P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S ~ Exemplar

Helsinki:The Worlds Greenest Underground Data Center

 

This sounds absolutely wonderful. A green underground data center. Building its facilities underground, Helsinki is cutting its carbon emissions by huge amounts. Instead of using electricity to cool the computers in the data center, it is using sea water. Which is also used to provide heat to the city.

Below Helsinki, Finland lies the worlds only underground, fully-automated coal storage facility. It has four huge silos, and it stores enough coal for half the city’s annual consumption.
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The world’s greenest data center lies 30 meters below the ground surface of a cathedral in Helsinki, Finland. It’s just part of an entire subterranean world being created for Helsinki’s underground master plan.

CNN reports that Helsinki is the first city to develop such a plan, focused on building in its hard bedrock below ground. The city currently has hundreds of underground facilities and is planning to build more in order to avoid urban sprawl, free up the land, and maintain a nice cityscape.

The underground green data center cuts down on energy consumption by cooling their computers with sea water, and using the excess heat to warm Helsinki.

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This allows the city above to have fresher air — residents won’t have to breathe in tons of coal dust. And it keeps the landscape a lot nicer. I’m sure a lot of people in the United States would enjoy looking out there windows at a green landscape, rather than a coal plant or chemical plant, if they had the opportunity or choice.

Of course, it would be best to not use coal at all, but in the situations or places where that is still not an option, this is a better option than the current norm.

http://planetsave.com/2011/02/23/helsinkithe-worlds-greenest-underground-data-center/