Facebook to build server farm near Arctic Circle

MrsJrotax101

MrsJrotax101

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U.S. soldiers sit on an AH-64D Longbow Apache helicopter manufactured by Boeing Co.

Facebook's Arctic move

Facebook plans to build a large server farm in northern Sweden near the Arctic Circle, taking advantage of the chilly climate to keep its equipment cool, a Swedish newspaper reported Wednesday.
The Norrbottens Kuriren newspaper said the American social network will announce its plans today in Lulea, site of the operation, which is 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The paper cited Jan Fredriksson of Helm1 PR, a public relations agency that represents Facebook in Sweden.
EARNINGS

First Solar releases report early

First Solar surprised investors for the second time in as many days Wednesday, releasing its third-quarter earnings a week early after the sudden departure of its CEO sent the company's stock plunging 24 percent Tuesday.
If the early release was intended to halt the stock's slide, it was a shrewd decision. In the first hour of trading, shares rose 14 percent, cutting the previous day's losses in half even though the results from the third quarter demonstrated mostly how tough the market has become for U.S. solar companies.
First Solar's net income rose 11 percent to $196.5 million ($2.25 per share) from $176.9 million ($2.04) a year earlier. However, this year's net income got a $10 million bump thanks to a reduction in income tax expenses. Even then, profits were well below Wall Street expectations of $2.59 per share, according to a poll by FactSet.
The nation's largest solar company sharply reduced its per-share guidance as well, as was expected by many after the departure of CEO Rob Gillette. But it was clear that the bad news was not quite as bad as many investors had expected.
Revenue rose 26 percent, to $1 billion, matching Wall Street expectations.
First Solar shares rose $2.84, or 6.6 percent, to $46.11 in Nasdaq trading.
Boeing tops expectations

Boeing reported a $1.1 billion quarterly profit on Wednesday that beat expectations because of strong growth in its defense business.
The company's passenger jet profit grew more slowly and manufacturing problems have forced it to cut its forecast for deliveries of its two newest jets.
Investors focused on the positive third-quarter results, lifting Boeing Co.'s stock price 4 percent
The company's overall net income rose 31 percent from $837 million a year earlier. Profit of $1.46 per share rose from $1.12 per share. Analysts had expected a profit of $1.10 per share in the latest period.
 
google has a server farm in iceland, and I believe they are looking at greenland - unless they already built it. There are a number of benefits with temperatures/climate there lol
 
Very interesting! I would also assume the frozen climate creates other less desirable logistical headaches for other equipment, connections, etcetera., that would not be a factor in a more temperate location. I'm sure all factors have been weighed against each other.
 
iceland electric -

There are plans to put Iceland's cool climate to good use

Iceland's banks crashed leaving huge debt. Now entrepreneurs are going back to nature to try to make a recovery.

The plan is to place the world's computer servers in Iceland's cool climate. Servers need huge amounts of energy, both to keep them running and also to cool them down. Typically the amount of energy needed to cool the servers is 40 to 60% of the energy needed to run them. As the internet grew over the years, more and more servers were brought online to cope with the demand. It's rumoured that Google has a million servers, and even the banks need hundreds of thousands of them.

With Iceland's cold environment and chilly rivers, the cooling properties are on hand and free.

Outside Rejkavik work has started on a site that is hoped will be the start of a major boom in server relocation. In about a year, companies will start leasing space in the new data centre. The expectation is that demand will be huge, triggering plans for more centres like it.

As more and more servers will need to be provided, more energy means more CO2 emissions.

An engineer at the new site said that the industry's emissions thus far are in line with the airline industry, as far as its carbon footprint goes. It is predicted that the data industry will soon overtake the airline industry, in its emissions.

The natural hot water geysers of Iceland provide the island with 100% free electricity, and it's carbon free.

Iceland has an abundance of free electricity. Five geothermal power plants produce the country's power.
The free energy is so plentiful that in the wintertime some street pavements in Reykjavík are heated.

Some server farms in the UK are already driven by friendly energy sources, windfarms and such.

It is reported that Google and Yahoo are thinking of moving some of their servers to the windy Columbia river, in the USA, to utilise the cheap hydro electric power generated there, so the cost of running the servers is already being investigated.

Iceland has far more power than it can use so if a company moved it's servers there, they could save enormously. If a bank with a hundred thousand servers moved those servers to Iceland it could save half a million metric tons of carbon annually. Representatives from Microsoft will visit Iceland soon to see what the server farms could mean to them.

Iceland has already laid undersea cables to connect to Europe and the USA, the fibre optic cables capable of carrying enormous amounts of data at a phenomenal speed. Data travelling from Iceland takes only 17 milliseconds to reach London, a speed which is quite acceptable to most users. In five or so years Iceland hopes that the servers for the great financial institutions will all be situated on their chilly Island.

So Iceland has the best of both worlds as far as computer servers are concerned, with very cheap power and longer life through the cooling properties of the climate.
 
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