7 ms·

Can't say I'm terribly excited about another massive scale usage of forever chemicals, aka flourocarbons. Didn't Intel get the memo, we're trying to reduce usag

by jabl 4y ago

Can't say I'm terribly excited about another massive scale usage of forever chemicals, aka flourocarbons. Didn't Intel get the memo, we're trying to reduce usage of these (see e.g. the EU F-gas regulations) not increase. There's a coolant that's widely used, non-toxic, environmentally benign, cheap, abundant and non-flammable. Yeah, water. So it's not dielectric so needs some engineering. But humanity has a decent track record of building systems with pipes, hoses, heat exchangers and so forth. Same can't be said for cleaning up Superfund sites.

antisthenes 4y ago
> Same can't be said for cleaning up Superfund sites. It's a pretty huge leap to go from "closed loop CFC cooling system for a computer" to "superfund sites". What am I missing? If we're building a system with pipes and heat exchangers, why can't the coolant be a low-impact CFC rather than water? It's not a system where you just vent those cooling liquids in the atmosphere.
- BenoitP 4y ago
  Some of these CFC are almost eternal compounds. They are so stable that no natural light frequency from the sun can break them apart. Sulfur hexafluoride, used in high voltage circuit breakers, has a half-life of 3200 years, has a global warming potential 22800 times that of CO2. So you don't want to vent them, but any accident/leak can be considered a catastrophe. That's just the physics of it: highly dielectric + stable often makes for a big greenhouse gas offender.
  - moralestapia 4y ago
    Yup, at least Superfund is contained. This is much worse and the scale the computer consumer market is huge.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  Could you use the heat? Like to pasteurise milk or something?
  - tlb 4y ago
    Whatever you’re heating up has to be a little cooler than the coolest chips in your system, because heat only transfers that way. Semiconductor lifetime goes down with temperature, roughly doubling failure rate for every 10C increase. So if you want to heat something, it can only be to a low temperature. Heating buildings can work, but pasteurization requires temperatures near 100 C which reduces chip lifetime too much to be economical.
tremon 4y ago
Fresh (potable) water is going to be a precious resource too, and salt water is probably out of the question for its corrosiveness. So I'm not sure replacing fluorocarbons with water will be any better. Aren't there other liquids we can explore?
- jeromegv 4y ago
  How much water do you really need to cool a computer? Isn’t that negligeable?
  - kadoban 4y ago
    _maybe_ a liter a year, for consumer water loops. Yeah, there's about a thousand things I'd worry about before the water usage of cooling computers.
    - hoseja 4y ago
      Hey, plastic straws are also negligible and pearl-clutchers made them an issue too.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- javajosh 4y ago
  Salt water is already routinely used to cool something: engines in boats. The key component is the heat exchanger that uses the salt water to cool the fresh water circulating through the engine itself. I don't see why you couldn't do something similar for a computer.
robocat 4y ago
From a quick internet skim, fluorocarbons are uncommon, they are used for two phase cooling (boiling and condensing). Single-phase immersion cooling is far more common e.g. Electrosafe (used in Intel’s 2012 tests [1]) is a hydrocarbon fluid. Quote from googling: “Single phase immersion cooling fluids can come under several categories which include: hydrofluoroethers, hydrocarbons, silicon oils and water/glycol. Single phase immersion cooling has benefits over 2 phase immersion cooling, in that they tend to be less expensive both due to the liquid itself and the system used to contain them. The ease of implementation was highlighted by Varma [132] who compared Novec 7000, a 2-phase fluorocarbon-based fluid, to GRC Electrosafe, a single phase hydrocarbon based fluid” [1] https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/04/intel-explores-mineral-oil-cooling/ https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/04/inte...
hristov 4y ago
The article did not say they would be using flourocarbons. They probably have not decided on what to use. So lets not judge them prematurely. Furthermore not all flourocarbons are toxic or environmentally dangerous. But most importantly, they seem to be pricy. If this stuff is going to be successful in the datacenter industry, a lot of it will be required. So intel will likely go with the cheaper option -- mineral oil.

by jabl 4y ago

antisthenes 4y ago

> Same can't be said for cleaning up Superfund sites. It's a pretty huge leap to go from "closed loop CFC cooling system for a computer" to "superfund sites". What am I missing? If we're building a system with pipes and heat exchangers, why can't the coolant be a low-impact CFC rather than water? It's not a system where you just vent those cooling liquids in the atmosphere.

BenoitP 4y ago
Some of these CFC are almost eternal compounds. They are so stable that no natural light frequency from the sun can break them apart. Sulfur hexafluoride, used in high voltage circuit breakers, has a half-life of 3200 years, has a global warming potential 22800 times that of CO2. So you don't want to vent them, but any accident/leak can be considered a catastrophe. That's just the physics of it: highly dielectric + stable often makes for a big greenhouse gas offender.
- moralestapia 4y ago
  Yup, at least Superfund is contained. This is much worse and the scale the computer consumer market is huge.
2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
Could you use the heat? Like to pasteurise milk or something?
- tlb 4y ago
  Whatever you’re heating up has to be a little cooler than the coolest chips in your system, because heat only transfers that way. Semiconductor lifetime goes down with temperature, roughly doubling failure rate for every 10C increase. So if you want to heat something, it can only be to a low temperature. Heating buildings can work, but pasteurization requires temperatures near 100 C which reduces chip lifetime too much to be economical.

tremon 4y ago

Fresh (potable) water is going to be a precious resource too, and salt water is probably out of the question for its corrosiveness. So I'm not sure replacing fluorocarbons with water will be any better. Aren't there other liquids we can explore?

jeromegv 4y ago
How much water do you really need to cool a computer? Isn’t that negligeable?
- kadoban 4y ago
  _maybe_ a liter a year, for consumer water loops. Yeah, there's about a thousand things I'd worry about before the water usage of cooling computers.
  - hoseja 4y ago
    Hey, plastic straws are also negligible and pearl-clutchers made them an issue too.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
javajosh 4y ago
Salt water is already routinely used to cool something: engines in boats. The key component is the heat exchanger that uses the salt water to cool the fresh water circulating through the engine itself. I don't see why you couldn't do something similar for a computer.

robocat 4y ago

From a quick internet skim, fluorocarbons are uncommon, they are used for two phase cooling (boiling and condensing). Single-phase immersion cooling is far more common e.g. Electrosafe (used in Intel’s 2012 tests [1]) is a hydrocarbon fluid. Quote from googling: “Single phase immersion cooling fluids can come under several categories which include: hydrofluoroethers, hydrocarbons, silicon oils and water/glycol. Single phase immersion cooling has benefits over 2 phase immersion cooling, in that they tend to be less expensive both due to the liquid itself and the system used to contain them. The ease of implementation was highlighted by Varma [132] who compared Novec 7000, a 2-phase fluorocarbon-based fluid, to GRC Electrosafe, a single phase hydrocarbon based fluid” [1] https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/04/intel-explores-mineral-oil-cooling/ https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/04/inte...

hristov 4y ago

The article did not say they would be using flourocarbons. They probably have not decided on what to use. So lets not judge them prematurely. Furthermore not all flourocarbons are toxic or environmentally dangerous. But most importantly, they seem to be pricy. If this stuff is going to be successful in the datacenter industry, a lot of it will be required. So intel will likely go with the cheaper option -- mineral oil.