OCEAN ENERGY TO POWER GOOGLE’S SEA-GOING DATA CENTER

Talk about innovation! Talk about thinking outside the box!

Google has a plan to put its servers in cargo containers and send them out to sea on ocean-going barges like a navy of data centers.

More than that, Google wants to build the barges so they can harvest the ocean’s wave energy and use it to power the data centers.

From the “innovation never comes from nowhere” and “competition is a good thing” files: Google has always customized its data centers and data center equipment. Picking up on an idea popularized by many major server makers (Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Dell, Sun Microsystems) Microsoft recently followed in the Google tradition with its own innovative data center concept, using modular shipping containers for servers in the soon-to-be world’s largest data center near Chicago.

Jumping on the shipping container idea, Google simply proposes to take it to the next logical level – shipping them out to sea.

Even without the New Energy angle, the concept is a major step forward because it is likely to reduce the energy necessary to cool the servers and it will get data centers closer to users, reducing the power needed to send the data.

Google is also planning to harvest wave energy to help power its servers.

NewEnergyNews has seen no unique ocean energy designs to go with the Google concept yet but the first huge advantage of the idea is immediately obvious: There is no need for the expensive ocean floor cables necessary to transfer ocean energy-generated electricity to the grid onshore.

Another advantage: Power usage and power production are equally constant.

Now, how about adding solar panels across the top of the stacked containers?

And how about a SkySail for extra power on long voyages?

Innovation. Most of it is impractical but once in a while something turns into the next Google.

A sketch of the idea. (click to enlarge)
Another sketch of the idea. (click to enlarge)

Google’s Search Goes Out to Sea
Ashlee Vance, September 9, 2008 (NY Times)

WHO
Google

WHAT
Google’s data navy: mobile data center platforms at sea made up of containers filled with servers, storage systems and networking gear stacked on ocean-going barges and other vessels.

Looks like Google is thinking of using this type of wave energy device. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
Historically, Google has built its own servers and networking equipment.

WHERE
- Google wants to put computing centers closer to users in regions where it’s not practical, cost-effective or efficient to build a data center on land.
- Google is based in Mountain View, CA

WHY
- With the data closer to users, data comes and goes faster.
- Wave energy could be absorbed at the barges and used to power the server centers.
- Server makers like Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Dell and Sun Microsystems package their data centers in shipping containers for sale to service providers, the military and research labs.
- Google proposes to make container-sized data centers to be handled by cranes like other ocean-going containers.
- Floating data centers might be especially useful to the military and during large-scale emergencies or other events.

How about adding a little extra running power? (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- The description of the concept in the patent: “…[a] water-based data center.”
- From the patent application: “In general, computing centers are located on a ship or ships, which are then anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away from computers in the data center…”
- From the patent application: “For example, a military presence may be needed in an area, a natural disaster may bring a need for computing or telecommunication presence in an area until the natural infrastructure can be repaired or rebuilt, and certain events may draw thousands of people who may put a load on the local computing infrastructure…Often, such transient events occur near water, such as a river or an ocean.”