Going by the sheer number of there servers alone, Google could be one of the largest ‘heat engines’ in the world. The world of the web is antiseptic, but it is its virtual avatar. Behind each page is the technology. In Google’s case, the search engine might be trim rather than slick, but behind the vanilla interface are nearly 450,000 servers (as counted in 2006) spread out over 20 datacenters worldwide. And that is a lot of power, not just in terms of bits and bytes but in more ‘heated’, joules and watts. Servers are greater power guzzlers than an average desktop PC…now just multiply it by 450,000. It’s not just the raw heat generated from their running but also from the energy to keep them running. Electricity and air conditioning for 24x7 makes for a pretty inordinate bill.

A study done by Stanford University professor, Jonathan Koomey says that ‘the energy consumption of data centers doubled in the period from 2000 to 2005.’ The annual power bill at that time was about $7 Billion Dollars. Since then, power costs would have increased manifold. Google is one among the many companies which are looking to cut corners with this ‘overhead’. But it is among the minuscule little which is taking a radical approach. Google is going offshore…literally, seven miles into the seas.

Google is seriously looking at developing water based data centers. To be located on floating barges, the data center would have its own renewable power source in the Pelamis wave energy converters. Just to look back at the development of wave energy platforms, Pelamis uses the motion of the waves to generate electricity. Several such units can be combined into wave farms. Google has filed a patent to develop such a wave farm using 40 such units to output 40 megawatts.

The Google patent application states – ‘Computing centers are located on a ship or ships, anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity...’

The development goes further by looking at the relatively cooler sea water to absorb the heat generated from the servers. Sea-powered pumps could be used to pull in seawater and pass it through seawater-to-freshwater heat exchangers.

The intent of Google’s purpose can be seen from the patent application. The data centers are being designed as completely self sufficient operations generating their own power and connected to other datacenters through undersea fiber optics. Google has already invested a fortune to develop its undersea communication network.

Then again the intent is not merely environmental philanthropism…but more of business pragmatism. Today going green also translates into hard cash savings in the long term. As Google seeks to reduce its carbon footprint, it gives a hope that many other behemoths would follow in its footsteps.

Source: Celsias.com