| Cutting Cooling Costs With...get this...Cold Air |
| Written by Philip Proefrock | ||
| Monday, 18 June 2007 | ||
Have you ever thought about how ridiculous it is that we use massive amounts of electricity to cool food in the winter. If it's colder in your back yard than it is in your refrigerator, then why are you spending money on cooling? Restaurants, supermarkets and institutions have large scale refrigerators that represent a huge energy demand. During the winter, this energy is pretty much wasted, as ice cold air is usually just a few meters away. So why not couple traditional mechanical heating with natural sources of cool air? The Freeaire system does exactly that. Not only does it provide increased control for the cooling equipment and systems, it uses cold outdoor air to refrigerate rather than running the mechanical system. Cost comparison curves show that payback on the system can be in less than 2 years for large systems. It's not for home use...yet. But Wal-Mart could cut it's cooling bills in half in northern climates. Server farms could similarly benefit from this kind of natural cooling. My money's on Canada for Google's next big facility. Restaurants, box-stores and server farms are all places that could, should and will be implementing this technology...and soon. via: The Sietch Blog
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Server farms (incl Google) already use o
written by kballs , June 19, 2007 | ||
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Science, technology gadgets and...baby seals. We're in a bit of an eco-mess, but we've got the brains to lick any problem. And that's why EcoGeek.org publishes up to ten stories daily about innovations that are saving the planet.
And if that sounds interesting to you, then congratulations, you're an EcoGeek.
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Server farm power savings are going to come from other areas.
1. more efficient power supplies (Google is working on this)
2. more efficient computer hardware (less waste heat, more calculations/instructions per watt)
3. power management (dynamic proc throttling, shutting off unneeded devices and system buses, etc.)
4. more software support for mobile/phone/UMPC clients (people don't have to use a full-size power hogging PC and monitor to use various services from Google, Windows Live, etc.)