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Comment by HamMan_0 | Hacker News Reader

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HamMan_0·

I feel like this story sounds a little like something from Robopocalypse :)

Seriously though, kudos for them if they can capitalize on natural cooling.

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It's a good move. I remember joking with a colleague once about submerging a datacenter in a lake for the same reason.

Not exactly submerged, nor actually a lake, but Googles Finnish data center is cooled with cold seawater.

It's no joke; Google has played with that.

They might save a small portion of their cooling costs. They won't go even by a long stretch. Keep in mind that in Luleå the summers reach 22-23 degrees Celsius easily. People are tanned and wear t-shirts, shorts and skirts up there during the summer just like anywhere else down south.

It can be warm in Lulea, in fact it reached 30C when I was last there in June, but that was exceptional. Typically, it's sub-zero for half the year and the summer is very mild.

It'll be a similar design to the datacenters in Prineville, Oregon and Forest City, NC. They pull in outside air, cool it a little bit with evaporative mist, mix it with air already in the datacenter, and then send it to the servers.

The air doesn't need to be 50F, just cool enough and at a sufficient pressure to circulate heat off the servers. Sweden will work great.

Here's Wikipedia's climate data for Lulea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lule%C3%A5#Climate

Looks a little cooler than most of the northern US. "Artic Circle" or not, you're right, this isn't "Open the doors and cool the servers" cold.

But it is "Open the doors and cool the servers" cold in winter at least, so savings from cooling are sure to be substantial. Coupled with the cheap electricity in summer, and well developed infrastructure, and you can see why it was chosen.

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