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Who else foresees environmental problems with this later down the line? (news.microsoft.com)

submitted 1 year ago by flashgnash@lemm.ee to c/technology

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Microsoft are looking at putting datacenters under the ocean, which sounds like a really good idea to cool them but I can’t help but think a couple decades from now it’s going to start causing us problems

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[–] LongbottomLeaf@lemmy.nz 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Now you're talkin!

At the deployment site, a remotely operated vehicle retrieved a cable containing the fiber optic and power wiring from the seafloor and brought it to the surface where it was checked and attached to the datacenter, and the datacenter powered on.

Sadly, it sounds like power is coming from the shore.

Underwater datacenters could also serve as anchor tenants for marine renewable energy such as offshore wind farms or banks of tidal turbines, allowing the two industries to evolve in lockstep.

But I think this is their plan for energy in the future.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Onshore, wind turbines sprout from farmers’ rolling fields and solar panels adorn roofs of centuries-old homes, generating more than enough electricity to supply the islands’ 10,000 residents with 100 percent renewable energy. A cable from the Orkney Island grid sends electricity to the datacenter, which requires just under a quarter of a megawatt of power when operating at full capacity.

It's still pretty darn clean.

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[–] sparkl_motion 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thought of these plus tidal generators makes my day.

[–] 56_@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the Orkney Islands are also experimenting with tidal generators (Wikipedia/European Marine Energy Centre), though the weather there is ideal for wind energy.

[–] Awwab@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I can't wait to reserve some compute time for when the ocean data center is getting wind power.