4 ms·

>"In addition, the waste heat produced by LUMI will be utilised in the district heating network of Kajaani, which means that its overall carbon footprint is neg

>"In addition, the waste heat produced by LUMI will be utilised in the district heating network of Kajaani, which means that its overall carbon footprint is negative. The waste heat produced by LUMI will provide 20 percent of Kajaani’s annual demand for district heat" Pretty cool honestly. Reminds me of the datacenter that Microsoft built in a harbor to cool with the surrounding seawater.

nabla9 4y ago
There are now several datacenters in Finland that link into local district heating. Microsoft recently announced that they build similar data center in Finland too https://www.fortum.com/media/2022/03/fortum-and-microsoft-announce-worlds-largest-collaboration-heat-homes-services-and-businesses-sustainable-waste-heat-new-data-centre-region https://www.fortum.com/media/2022/03/fortum-and-microsoft-an...
alkonaut 4y ago
I hope no datacenters these days are built on the idea of just running cooling with straight electricity (e.g. no cooling water) and shifting the heat straight out to the air (no waste heat recovery). Even in the late 90's that sounds like a poor design.
- why_only_15 4y ago
  that's how all of Google's datacenters are built in my understanding. Water cooling is very expensive compared to air cooling, and only used for their supercomputer-esque applications like TPU pods. I don't know about waste heat recovery but I don't think they use that either.
  - RobertoG 4y ago
    There is also immersion cooling. The liquid is not water and it seems is pretty efficient: https://submer.com/immersion-cooling/ https://submer.com/immersion-cooling/
    - asciimike 4y ago
      Exceedingly efficient (PUEs of 1.0X) vs cold plate liquid cooled or air cooled. The tradeoff is that mineral oil is annoying (messy especially if leaked but even with maintenance) and fluorinated fluids are bad for the environment (high GWP, tend to evaporate) and crazy expensive. In either case, the fluids tend to have weird effects on plastics or other components, so you have to spend a good amount of time testing your components and ensuring that someone doesn't switch components on your motherboards without you knowing, lest it not play well.
      - namibj 4y ago
        At the low cost of a nitrogen blanket for fire safety, something like n-pentane should be suitable for immersion nucleate boiling cooling with the added benefit of not needing a heart exchanger been the immersion pool and a possible outside air hat rejection condenser. The solvent effects are relatively well understood for these medium-light alliaphatic hydrocarbons, done care ensure that aren't particularly toxic, and a nitrogen blanket for the rooms takes care of the inherent flammability issue associated with what's basically boiling gasoline on the CPU.
  - Out_of_Characte 4y ago
    Depending on what you define as water cooling, Google most definitely uses watercooling in all their datacenters. https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/17/how-google-cools-its-armada-of-servers https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/17/how-... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/google-flushes-heat-from-data-center-with-toilet-water/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/google-flushes-h...
  - tuukkah 4y ago
    "A case in point is our technologically advanced, first-of-its-kind cooling system that uses seawater from the Bay of Finland, which reduces energy use." https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/hamina/ https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/hamina/
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    You don't need to water cooled machines, you can use use cold water to chill air. Heating a community of houses rather than emitting into the air seems like it should be a requirement for building any power hungry industry.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      Using the water directly is a lot better for your efficiency, because the computers are quite a bit hotter than the air that cools them so you get higher quality heat from there.
      - alkonaut 4y ago
        Yes but that requires special gear I assume, that might drive up the cost. Just using cold water for a cheaper heat exchanger (Than some pumped medium) seems like the simple solution if you have unlimited cool water.
- FastMonkey 4y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. Something like a third of GHG emissions come from heating, if you can extract the heat from a datacentre you're displacing something like gas, it is something to hope for.
asciimike 4y ago
[Cloud and Heat](https://www.cloudandheat.com/hardware/ https://www.cloudandheat.com/hardware/) offers liquid cooling systems that purport to offer waste hot water on the town/small city scale.
weberer 4y ago
That's also in Finland. The district heating infrastructure is already in place, so if you're producing heat, its not hard to push steam in a nearby pipe and make an easy PR statement about sustainability.
- danielvaughn 4y ago
  though couldn't the district then save money by either reducing their own infra, or eliminating it entirely?
jupp0r 4y ago
Their definition of negative carbon footprint is broken. Unless there is something in the computer that permanently binds carbon from the atmosphere.
- ravi-delia 4y ago
  Not when it is replacing gas heat, as it likely is!
  - jupp0r 4y ago
    That would make it neutral not negative, but only if it was powered fully by renewables which were constructed and operated in a fully carbon neutral way.
    - mike_hock 4y ago
      It could be that electrical district heating has a lower carbon footprint than gas heating (if the electricity is sufficiently low-carbon). Still doesn't make it "carbon-negative," just kills two birds with one stone by using the same energy both for heating and computing.
      - ravi-delia 4y ago
        I see what you're saying with this, but the comparison isn't a world where electricity is used for the heating, it's one where gas is (gas heating is almost always more efficient than electric heating, since you lose a lot of heat at the generator). So either the heat is radiated out into the atmosphere uselessly, and some amount of natural gas is burned, or the heat is used and 20% less natural gas is burned. That's a carbon footprint of -20%.
- patall 4y ago
  They run the computer carbon neutral and then use the excess heat to replace carbon derived heat. Hence, there is less carbon emission while the computer is running. Their definition is not broken, just based on comparison to the initial state (that emmits CO2) and not a zero emission state. Like Google's supposed carbon negativity by reducing the emission of other peoples cow sheds.
20100thibault 4y ago
Www.qscale.com recuperate heat for 100+ Football field of greenhouse in North America And FYI a properly designed liquid cooling facility is cheaper and more efficient then an air cooled one. Hopefully everything will switch to liquid cooling just like car engines are all liquid cooled !

nabla9 4y ago

There are now several datacenters in Finland that link into local district heating. Microsoft recently announced that they build similar data center in Finland too https://www.fortum.com/media/2022/03/fortum-and-microsoft-announce-worlds-largest-collaboration-heat-homes-services-and-businesses-sustainable-waste-heat-new-data-centre-region https://www.fortum.com/media/2022/03/fortum-and-microsoft-an...

alkonaut 4y ago

I hope no datacenters these days are built on the idea of just running cooling with straight electricity (e.g. no cooling water) and shifting the heat straight out to the air (no waste heat recovery). Even in the late 90's that sounds like a poor design.

why_only_15 4y ago
that's how all of Google's datacenters are built in my understanding. Water cooling is very expensive compared to air cooling, and only used for their supercomputer-esque applications like TPU pods. I don't know about waste heat recovery but I don't think they use that either.
- RobertoG 4y ago
  There is also immersion cooling. The liquid is not water and it seems is pretty efficient: https://submer.com/immersion-cooling/ https://submer.com/immersion-cooling/
  - asciimike 4y ago
    Exceedingly efficient (PUEs of 1.0X) vs cold plate liquid cooled or air cooled. The tradeoff is that mineral oil is annoying (messy especially if leaked but even with maintenance) and fluorinated fluids are bad for the environment (high GWP, tend to evaporate) and crazy expensive. In either case, the fluids tend to have weird effects on plastics or other components, so you have to spend a good amount of time testing your components and ensuring that someone doesn't switch components on your motherboards without you knowing, lest it not play well.
    - namibj 4y ago
      At the low cost of a nitrogen blanket for fire safety, something like n-pentane should be suitable for immersion nucleate boiling cooling with the added benefit of not needing a heart exchanger been the immersion pool and a possible outside air hat rejection condenser. The solvent effects are relatively well understood for these medium-light alliaphatic hydrocarbons, done care ensure that aren't particularly toxic, and a nitrogen blanket for the rooms takes care of the inherent flammability issue associated with what's basically boiling gasoline on the CPU.
- Out_of_Characte 4y ago
  Depending on what you define as water cooling, Google most definitely uses watercooling in all their datacenters. https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/17/how-google-cools-its-armada-of-servers https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/10/17/how-... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/google-flushes-heat-from-data-center-with-toilet-water/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/google-flushes-h...
- tuukkah 4y ago
  "A case in point is our technologically advanced, first-of-its-kind cooling system that uses seawater from the Bay of Finland, which reduces energy use." https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/hamina/ https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/hamina/
- alkonaut 4y ago
  You don't need to water cooled machines, you can use use cold water to chill air. Heating a community of houses rather than emitting into the air seems like it should be a requirement for building any power hungry industry.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Using the water directly is a lot better for your efficiency, because the computers are quite a bit hotter than the air that cools them so you get higher quality heat from there.
    - alkonaut 4y ago
      Yes but that requires special gear I assume, that might drive up the cost. Just using cold water for a cheaper heat exchanger (Than some pumped medium) seems like the simple solution if you have unlimited cool water.
FastMonkey 4y ago
I don't know why you're being downvoted. Something like a third of GHG emissions come from heating, if you can extract the heat from a datacentre you're displacing something like gas, it is something to hope for.

asciimike 4y ago

[Cloud and Heat](https://www.cloudandheat.com/hardware/ https://www.cloudandheat.com/hardware/) offers liquid cooling systems that purport to offer waste hot water on the town/small city scale.

weberer 4y ago

That's also in Finland. The district heating infrastructure is already in place, so if you're producing heat, its not hard to push steam in a nearby pipe and make an easy PR statement about sustainability.

danielvaughn 4y ago
though couldn't the district then save money by either reducing their own infra, or eliminating it entirely?

jupp0r 4y ago

Their definition of negative carbon footprint is broken. Unless there is something in the computer that permanently binds carbon from the atmosphere.

ravi-delia 4y ago
Not when it is replacing gas heat, as it likely is!
- jupp0r 4y ago
  That would make it neutral not negative, but only if it was powered fully by renewables which were constructed and operated in a fully carbon neutral way.
  - mike_hock 4y ago
    It could be that electrical district heating has a lower carbon footprint than gas heating (if the electricity is sufficiently low-carbon). Still doesn't make it "carbon-negative," just kills two birds with one stone by using the same energy both for heating and computing.
    - ravi-delia 4y ago
      I see what you're saying with this, but the comparison isn't a world where electricity is used for the heating, it's one where gas is (gas heating is almost always more efficient than electric heating, since you lose a lot of heat at the generator). So either the heat is radiated out into the atmosphere uselessly, and some amount of natural gas is burned, or the heat is used and 20% less natural gas is burned. That's a carbon footprint of -20%.
patall 4y ago
They run the computer carbon neutral and then use the excess heat to replace carbon derived heat. Hence, there is less carbon emission while the computer is running. Their definition is not broken, just based on comparison to the initial state (that emmits CO2) and not a zero emission state. Like Google's supposed carbon negativity by reducing the emission of other peoples cow sheds.

20100thibault 4y ago

Www.qscale.com recuperate heat for 100+ Football field of greenhouse in North America And FYI a properly designed liquid cooling facility is cheaper and more efficient then an air cooled one. Hopefully everything will switch to liquid cooling just like car engines are all liquid cooled !