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  Global Warming: Massive Computer Centers Bad for the Environment

Global Warming Massive Computer Centers Bad for the Environment

By Manfred Dworschak

Part 2: Power in Numbers

Nevertheless, few companies have any use for their own mainframe. The future of these behemoths lies in leasing, rather than selling, their computing power. "Not every small or mid-sized company needs its own computer center," says IBM expert Heinz-Hubert Weusthof. "At least some of the work can be outsourced."

Companies, such as IBM and HP, already offer central mainframes for services that can be leased through high-speed data connections, whether it is for the payroll accounting of an automotive supplier or the inventory control of a retail chain. For customers, this is like having electronic data processing right out of the socket.

This sort of centralization, which has been underway for some time, is now being touted as climate-friendly. IBM, for example, aims to double the performance of its own computer centers in the coming years without increasing power consumption.

Handling the Heat

The most important factor in saving energy is heat dissipation. Until now, it was customary in the industry to cool entire computer centers like refrigerators. Now, though, more intelligent solutions are catching on, such as blowing cold air directly at the hot processors and suctioning off the heated air before it mixes with the expensively cooled air.

Of course, this doesn't change the fact that more and more waste heat is escaping unused into the atmosphere. Each watt of electricity that has been used to run a computer has to be disposed of as heat. Why not use the waste heat as a source of building heat? Couldn't a company with a computer center in the basement do away with its heating system?

In most cases, security concerns preclude such use. Banks and insurance companies, for example, depend on computer centers with multiple safeguards against failure. As a rule, they have two independent main lines to the electric utility's transformer station. In addition, the computer centers must be housed in freestanding buildings, so that incidents -- such as water main breaks or fires -- cannot jeopardize sensitive operations. For this reason, most data factories are located in industrial areas or in the countryside.

Professor Hegering isn't subject to such stringent procedures at his center in Garching. Although his supercomputer goes by the impressive name of "Federal Maximum Performance Computer" (meaning that all German universities have access to it), the occasional power outage isn't quite as serious a problem in academic computing. "When that happens," says Hegering, "we just pick up again where we were interrupted."

This allows the Leibniz Computer Center to conduct the waste heat from the processors through water pipes into the adjacent administrative wing of the building. In the winter, the supercomputer heats the offices of 140 employees. Group manager Herbert Huber is pleased with the level of comfort in the offices. "We do have a conventional heating system installed, but only as a backup," says Huber. "I've never had to use it."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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