Google Considering Wave-Powered ‘Data Barges’

Google may be moving their data centers offshore (and toward green), if the patent they applied for is any indication. It seems as if they’re seeking to cut power costs and avoid paying property taxes by placing their supercomputers on barges anchored 3-7 miles offshore, where they would use wave energy to power and cool the computers.

The Times Online has it:

In the patent application seen by The Times, Google writes: “Computing centres 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 and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away.”

The increasing number of data centres necessary to cope with the massive information flows generated on popular websites has prompted companies to look at radical ideas to reduce their running costs.

Data centres consumed 1 per cent of the world’s electricity in 2005. By 2020 the carbon footprint of the computers that run the internet will be larger than that of air travel, a recent study by McKinsey, a consultancy firm, and the Uptime Institute, a think tank, predicted.

Technology experts dubbed the offshore data barges ‘a computer army’, drawing reactions across the web with titles like, ‘If Google was Iran, wouldn’t we be scared right now?’  A lot of questions have arisen about the idea, including the fact that 7 miles offshore is within the jurisdiction of many states, the fact that security could be an issue and that having the exclusive right to attempt such a thing would prevent other companies from achieving similar carbon-cutting progress.  Google has refused to clarify the plan, saying they often file patent applications on ideas that may or may not ever become reality.

Seems like a pretty smart move to us.  If, as noted by The Times Online, the carbon footprint of these supercomputers could outweigh that of air travel, something should be done about it now, and the idea of using wave power is pretty innovative.

Link [The Times Online]

Can a Power Company REALLY Be Carbon Neutral?

Yes, it can be done, and a New Zealand power company has been doing it for more than a year.

Worldchanging explains:

Meridian Energy generates around a third of New Zealand’s total energy demand (approx 12,000 GWh) exclusively from wind and hydro sources. The company has a history of advocating a carbon credit marketplace.

But not all New Zealand state-owned enterprises can boast the same carbon neutral certification.

Solid Energy is the largest coal mining company in New Zealand, and also state owned. It’s the company, I’m ashamed to say, that dig up and export New Zealand’s coal to be burned in China—and the ones that intend to create a new open cast mine in Happy Valley.

It sounds like a terrible place for a coal mine—even though I’m not certain what or where Happy Valley is (but then, what do Americans know about New Zealand really, except that it’s where the Hobbits live?). Before we all get too happy about this, I should note that Meridian Energy is carbon neutral in large part because they operate nine hydroelectric projects—big dams, that is, of the sort that would be considered an environmental disaster if they were under construction today, but are somehow okay if they already exist.

Meridian Energy also operate wind turbines—like the one in the photo above, in Wellington—on a really large scale.

Link [Worldchanging]

Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons