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Well you're making it sound as if the data centers being cooled somehow wouldn't happen otherwise. Seeing as how the alternative is to cool using A/C, surely it
by sushid 8y ago
Well you're making it sound as if the data centers being cooled somehow wouldn't happen otherwise. Seeing as how the alternative is to cool using A/C, surely it's the case of causing less harm than the alternative?
Of course you could argue that the lower cost of this cooling method will create a larger demand for cheaper servers/data storage, which increases net harm, for which I have no answer.
- fwdpropaganda 8y ago> Of course you could argue that the lower cost of this cooling method will create a larger demand for cheaper servers/data storage, which increases net harm, for which I have no answer. That argument doensn't apply here: demand isn't currently being constrained by us being affraid of the environmental impact of datacenters.
- adrianN 8y agoedit: nevermind I can't read
- fwdpropaganda 8y agoYou don't believe demand isn't being constrained in the way I described? So you believe that people are looking at cats on facebook, and stop because they're worried about the environmental impact of facebook's datacenters? You're joking...
- lclarkmichalek 8y agoFWIW, your local FB datacenter is likely powered by 100% renewable energy :)
- sushid 8y agoSure it does. If the costs of these datacenter operations were extremely high (say, by a factor of 100), you bet we'd have lower bitrate for Youtube, fewer GB allowances on Office 365, Dropbox, Gmail, etc. Conversely, if it became literally free to operate, you can imagine we'd have a higher demand for data, storage, etc. It's like how center pivot irrigation reduced the water usage rate per acre but increased demand for water usage in various areas because costs were lowered as well.
- icebraining 8y agoThe overall heat increase is the same, but the localized effects mights not be: fewer beings live in the atmosphere, and air displaces that heat faster than water, reducing the local concentration.
- Maybestring 8y ago>The overall heat increase is the same That's not the case if you're comparing with AC. You have to use energy (generating more waste heat) to pump heat up a temperature gradient.
- grkvlt 8y agoWait, is that true? Fewer organisms in air versus water? Is that due to the huge amount of e.g. zooplankton maybe? Curious...
- FLUX-YOU 8y ago>which increases net harm, for which I have no answer. Find a desert under the sea and drop them all there. Some place that's basically water and dirt. It's probably going to be large enough that you could dump all of humanity's data centers there for the next 100 years and still have room to spare.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoThere'll also be a lot less energy consumed in the cooling process - A/C is probably grossly inefficient compared to moving water around.