[ih] greener underwater?

[Dave Taht]

This piece on a company attempting to build data centers underwater
went by today on multiple channels. I can't help but think this idea
was long ago developed and deployed by certain governments long ago?

"The viability of underwater datacenters has already been demonstrated
by Microsoft, which has deployed several over the past decade as part
of its Project Natick experiment. The most recent was recovered from
the seabed off the Scottish Orkney islands in 2020, and contained 12
racks with 864 servers. Unlike the Subsea pods, the Project Natick
enclosure was filled with nitrogen."

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/01/subsea_cloud_underwater_datacenter/

But:

"The subsea servers are  immersed in a dielectric coolant, which
conducts heat but not electricity. "

It does spark a ton of questions, fluid is far less compressible and I
would think better than nitrogen, but dragging fiber
and 1MW of power offshore seems the stuff of science fiction... or
fantasy... and even cooled to 0C I still imagine moving parts, rather
than convection is required....

On Fri, Sep 2, 2022 at 11:25 AM Kevin Bowling via Internet-history
<internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 12:27 PM Toerless Eckert via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > Dave:
> >
> > The sad reality is that older hardware, whether router or PCs uses
> > more jule of energy per Megabit. So, in most cases it does pay off energy
> > wise to buy recent hardware.
> >
> > In the leading german home routers, there is even an option to switch
> > ports to 100Mbps instead of 1Gbps for energy savings. Alas, the energy
> > saving for that is only 20%, so customers have a hard decision point.
> >
>
> There is an EEE standard that should be used instead so the user doesn’t
> have to worry about such things.
>
>
> > I would assume that energy saving in PC/router hardware will be something
> > users will look a lot more into in the coming years. So there may be
> > some good logic to stick to old hardware and hope an upgrade in 3 years
> > will be a lot more energy saving than one now.
> >
> > Btw: If you're interested to discuss more of energy saving in networking,
> > then maybe chime in on the "recipe at ietf.org" mailing list, this is an old
> > list thart became stale, but a bunch of us at ietf114 felt it was the
> > easiest
> > available list to discuss energy in networkin related interests (maybe up
> > to
> > a point where someone in IETF leadership thinks a better/newer list would
> > be
> > appropriate).
> >
> > Cheers
> >     Toerless
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:12:42PM -0700, Dave Taht via Internet-history
> > wrote:
> > > On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:51 AM Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via
> > > Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > > > > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > > > > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
> > > >
> > > > Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> > > > coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> > > > being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> > > > landfill as so many were produced - see
> > > >
> > https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/
> > > >
> > > > I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's
> > > > environmentally conscious world....
> > >
> > > I kind of feel that way about home routers. There are easily 10x more
> > > of those than are turned on, that could be upgraded to open firmware,
> > > enabled with ipv6, bufferbloat fixed, made more reliable and secure.
> > > Instead they languish in junk bins or landfills. I keep hoping to find
> > > a charitably suited VC (hah!) willing to back this concept:
> > >
> > >
> > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGdtyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit
> > >
> > > With the current supply chain problems everywhere, perhaps people will
> > > relearn how to be frugal.
> > >
> > > Recently an ISP I work with reflashed 700 "obsolete" mikrotik
> > > wireless-n routers to current openwrt and is giving them away as meshy
> > > APs. These are well built, and with current software, remain useful
> > > for another decade, at least.
> > >
> > > I haven't bought a "new" computer in years. Desktops (with enough ram)
> > > got good enough for me a decade ago.
> > >
> > > > Best,
> > > >
> > > > Olivier
> > > > --
> > > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > FQ World Domination pending:
> > https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
> > > Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> --
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> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
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-- 
FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC