
Google flushes heat from data center with toilet water - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/google-flushes-heat-from-data-center-with-toilet-water.ars
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ChuckMcM
Wow, what is up with data center news? I mean seriously.

I joke with folks who think running a datacenter is 'exciting' its like
watching grass grow, except its dark and their is no grass. Maybe I should
blog about this stuff, but at social events it seems impossible to maintain a
conversation about apex cooling vs planar cooling vs directed airflow or
conduction, or 208 three phase vs 120 single phase vs DC. Perhaps I go to the
wrong types of parties :-)

~~~
kbutler
In secondary school, I had a chance to visit a supercomputer center with a
Cray Y-MP (like this one: <http://planetromero.com/2010/01/gametales-cray-
ymp>). Turns out it's just a big cabinet. Hooked up to other big cabinets. Oh,
and when you sat down at a login terminal, it was just a Unix box. Coolest
thing about it was the attached bench (Cool! I sat on a supercomputer! Hmm.
Not very comfy.)

 _sigh_

From the outside, the datacenter is an inaccessible realm of high technology,
carefully engineered to maximize various important features. From the inside,
it's cabinets and wiring and plumbing.

~~~
justincormack
Except the Barcelona Supercomputer Centre, in a church...

<http://degiorgi.math.hr/~vsego/phun/beautiful_supercomputer/>

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Klinky
Here's a youtube video about the system:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJnlgM1yEU0>

Basically they're taking pre-treated water from the city sewage plant and
running it through their own mini-treatment plant to a level that allows them
to use it in their cooling system. They do mention filtration & sterilization
from chlorine, so I am wondering really how much different the cooling water
is compared to potable drinking water.

The water they're getting from the sewage treatment plant is definitely not
raw toilet water. I imagine Google is getting a big discount by treating their
own water.

~~~
jcampbell1
Sewage waste tends to have high amounts of pharmaceuticals excreted in urine,
which are hard to filter but biodegrade. I wouldn't drink the Google water it,
but it probably has no immediate toxicity.

Google must treat the water with chlorine, because of risks like Legionnaires'
disease.

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veguss
Wouldn't the dirty water clog the pipe? Via mineral deposits etc?

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olihb
In the video, they say that the water is filtered and chlorinated before going
into the cooling system.

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vgurgov
I am wondering if this water circulates within their datacenter going through
some cooling system or they have constant stream connected to community water
pipe? Can someone explain? e.g. how big might be daily consumption of this
facility? is there serious "green" difference of its mostly PR trick?

~~~
rhplus
I'm not sure exactly how much water these data-centers use, but it's huge
enough that Microsoft built a water treatment plant next to its DC in Quincy,
WA, which it now leases back to the city for $10/year in exchange for reduced
water rates. In that scenario the water is reused by treating at each stage
between the fruit processors, the data center and the city.

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/msdatacenters/archive/2011/10/13/...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/msdatacenters/archive/2011/10/13/microsoft-
s-data-center-takes-fresh-approach-on-water-reuse.aspx)

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nohat
It occurs to me that one way to save power would be to specifically design
your servers to operate at significantly higher temperature, that way cooling
is much cheaper and less power intensive.

~~~
abthomson
Very true, search for "server inlet temperature" if you want to learn more.

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ars
This is not as green as it sounds.

This area of the united states suffers from huge water shortages, and the
river they are using is a major source of water for Atlanta (I'm not sure if
they are upsteam or down from Atlanta).

As a result by the time the river flows out of Georgia into Alabama and
Florida it is very diminished. This makes those states pretty upset since they
also want to use the water.

So what does Google do? They evaporate the water! What a waste.

Water cooling is not really a very clean thing in this part of the country.

I would like to see some numbers: How much energy does it cost to desalinate
the amount of water they are wasting? If it's more than the energy they are
saving then they do not have a net win.

~~~
ajross
" _So what does Google do? They evaporate the water! What a waste._ "

Quite literally a drop in the bucket. The back of my envelope has too much
written on it at the moment, but if you look at the total water flow in that
watershed and multiply it by the heat of vapoization of water you _get a
staggeringly large energy flow_. There's no way; absolutely no way at all a
few megawatts of server heating would be measurable at all. None.

~~~
Retric
1 megawatt * 1 hour = 3,600,000,000 joules Water takes 2,257,000 joules / kg
to evaporate Which works out to ~1,600 kg or 422 gallons of water per hour per
MW.

However, I don't think they actually want to evaporate all that much water
which leaves a lot of residue issues and instead focus on heating a much
larger volume of water.

PS: The article is also wrong in that they don't directly cool hot air from
their servers with this water. They are cooling air heated by there cooling
system and depending on how hot the air from there servers are they may simply
vent that if it's warmer than the outside air.

~~~
ajross
Heh, the gauntlet has been thrown, so I need to show numbers too.

I see that Atlanta rainfall is about 48" (122cm) a year.

422 gallons * 24 * 365 (* 3.785 litres/gallon) * 100 cc/L == 1.4e9 cc/year.

So converting to rainfall area: 1.4e9cc/122cm = 1148 m^2

Basically a 100' square catch basin on the roof of the building would provide
all the water they need. Noise.

~~~
shabble
> Basically a 100' square catch basin on the roof of the building would
> provide all the water they need. Noise.

Which raises the question: Why don't they just do that? I'd imagine it would
be less effort to process, and even though you do need to have a buffer
against low rainfall periods, water is one of the easiest things to store.

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mrstinton
Google Please... Facebook has been pumping loads of shit through it's data
centers for years!

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silentscope
High five to google for a green solution!

~~~
silentscope
not sarcasm folks--unless people dont like green solutions???

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buenofelipe
THAT explains a lot!!!

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notatoad
2 google datacenter articles in as many days, both including quotes from the
chief of DC ops? why the big PR push all of a sudden from what's normally a
quiet division?

i'm guessing google has a big datacenter PR disaster that they think is going
to leak soon, or else Mr Kava is looking for a raise.

~~~
rdl
I think it's more that it's technically kind of interesting, and keeping them
in the press (which is cheap) lets them recruit more easily (across all
infrastructure, not just datacenter ops), and more importantly, retain staff.

"Green Google" also is a halo for the company overall, and might be heading
off negative press about how Google alone uses more electrical power than all
the households in (several lightly populated states, chosen to mislead).

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killion
It took a lot of convincing to get them to switch from using Brawndo: The
Thirst Mutilator.

