No-one knows exactly how many servers are used by Google, the leading Internet search engine, to service its hundreds of millions of web-surfing customers around the world. Estimates vary between 450,000 and one million, the latter being the figure suggested by Gartner Group, one of the most reliable consultancy firms in the field of new technologies.
However many there may be, the fact is that the cost of running them (mainly in terms of electricity but also due to the taxes payable on the facilities in which they are housed) will be huge. Google has therefore recently created a R&D division devoted to the field of renewable energy, and its first efforts have been directed towards wind, solar and geo-thermal energy sources. Indeed, the Mountain View-based company has become the largest private investor in the development and research of geo-thermal energy and its potential applications.
However, Google has widened the range of potential ways out of its energy crisis even further. Its latest project consists of installing “server farms” in the sea, to be powered by electricity generated either by wave power (harvested from the movement of the waves) or tide power (produced by the rise and fall of the tides).
A year and a half on
The project, which has been running for a year and a half, is led by Jimmy Clidaras, David W. Stiver and William Hamburgen, engineers who have come from the Californian research centres at Los Altos, Santa Clara and Palo Alto respectively. On 26 February 2007 they presented their idea, along with a wealth of detail, to the US patents authorities. Just three weeks ago, on 28 August, following the expiry of the necessary term, the US Patent & Trademark Office published the grant of a patent in the name of Google Inc., registered in Mountain View, California.
The idea is to build floating platforms at sea, at least 11 kilometres from the shore at sites that have yet to be decided. These will house a series of «server farms» consisting of a large number of computers that will in turn service the world’s most powerful search engine. Each floating platform will carry an electrical generator which will gather power from either the waves or the tides and feed the cluster of computers on board. The project also provides for the use of seawater to cool the «server farm», as cooling accounts for a large proportion of the power consumed.
The technology required to install the platforms and their wave- or tide-powered cargo has been developed by the Scottish company Pelamis, which markets them as electrical plants.
This Google project has come about as a result of the huge amounts the company has been paying for electricity, and its constant need to expand the number servers it uses to service the increasing number of computers around the world, currently growing at an annual rate of 16 per cent.
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