> "A bit more concerning is the notion of relocating these data centre pods" What are the requirements for cargo ships? I suspect they run into this regularly when in a dock for extended periods or undergoing maintenance that doesn't require a dry-dock.

paulcole 10y ago

>Nuclear power plants usually dump their tertiary cooling water into the ocean The heated water from a power plant can actually provide a refuge for manatees and other wildlife that prefer warm water during cold winter. They're actually known as good fishing spots in Florida!

refurb 10y ago

Nuclear power plants usually dump their tertiary cooling water into the ocean. Nuclear plants also use cooling towers to lower the temperature before it dumped back into a lake/river/ocean. You can do a Google search, but those towers are hollow on the inside. Water runs down the inside walls and convection currents move up.

bnegreve 10y ago
Yes, but not always. When the body of water is big enough, they don't need cooling towers.

thisnotmyacc 10y ago

I don't think the plan is relocations. More than likely, MS see server numbers growing over time, at the very least for the foreseeable future, and they'll be located once, and then decommissioned, not moved. That may change, but I doubt there are less server farms in 2020 than now. As a side note, isn't that also Google's plan - the server farm as a single entity, where nothing is really fixed, just turned off and eventually replaced? In such a world, where a server farm exists then dies, underwater seems a great place for them. No regulations, no repairs, locally powered via means that no one can complain about (NIMBYism is a powerful force) just run until decommissioned.