Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
Just a clue about a nugget buried in this blog: Oceans could be the source of a solution for the location of data centers.
More on that in a moment.
When I wrote the headline for this blog, I knew at least one thing: What I know about data centers could be written on the head of a pin.
Plus, these days, data centers have become political footballs to be thrown every which way. Which means we cannot rely on the accuracy of such footballs.
Here in Oregon, for example, the re-elected governor, Democrat Tina Kotek, is playing the data center game. She says she favors a moratorium on data centers in Oregon, or at least stringent regulations governing their deployment.
But the fact is that many of the tax breaks for data centers in Oregon have been approved by local governments in rural areas under what’s called the “enterprise zone program.” One result of tax incentives is more jobs for rural areas that need more jobs. So, there is a bit of an urban-rural divide on the issue.
Then, yesterday, I read a report from the Wall Street Journal under this headline: The only town in the U.S. that said yes to data centers.
“On Election Day, much of the country turned against the massive projects that power AI. One place didn’t — Harwood, North Dakota. The town, with a population of 845, faced the prospect of a $3 billion, 1.8-million-square-foot data center on its outskirts.
“One resident didn’t like the idea. He said he felt city officials had rolled over for a mega-developer who wanted to cash in on the artificial intelligence boom. So he got a measure on the ballot demanding independent reviews and public hearings for big new industrial projects, as well as proposed modifications and expansions of existing ones.
“Residents gave a resounding ‘no’ to increased oversight, so there could be a new data center in North Dakota.”
Now, back to the point about oceans.
I learned recently about a relatively new development — some data centers are being deployed on an experimental basis in oceans, either under the water or on top.
According to Google, Microsoft’s Project Natick is widely considered the benchmark example of an underwater data center.
Under Natick, a shipping-container-sized, steel-sealed vessel filled with servers is deployed directly onto the ocean floor, such as when, in 2018, Microsoft sent a prototype capsule 117 feet deep off the coast of Scotland’s Orkney Islands.
After two years underwater, it was retrieved in 2020. The test proved that submerged data centers are remarkably reliable — experiencing a failure rate roughly one-eighth that of land-based facilities — largely due to the absence of oxygen and moisture inside a dry nitrogen-filled environment.
Other examples gleaned from Google:
- China’s Commercial Underwater Data Center: China launched large-scale commercial underwater data cabins which weighed between 1,300 to 1,433 tons. It was designed to cut energy use for cooling by up to 90 per cent.
- Wave-Powered Floating AI (Panthalassa): Startups like Panthalassa are testing untethered, self-propelled floating platforms that generate their own power from ocean waves and use SpaceX Starlink for satellite communication.
- Nearshore Floating Platforms: Companies like Nautilus Data Technologies operate nearshore floating facilities, such as Stockton 1 in California, that use closed-loop seawater systems to cool servers without dumping freshwater
Are ocean-deployed data centers one answer to questions about their development and use.
Too early to tell, but one advantage may be that there won’t be a “not in my backyard problem” since people don’t live on or in oceans.
However, there could be questions about damage to sea life or to the ocean itself.
For me, I am not trying to come up with a bottom-line position. But the data center issue represents another example where, if government officials used their heads and common sense, they could find a solution somewhere in the middle.
Not “no.” Not “yes.” But the middle. And perhaps in the world’s oceans.
