Google always trying to stay one step ahead of the game is now talking about taking their data centers where no one else dares too… the sea!  Google, in 2007 patented the first sea data center, and is not talking about moving it’s infrastructure from Sunny California for a series of barges on the sea.

The Plan
Google will utilize the oceanic movements to create its own electricity to run the new data center; and also plans on using the water below for cooling the massive center of modern technologies.

The data center would be encapsulated on a large barge (say that three times fast) and would have several electricity generating snakes behind it capturing movement from the ocean.  These wave-generating electric snakes have been in testing for sometime, below you can find a video on how they work.  The most famous is Pelamis, which is being developed by a Scottish company.  The Google model would work shockingly similar and would help sustain the massive electric needs of the new venture.

Along with electricity savings, Google would also benefit from the “free-sea” adventure by eliminating property taxes from their bottom line.  With football fields worth of servers on land, after moving these off to the high seas Google will yet again gain massive amounts of money back!

Google has yet to mention when we can expect to see this project finished or even under way, however, one thing we can be certain of, is that Google has enough funds and technology to pull this off.  If everything goes to plan we may see a whole new wave of technology companies taking their data centers to high seas in hopes of cutting costs.

Plausibility?
Many people are still skeptical (rightly so) about the new data center.  Among those are environmentalists who fear the massive amounts of heat from the server cooling system would increase the temperature of the sea and effect the wild life below; still others are worried about the amount of pollution let off into the sea from the project.  There is a lot at stake here if Google can make it work, but still the largest obstacle will be stabilizing the barge against hurricanes, tsunamis,  and other oceanic forces  that could sink the data center to an early death.

Pelamis