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I'm sorry but this is such a 'goalpost' movement here that simply takes away a lot of context. The whole point of doing a dc underground is to reduce the hvac e

I'm sorry but this is such a 'goalpost' movement here that simply takes away a lot of context. The whole point of doing a dc underground is to reduce the hvac energy consumption which has a much larger ecological impact in terms of heat generated, power usage, potential greenhouse gas usage. The name of the game here is energy efficiency and conservation. Use less power by reducing power distribution loss at scale. Want an even greener solution? Make em nuclear powered like a giant submarine- that way the power generation isn't creating a heavg ecological impact. I think your posing of these questions genuinely fail to appreciate this for what it is, a successful proof of concept that will permit a step toward a greener future.

nexuist 6y ago
I don't think jacquesm is off the mark in asking these questions, especially: > what is the direct ecological impact of doing this at scale What is the impact on sea creatures if we put these giant heated cylinders in their territory? Is there any impact? I really doubt we have the answers yet. > at scale ...also implies that there will be more than one. So if one heat cylinder doesn't do anything, what about 10? 100? 1000? 10,000? The cylinder pictured is really quite small, you'd need to make a ton of them or drop one mega-cylinder to compete with land based centers. And it's not like our current data centers are keeping up with computing demand; we are building more today and presumably will continue building them decades into the future. So these are extremely important questions. We shouldn't dismiss this as a workable idea but we should also keep in mind that fucking up the ocean is a far more consequential action than fucking up some acres of land.
- mc32 6y ago
  There are hot thermal vents and underwater volcanoes throughout the oceans. Creatures adapt. The oceans are huge. Yes, if they place them in ecologically fragile environments that would be a problem —the solution is put them offshore where they don’t bother anything.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    > Creatures adapt. You're missing half the saying. Creatures adapt, or die. Given the recent articles about how species extermination is accelerating, it's a valid assumption that as many are dying as are adapting. Not to mention, oceanic currents are propelled by heat. Changing that balance (whether by man-made resources or natural sources) could change the currents, which would impact coastal weather patterns. https://e360.yale.edu/features/will_climate_change_jam_the_global_ocean_conveyor_belt https://e360.yale.edu/features/will_climate_change_jam_the_g...
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      Far more of earth is covered by oceans than by land. Why are these questions more relevant when building an underwater DC than a ground-level one?
      - midev 6y ago
        They're not? People have asked these questions for decades, hence why they're exploring new options....
      - falcolas 6y ago
        They're not more relevant, but they are equally relevant. This is adding the ocean as a new layer in the overall heat dissipation stack for datacenter computing; it's impacting a whole new ecosystem that it wasn't before. Thus, we need to be asking these kinds of questions about how this will impact oceanic ecosystems.
        mc32 6y ago
        It is adding... the question is how much compared to natural systems that add heat to the oceans already (in addition to sunlight, thermal vents, oceanic fissures, underwater volcanoes, etc.) is it significant or is it insignificant?
        6y ago
- WJW 6y ago
  It's not a poor question, but the phrasing implies that the ones constructing this test datacenter have not thought about this. Given that the engineers in question have spent many months designing and constructing this device, it's extremely unlikely that some random commentor on HN (even one with interests as varied as Jacques) is going to have questions that have not come up yet. Asking the questions here on HN instead of in a place where the designers are likely to read them makes it seem it's more of a karma grab than a reasonable "I have concerns" type situation that he really wants to do something about. Nor are random HN commenters very likely to have big, fact-backed contributions btw. It's just alarmism under the pretense of innocently asking questions.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    I don't go around chasing the scientists that have put this together because they likely have better things to do with their time. I have no assumptions either way, and if they do happen to frequent HN the chances are actually better to get such questions answered here than anywhere else. Karma grab? FWIW I offered to hand back in all my karma points because they are utterly meaningless but Dang wouldn't have it so please spare me the nonsense accusations. HN was still free to write to, contribute and ask questions of last I checked, I don't need you - nor anybody else - to tell me what I can or can not do here, nor do I need you to try to put me in a negative light for trying to understand something better. FWIW humanity has an extremely well developed skill called problem solving. We can do just about anything in the laboratory. But when scaling up those laboratory experiments we often find out that what we thought was a neg positive ends up being a net negative. Before we sink a few 10's of thousands of data centers onto the continental shelf I'd like to know the ecological impact, even if that has already been studied (which I'm actually not aware of). See also: plastic, freon, lead (in gasoline) and a whole raft of other things that seemed like a great idea at the time but for which we did not have the long term predictions when they mattered most: at the beginning, mostly because people did not ask the right questions. Scientists in the beginning of the previous century: "Plastics, they last for ever! yay!" and a hundred years later "Plastics, they last for ever! Oops!". Anyway, the steady stream of quality answers in this thread proves you more wrong than I ever will but this comment reflects poorly on HN, me, and ultimately, on you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

nexuist 6y ago

I don't think jacquesm is off the mark in asking these questions, especially: > what is the direct ecological impact of doing this at scale What is the impact on sea creatures if we put these giant heated cylinders in their territory? Is there any impact? I really doubt we have the answers yet. > at scale ...also implies that there will be more than one. So if one heat cylinder doesn't do anything, what about 10? 100? 1000? 10,000? The cylinder pictured is really quite small, you'd need to make a ton of them or drop one mega-cylinder to compete with land based centers. And it's not like our current data centers are keeping up with computing demand; we are building more today and presumably will continue building them decades into the future. So these are extremely important questions. We shouldn't dismiss this as a workable idea but we should also keep in mind that fucking up the ocean is a far more consequential action than fucking up some acres of land.

mc32 6y ago
There are hot thermal vents and underwater volcanoes throughout the oceans. Creatures adapt. The oceans are huge. Yes, if they place them in ecologically fragile environments that would be a problem —the solution is put them offshore where they don’t bother anything.
- falcolas 6y ago
  > Creatures adapt. You're missing half the saying. Creatures adapt, or die. Given the recent articles about how species extermination is accelerating, it's a valid assumption that as many are dying as are adapting. Not to mention, oceanic currents are propelled by heat. Changing that balance (whether by man-made resources or natural sources) could change the currents, which would impact coastal weather patterns. https://e360.yale.edu/features/will_climate_change_jam_the_global_ocean_conveyor_belt https://e360.yale.edu/features/will_climate_change_jam_the_g...
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    Far more of earth is covered by oceans than by land. Why are these questions more relevant when building an underwater DC than a ground-level one?
    - midev 6y ago
      They're not? People have asked these questions for decades, hence why they're exploring new options....
    - falcolas 6y ago
      They're not more relevant, but they are equally relevant. This is adding the ocean as a new layer in the overall heat dissipation stack for datacenter computing; it's impacting a whole new ecosystem that it wasn't before. Thus, we need to be asking these kinds of questions about how this will impact oceanic ecosystems.
      - mc32 6y ago
        It is adding... the question is how much compared to natural systems that add heat to the oceans already (in addition to sunlight, thermal vents, oceanic fissures, underwater volcanoes, etc.) is it significant or is it insignificant?
        6y ago
WJW 6y ago
It's not a poor question, but the phrasing implies that the ones constructing this test datacenter have not thought about this. Given that the engineers in question have spent many months designing and constructing this device, it's extremely unlikely that some random commentor on HN (even one with interests as varied as Jacques) is going to have questions that have not come up yet. Asking the questions here on HN instead of in a place where the designers are likely to read them makes it seem it's more of a karma grab than a reasonable "I have concerns" type situation that he really wants to do something about. Nor are random HN commenters very likely to have big, fact-backed contributions btw. It's just alarmism under the pretense of innocently asking questions.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  I don't go around chasing the scientists that have put this together because they likely have better things to do with their time. I have no assumptions either way, and if they do happen to frequent HN the chances are actually better to get such questions answered here than anywhere else. Karma grab? FWIW I offered to hand back in all my karma points because they are utterly meaningless but Dang wouldn't have it so please spare me the nonsense accusations. HN was still free to write to, contribute and ask questions of last I checked, I don't need you - nor anybody else - to tell me what I can or can not do here, nor do I need you to try to put me in a negative light for trying to understand something better. FWIW humanity has an extremely well developed skill called problem solving. We can do just about anything in the laboratory. But when scaling up those laboratory experiments we often find out that what we thought was a neg positive ends up being a net negative. Before we sink a few 10's of thousands of data centers onto the continental shelf I'd like to know the ecological impact, even if that has already been studied (which I'm actually not aware of). See also: plastic, freon, lead (in gasoline) and a whole raft of other things that seemed like a great idea at the time but for which we did not have the long term predictions when they mattered most: at the beginning, mostly because people did not ask the right questions. Scientists in the beginning of the previous century: "Plastics, they last for ever! yay!" and a hundred years later "Plastics, they last for ever! Oops!". Anyway, the steady stream of quality answers in this thread proves you more wrong than I ever will but this comment reflects poorly on HN, me, and ultimately, on you.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]