Google Cooling Entire Data Center With Seawater

... and adding to global worming...

Wow thats pretty cool as long as the salt from the water doesn't rust the metal and electrical components.

holy crap, how many servers are these bafoons gonna be running?

First, I'd Like To State That Sea/Salt Water Does Hell On Maintenance For Pipes(See Alcatraz For Evidence), 2ndly If This Works, It Has The Capability To Become Like The Eco Nuclear power-plant Surrounded by Wildlife Protections, Which Can Be Not Only Awesome, But Could Also Promote Job Growth As Well

They will likely use a heat exchanger for a closed loop in the datacentre with a non conductive/corrorive fluid.

I don't mean this as some sort of personal attack or anything, but seriously, anyone who goes out of their way to type like that... At least people who ignore the use of punctuation and such aren't putting effort into purposely... I could say a lot of different negative things, but I think I've gotten my point across.

When they clean these,they'll find huge algae monsters in their pipes if they use seawater.

Corsair's H99999O!

I hope you are joking.

How long did it take you to type that? Trying to impress people with your caps lingo.

Yup. However, corrosion would still be an issue in the seawater piping. But, it's nothing a few engineers couldn't figure out.

Honestly this is pretty common. Any industrial plant near large bodies of water will often use that water for cooling. It's much more cost effective than using city water or ground water.

Ships use seawater to cool everything. Hell on pipes? Not really, sacrificial anodes made from zinc greatly inhibit corrosion, that and the alloy the pipes are made from. The cooling potential far outweighs the maintenance involved.

the tubing is coated with some kind of glass or poliamide material....therefore salt water shouldn't affect it

So long as Google doesn't have a reactor leak and contaminates the surrounding sea water with radiation, it'll be ok.

Uhh, the last thing the ocean needs is More help heating up. One data center is one thing, but compounded by an increased use in the technology, they're looking at further destabilizing an already endangered ecosystem... but I mean who cares, really it's only the future generations that'll have to contend with with the numerous environmental issues we've already set in motion, we'll be fine probably till our generation dies out... probably.

How does seawater cooling of remote servers would promote job growth?

lol, you could have a million of these data centers spread out every mile across every coast and not affect the temperature of THE OCEAN by a single degree. Especially considering they try to cool the water back down before returning it. The only potential damage to the environment is any sealife that might exists near the "exhaust" portals of the buildings. Things like algae and maybe some fish might not like a small rise in temp. But anything beyond half a mile or so would never notice the difference.

the impact this will cause is far less then if they used traditional means of cooling... techonology got us into this problem and techonology can get us out

I hope they have a backup plan because there is going to be a on-going maintenance cost with this setup.

hey, worms are cool.

This is a pretty cool, new idea!

mainframe computers where water cooled back in the 1970's. So this really is not new!

oh great, now if there is an earthquake - the data will be spewed all over the place, causing a data meltdown and then the info will contaminate all the Finnish vegies grown in that district.

Toronto has district cooling, which cools several major office buildings and a data centre, using lake water. It's a good way to reduce energy usage, if implemented and used appropriately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enwave_Energy_Corporation

Oh, yes. The heat magically disappears because they have good intentions? 'cool the water back down before returning it' (meaning heating the air) Heat is heat. It has to go somewhere. I cannot believe the number of ignorant comments here. The savings is not in environmental heat output, it is in not having air conditioning compressors, coolant, pressurized reverse-carnot cycle piping, etc.

And to those warning them about corrosion, I'm suuuuuure they never thought of that and they'll appreciate it a lot. Is there anyone one the world experienced with seawater coolant systems? (except all ship building engineers, nuclear power station engineers, water desalination engineers...)

Yep. Those big sea snakes will have a cozy place to live.

Oh, wait. You mean global warming.

So if there's a Tsunami, then the sea water would wipe out the entire data center?

Most be some heavy filtering going on. Any debris will scar the pipes.

I see we've successfully profiled all those who have no concept of heat transfer in liquid and/or the size of the ocean.

I see we've successfully profiled all those who have no concept of the significance of small, additive changes. An individual automobile only outputs a little pollution, so all cars put together, there's only a little pollution right?

...if the data center was in a Pacific or Indian ocean coastal area instead of Finland where it is planned. See, that's the thing about where something is; It's not in some other place where it isn't.