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

NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

The challenge now: To make every day Earth Day.

YESTERDAY

THINGS-TO-THINK-ABOUT WEDNESDAY, August 23:

  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And The New Energy Boom
  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And the EV Revolution
  • THE DAY BEFORE

  • Weekend Video: Coming Ocean Current Collapse Could Up Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Impacts Of The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current Collapse
  • Weekend Video: More Facts On The AMOC
  • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 15-16:

  • Weekend Video: The Truth About China And The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Florida Insurance At The Climate Crisis Storm’s Eye
  • Weekend Video: The 9-1-1 On Rooftop Solar
  • THE DAY BEFORE THAT

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 8-9:

  • Weekend Video: Bill Nye Science Guy On The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: The Changes Causing The Crisis
  • Weekend Video: A “Massive Global Solar Boom” Now
  • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 1-2:

  • The Global New Energy Boom Accelerates
  • Ukraine Faces The Climate Crisis While Fighting To Survive
  • Texas Heat And Politics Of Denial
  • --------------------------

    --------------------------

    Founding Editor Herman K. Trabish

    --------------------------

    --------------------------

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, June 17-18

  • Fixing The Power System
  • The Energy Storage Solution
  • New Energy Equity With Community Solar
  • Weekend Video: The Way Wind Can Help Win Wars
  • Weekend Video: New Support For Hydropower
  • Some details about NewEnergyNews and the man behind the curtain: Herman K. Trabish, Agua Dulce, CA., Doctor with my hands, Writer with my head, Student of New Energy and Human Experience with my heart

    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

    -------------------

    -------------------

      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

    -------------------

    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

  • ---------------
  • WEEKEND VIDEOS, August 24-26:
  • Happy One-Year Birthday, Inflation Reduction Act
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 1
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 2

    Wednesday, September 10, 2008

    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.”

    0 Comments:

    Post a Comment

    << Home