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Instead of untested wind farms on liners, why not just use nuclear power. It is well tested (think aircraft carriers). Furthermore, while such a reactor may nee
by newt0311 18y ago
Instead of untested wind farms on liners, why not just use nuclear power. It is well tested (think aircraft carriers). Furthermore, while such a reactor may need fuel and disposal services, the wind farms will likely also require spare parts so the self sustenance thing may come out to be even or even in the favor of nuclear. Furthermore, nuclear reactors have a significantly better space/watt ratio allowing for more space for crew and servers.
There are other factors. Wind is intermittent -- not good for servers which have to be active 24/7. To use it would require massive (bigger even than what is already there) batteries which themselves would entail a massive extra cost. Nuclear power also allows easy desalination of sea water which (I assume) would be required for cooling sensitive electronic equipment (expensive servers).
The red tape associated with such an idea would be pretty scary though.
- cypress-hill 18y agonever happen. the difference between the navy's reactors and google's reactor would be a fleet of submarines and f-18s keeping them from falling into the wrong hands
- j1o1h1n 18y agoYou forgot the cost of hiring of mercenaries to protect your nukes from pirates.
- newt0311 18y agogood point. data centers do not have their own military contingent like navy aircraft carriers. Wonder what that does to the cost equation. It seems to be somewhat fixed so if we make this big enough... One could also try different technologies which make it harder to weaponize the nuclear fuel like pebble bed reactors but then thats never been deployed on a ship.
- netcan 18y agoI imagine that Google has a clean tech agenda here as well as a 'how do I cool & power a data center' agenda.
- noonespecial 18y agoNot to worry. The general consensus is that the courts will not hold google responsible for piracy...