Weekly Update 31
💣 Russia becomes Ukraine's biggest arms supplier, women are charging men they date, and more
Volv Inc.
October 07, 2022
October 7, 2022
Hey everyone! The US has pardoned thousands convicted for weed possession — a step that could eventually lead to the decriminalization of marijuana. Before you freak about this historic move, here are a few other top stories that you need to know:
#InternetOfWaste
👩💻 Everything we do on the internet, from streaming shows to reading blogs, requires storing, moving, or sharing data, and creates waste.
🏟️ We bind the processes in data centers: massive buildings filled with computers, some as big as several football fields, which require enormous water and energy sources.
💻 You know how the bottom of your computer gets hot? That is what happens at data centers but on a massive scale.
Data centers, please stop drinking my water
🏭 Big data centers, like Google's, use billions of liters of water yearly because they generate a lot of heat.
💂 Data centers in London have been using drinking water to cool their equipment — it came to light when the river Thames started drying up.
Heat recycling is the hot new thing on the block
🥵 Data centers account for 1% of global electricity use annually and emit massive amounts of heat.
🌊 So, cities in Norway and Sweden are trying to recycle this heat by directing it into groundwater systems, which can warm buildings up.
💸 However, the infrastructure required is costly, and building it in places not set up for it may be challenging.
Who's doing it: Facebook, H&M, Microsoft
🏠 Facebook uses heat from its Denmark data center to warm 6.9k homes.
🔄 H&M in Denmark, Telecity in Paris, and IBM's data center in Switzerland also recycle waste heat to reduce costs and emissions.
😮💨 Microsoft plans to build a data center operating on 100% emission-free energy in Finland, providing district heating and cutting 400,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually.
Added perks
♻️ Recycling heat generated by internet waste can create a more widespread circular economy.
🚰 Data centers no longer need to look for resources like potable water for cooling, which means they could be built anywhere and bring high-paying jobs and money to rural areas.
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