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posted by hubie on Friday March 17 2023, @10:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-pee-in-the-data-center dept.

Tiny data center makes for a comfortable swim:

A data center about the size of a washing machine is being used to heat a public swimming pool in England.

Data centers' servers generate heat as they operate, and interest is growing in finding ways to harness it to cut energy costs and offset carbon emissions.

In this latest example, the computing technology has been placed inside a white box and surrounded by oil, which captures the heat before being pumped into a heat exchanger, according to a BBC report.

The setup is effective enough to heat a council-run swimming pool in Exmouth, about 150 miles west of London, to about 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) for about 60% of the time, saving the operator thousands of dollars. And with energy costs rising sharply in the U.K., and councils looking for ways to save money, an initiative like this could be the difference between the pool staying open and closing down.

Behind the idea is U.K.-based tech startup Deep Green. In exchange for hosting its kit, Deep Green installs free digital boilers at pools and pays for the energy that they use. Meanwhile, tech firms pay Deep Green to use its computing power for various artificial intelligence and machine learning projects.

Related:
    Commercial Underwater Datacenter Goes Online This Year
    Microsoft's Underwater Server Experiment Resurfaces After Two Years
    Heating Homes and Businesses with "Data Furnaces"


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  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday March 17 2023, @04:22PM (2 children)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 17 2023, @04:22PM (#1296701) Homepage Journal

    They can always upgrade to newer computers, which will give them more CPU cycles to sell and will still produce lots of heat.

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  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Friday March 17 2023, @05:16PM (1 child)

    by looorg (578) on Friday March 17 2023, @05:16PM (#1296712)

    But won't more rigs, better/faster CPU:s eventually lead to more heat and then by extension hotter water? Wouldn't want to boil the recreational swimmers. I guess they are only heating it to swimming temperatures about 60% of the time according to the summary so there is some wiggle room before the boiling starts, or room to install more data centers to heat the pool all the time to proper temperatures.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by sjames on Friday March 17 2023, @05:29PM

      by sjames (2882) on Friday March 17 2023, @05:29PM (#1296714) Journal

      As long as they only add a server or 2 at a time, they shouldn't notice...