Re: Interesting Data Center
- From: "Amused" <jamescopeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:46:13 -0600
"Dave K" <dave.k@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:h9f3j419e64vlpobs5rlq2lf0tpg676ok8@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:29:42 -0500, FredEx <fredex@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:23:20 GMT, Dave K <dave.k@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I saw this posted on a mailing list. Didi a little checking, and it
seems to be a real thing.
<http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/11/14/the-worlds-most-super-designed-data-center-fit-for-a-james-bond-villain/>
Some better picture are at:
<http://www.archdaily.com/9257/pionen-%E2%80%93-white-mountain-albert-france-lanord-architects/>
There is an area in Indiana that has many old munitions bunkers. Where
they are is an industrial park now. I'm surprised nothing like that has
been put there. They are a constant 55 degrees.
Contamination issues maybe?
I grew up within a few city blocks of a Nike Missile site. It was
fenced off and abandoned when I was a teenager. We found a way in and
explored the underground parts of it. The largest part was the
missile silo, and it was just a long open area below grade.
Have a look at this one. It is something I remember from several
years ago.
<http://web.archive.org/web/19980210142453/www.xvt.com/users/kevink/silo/silo.html>
Then there is Missile Silo Homes...
<http://www.earth-house.com/The_Underground/Military__Hideouts/Mis-silo_Homes/mis-silo_homes.html>
I have plans to use the unfinished, cool utilities part of my basement
right under this computer room to cool my system. Too many other
projects to get it done right now. My bro is in to HVAC and he used his
temp meter to measure the poured wall, it was 60 degrees. I keep
changing plans. I was going to do a cooled air duct to the case, but
have thought of doing water cooling instead, much easier to run a couple
water lines that running a duct the size I'd need. I'd be putting the
radiator and fans in the basement. The pump I'd get can do a vertical
column rise 20+ feet, so the 5 to 6 feet would be no challenge for it.
An interesting idea really. I wonder how much ground heat can be
used. Several years ago there was some work done in wells with
glycol-water mixture to both heat and cool using a heat pump. Lot
better when the heat you are extracting comes from 55 degrees F rather
than -15 degrees F.
--
Cheers! :)
Back in the 70's, some of the hippies (yes, hippies!) were designing very low-power "air-moderation" systems. Usually, it entailed burying a long culvert-type corrugated pipe about five feet deep in the ground and then circulating air through the fifty or one hundred feet long pipe to moderate the temperature. Didn't work nearly as well as expected. Water would condense in the pipe and eventually start growing some really strange microscopic creatures. It take a good bit of engineering (power) to force air through a 100 feet of 24 inch pipe. Cooled air is not the same as conditioned air. Refrigatorited air, with high humidity is very "clammy". De-humidifiers had to be added to the system.
Eventually, the "free" systems were as complicated and energy-intensive as just about any other system.
Underground homes, built 50 years ago are probably still running dehumidifiers full time.
Heat pumps have particular limitations all their own. I had one for almost 30 years. Life expectancy is 10 to 15 years and experience has shown, counting on ten years is not a given. Heat pumps "barely" heat (or cool) the air. There is only a degree or two difference between the inside temperature and Freon flowing between the exchanger and the compressor. So while it will heat or cool a home, it'll take hours and sometimes days for the temperature to stabilize. At about 30 degrees, with normal heat loss, the pump simply couldn't keep up, and normally straight resistance banks of heating coils would kick on. (In my mind, heat pumps maybe appropriate for the South, where most of the need is for cooling with very occasional need for heat.)
Deep well, heat moderation was next. And it works pretty well, except wells require maintenance just like anything else. Also, there is power requirement of forcing water down and then up. (Although, it's not as bad as you might expect since the weight of the water will help push water up the opposing pipe.)
Underground facilities are not without their own special problems.
In Kansas City, there are at least several cave systems in use. (BTW, I seriously doubt that the Swedish system could actually stand a direct hit from an H-Bomb. 90 meters just isn't enough)
In one of the caves, the SS Administration has a gigantic files storage "warehouse". It's approaching 500,000 square feet. I've been in it many times. You drive in the front entrance, and then follow the fully paved road (with shoulders) in a series of loops back a mile or so, and then park in one of the controlled government parking lots. Special tricycles and electric golf cars are used extensively by the cave-people to move the folders around.
Full sized tractor-trailer rigs regularly come and go, all day long.
Security is a breeze.
Since the SSA warehouse houses hundreds of millions of paper file folders, fire is their greatest concern. A good friend of mine spent almost 14 months of his life writing the specs for the sprinkler system.
(There was extensive testing done to get the water droplet size, exactly right. Droplet is the key word. Not a "rain", but heavier than a "fog", it produced a "heavy mist" Yes, each one of the tens of thousands of sprinkler heads was specially ordered and expensive as hell. The fire protection system was a double redundancy system, in that every sprinkler head had to have at least two sources of water to it. And, in addition, the grid system set up was very complicated. It would do to have several hundred million SSA folders water soaked just because a small fire in a trashcan.)
Every half mile or so, there are "downshafts", about 100 feet in diameter, that have been punched through to the surface. In addition, there are gigantic air handlers that continuously force outside air throughout the entire cave system. While the road system is plenty large enough to allow even the largest fire fighting equipment to enter the system, calculations have shown that a large, uncontrolled fire would quickly build up trapped heat to awesome levels.
As far as I know, it's the one (or one of very few) place in the SSA system where assignment to The Cave can be refused without prejudice. And if someone asked for re-assignment out of the cave, it's honored almost immediately.
I do not suffer from claustrophobia, but even I was aware of the massive amount of rock that was over my head every time I had occasion to go to the cave.
"My" experience has taught me to be very wary of "free" anything.
Take, wind generators, for example.
When you really start investigating, you'll find there's all kinds of limitations. To start with, there's a couple of tons of equipment a couple of hundred feet in the air, balanced on a single pole, that must be free to rotate into the wind. You don't just pour a concrete pad. That whole apparatus has to be anchored into bedrock. And it better be done right, otherwise there will be pieces and parts spread over two counties. (How many building inspectors do you think there are in Kansas that are qualified to pass judgment on the base installation of a big wind generator? There's probably a couple, but not many)
Wind generators require continuous maintenance. And that means people. And people require an infrastructure. It's been estimated that a moderate size wind farm in western Kansas would add three thousand jobs to the local economy. There's places out there than don't have 3,000 people in the entire county. It's been said that, at sea, the horizon is 40 miles away. (I have no idea if that's true or not) Well there's places in western Kansas, that you could test the theory.
As I said at one time, there's places in Kansas that have so few trees that the trees they do have each have proper names, like Ugly Oak Tree, Bent-over Cedar, and Broken Elm.
They are building wind farms in Kansas, but if you really have a problem with "big business", you're REALLY not going to like them. Because they are NOT free.
James...
"If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it's free." P.J O'Rourke
"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it."
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Interesting Data Center
- From: Dave K
- Re: Interesting Data Center
- References:
- Interesting Data Center
- From: Dave K
- Re: Interesting Data Center
- From: Dave K
- Interesting Data Center
- Prev by Date: Re: Turkeys Are Food
- Next by Date: Re: True Cost of U.S. Financial Bailout Exceeds $8.5 Trillion
- Previous by thread: Re: Interesting Data Center
- Next by thread: Re: Interesting Data Center
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
Loading
