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Datacentres: Mine, all (coal) mine

mine

In what may be Greenbang’s favourite datacentre story this week, it turns out Sun Microsystems has come up with a novel way to save on power and the like: build your datacentre in an abandoned Japanese coal mine.

Greenbang is plagued with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom type visions, but will press on.

The fellows over at Techworld tell us the subterranean datacentre will need 50 percent less energy than an above ground equivalent and:

“The coolant will be ground water and the site’s temperature is a constant 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) all year, meaning no air-conditioning will be needed outside the containers. This reduces the energy required for the water chillers, used with surface-level [datacentres].”

Greenbang is now wondering if a new generation of canaries are being bred for datacentres and a new generation of techies are cracking their knuckles in preparation to tell their offspring they worked 20 years down t’pit, man and boy.