Greenhouse Effect: 5 Ideas for Reusing Data Centers’ Waste Heat
Data centers use a lot of electricity, much of it just to keep computers cool. Here are five creative ideas for recycling the machines’ waste heat.
Micro-power: A pyroelectric energy harvester is designed to turn heat from a computer processor into electricity at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A tiny cantilever, just a millimeter wide, rests on a chip-sized heating element. As it warms up, the cantilever bends away until it touches a heat sink. Cooled, the cantilever bends back to touch the chip again. Rapid oscillations of the cantilever create an alternating current of electricity that measures one to 10 milliwatts, says its creator, U.S. Department of Energy scientist Scott Hunter. A 6.5-square-centimeter computer chip could have 1,000 such energy harvesters attached to it.
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