Re:A Room-Temperature Superconductor? New Developments
by cogman10 on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @08:14PM
(#36965150)
> I would've thought the main wins would've been reduced heat generation.
Most of the heat in a data center is coming from power burned in the devices themselves not the power transmission to those devices.
Sort of like how a space heater is hot at the heater portion, not the power cable going into the heater.
You aren't losing more than a W or so to transmission for every kW of power delivered. (in fact, you are generating more heat from the AC->DC transformation)
Typically, power cords and wiring is 15 AWG, which has a 10 milli-ohm/meter resistance and runs as 120V AC (maximum of 15->20A). So, 1000m of power cord running at full load would result in 150->200W of heat from the power cable. Meanwhile the server is generating 1.6->2.2kW of heat. (Assuming a single very long 1kM route is servicing the server).
Cut the cabling distance to a couple of meters and you can see why nobody worries at power consumption at that point.
Most of the heat in a data center is coming from power burned in the devices themselves not the power transmission to those devices.
Sort of like how a space heater is hot at the heater portion, not the power cable going into the heater.
You aren't losing more than a W or so to transmission for every kW of power delivered. (in fact, you are generating more heat from the AC->DC transformation)
Typically, power cords and wiring is 15 AWG, which has a 10 milli-ohm/meter resistance and runs as 120V AC (maximum of 15->20A). So, 1000m of power cord running at full load would result in 150->200W of heat from the power cable. Meanwhile the server is generating 1.6->2.2kW of heat. (Assuming a single very long 1kM route is servicing the server).
Cut the cabling distance to a couple of meters and you can see why nobody worries at power consumption at that point.