3 ms·

i wonder if any big data centers do something similar to heat nearby cities?

• throwaway_yy2Di 12y ago
  I'm sure there's a few -- the technical term you want is "district heating". I.e., http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024952673_amazonheatxml.html http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024952673_amazonheat... "Partnering with other companies, Amazon will use waste heat from a data center in a Seattle skyscraper to warm its soaring new Denny Triangle campus across the street." http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jul/20/helsinki-data-centre-heat-homes http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jul/20/helsinki-... Helsinki data centre to heat homes "A mini revolution in eco-friendly computing is taking place in the depths of the 19th-century Orthodox Uspenski Cathedral in downtown Helsinki." "The Finnish IT company Academica has installed a new 2MW database server centre in an empty second world war bomb shelter meant to protect city officials in the event of a Russian attack. Water warmed while cooling the servers will go on to provide heat for 500 homes or 1,000 flats in a city that often suffers winters of -20C. After the heat is extracted, the water will be recycled back to cool the servers again."