Comments on: Water-cooled IBM supercomputer to heat buildings

IBM and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology are working on a water-cooled supercomputer whose surplus heat will be re-used to heat the university's buildings.

[NocturnalCT]

This is such an obvious piece of technology you'd have to wonder why it took so long. Blowing heat into the atmosphere while consuming power to heat the rest of the building makes no sense.

[mbenedict]

NOTHING NEW.

20+ years ago, University of Michigan cycled heat generated by its Cray supercomputers to heat one of the university's parking garages in the winter.

[The Wiethoff]

Great, so when the computer crashes you also freeze to death

[monkeyfun14]

What happens when its hot as hell outside?

[stevicus]

Dude, It's Zurich, ever been there? Doesn't quite have the weather of say El Paso...

[Sac Tinko]

During the summers, which are mild in Zurich, the repurposed heat will be used to heat water.

[stevicus]

Great idea, especially the part of starting with relatively warm water. Having had several PPC-equipped comps, can't help but chuckle, though there are some intel processors in the mix. Reminds me of how I used my G5 tower on cold nights in Northern Japan.

[solitare_pax]

It really does work! I used to use an old Intel 8088 machine and its CRT monitor to warm up my tiny room on cold winter days. :)

Can't do that with my current Mac Mini and LCD monitor though. That's progress...

[SlimGem]

"Aquasar will need about 10 liters of water for cooling, pumped at some 30 liters per minute ..."

Yup, sounds like a G5 Power Mac.

[vasobre]

Great news, and hopefully they wont lock themselves in to a 'proprietary cooling connector' piece of technology so they will be able to buy any brand of servers and fit it in. But hats down to IBM for trying and being there (would not expect less from them anyway :) ).

[Altotus]

This is the way for the large server installations reduce the AC load and recycle the rejected heat now the rejected heat can be brought out of the installation at a level that is useful and a possible economic byproduct rather than a costly problem to remove. Thus it is possible to rotate load to points that require thermal energy and idle points that that don't have a current demand. But that is beyond the scope of such a small project here however it demonstrates the principle by hardware. I do anticipate the connector will in fact be very simple however it will be the point that proprietary development will center upon as the tech is super simple. This will allow waste heat to be resold (like from a server farm) whether big blue realizes it yet or not and the density can be increased. I have been trying to communicate to others how to save the big bucks but I do not think I have spoken to anyone who understands the utility of this simple tech or the cost savings. Looks like IBM is on the job and on the money. Oh by the way it works where it hot or cold everoyone needs hot water from the tropics to the poles. This is just one example servers could be cooled by a very simple setup much simpler and less energy intensive.