Computers Used to Heat Conservatory

Waste Heat to Be Used by Conservatory

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Heat generated by the Univ. of Notre Dame’s high-performance computing department is being used to heat a local greenhouse. The department has placed a containerized data center next to the Ella Morris and Muessel-Ellison Botanical Conservatories and Potawatomi Greenhouse in South Bend, Ind. The waste heat generated by working servers is piped into the greenhouse where it is used to keep succulents and other desert plants warm.

CleanTechnica.com reports the university is expected to lower its equipment cooling costs by $100,000. The city will save $70,000 it spends to heat the conservatory. The use of the waste heat is part of the Botanical Society of South Bend’s plan to help make the greenhouses self-sufficient due to budget cuts.

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Pretty smart.

Picture is of my "brain cactus".
 


brrrraincactus.jpg
11 comments
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Mar 5, 2010. 5:43 AMel-haber says:
Hi - greenhouses are not as common as public pool or swimming areas.
The bigger the IT-buisines - the bigger the recreation-ground necessary for staffing.
CU

Jan 6, 2010. 5:52 AMjeff-o says:
My PowerMac G5 heats my basement office by a few degrees if I leave it running.  In the winter, I can definitely tell as soon as I walk into the room.
Jan 5, 2010. 1:30 PMlemonie says:
They haven't put a time period on this. You might think it's a pa, but were they too lazy to type that?

L
Jan 5, 2010. 2:02 PMTool Using Animal says:
Here's the tech paper, truncate the link to get to the profs website, slightly more details in the paper.
Jan 5, 2010. 2:46 PMlemonie says:
Yes much better (annual as I expected) but  for a French project, why are there BTU's in there? Don't answer that, I could do it myself but it ain't right...

L
Jan 5, 2010. 5:25 PMTool Using Animal says:
French? Southbend is in Indiana USA.
Jan 5, 2010. 3:52 PMCeiling cat says:
I'm pretty sure they're referring to the Univ. of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN.  Not the town in France.
Jan 5, 2010. 11:33 PMlemonie says:
I obviously didn't look hard enough at where it was, got the French connection via Notre Dame...

L
Jan 4, 2010. 5:18 PMry25920 says:
That must be a BIG computer if it can heat a greenhouse that needs $70,000 to heat... I almost wonder what it costs to run the computer.
Jan 4, 2010. 7:39 PMCameronSS says:
Looking at the video here, it appears that it's basically a supercomputer used to run processor-intensive simulations and calculations. He said that it's connected to a the main university through a high-speed fiber-optic line. I assume that it's essentially a mainframe.

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