Google opens up on seven years of its data center history

From the linked post [1], 1/4 the power to run pumps instead of fans is a major difference!<p>Was curious if using local water sources would have any environmental impact from the heat or flow, and found an article talking about the first seawater-cooled center, from only May 2011 [2]. Google apparently creates a 30-year thermal model of the effect on the environment. I hope other corporations take their consideration and transparency as an example.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.greenm3.com/gdcblog/2012/11/13/google-adopts-water-as-key-to-save-energy-in-data-centers-pu.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.greenm3.com/gdcblog/2012/11/13/google-adopts-wate...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://gigaom.com/cleantech/google-to-switch-on-worlds-first-seawater-cooled-data-center-this-fall/" rel="nofollow">http://gigaom.com/cleantech/google-to-switch-on-worlds-first...</a>

I wonder how much global warming gets prevented just through everyone adopting these practices for datacenters (either directly or by switching to cloud providers with an economic incentive to do so).<p>Maybe a carbon tax wouldn't be so unreasonable, if it shifts more innovation like this. There's probably a "Google of Cement Production", agriculture (arguably this is Monsanto or ADM or Cargill, as much as they are reviled over IP, they are quite efficient), etc.

They innovated on three frontiers - search engine algorithm, intent based advertising, and data center/infrastructure technology. A startup has to be really good at one thing to succeed. Google was really good at 3 three things right from it's early days.

Might wanna read this one too:<p><a href="http://gigaom.com/cleantech/google-backs-iowa-wind-farm-has-put-close-to-1b-into-clean-power/" rel="nofollow">http://gigaom.com/cleantech/google-backs-iowa-wind-farm-has-...</a>