information technology

Last year Google filed for a patent for a "floating data center" that would use wave motion to generate electricity to power on board computers. It would also use ocean water to cool the computers. Submitted in February last year, it was just spotted by Slashdot this past Saturday in the U.S. Patent and Trademark office's electronic filings.

Google engineers imagine their self powered data centers floating anywhere from three to seven miles off the coast and operating completely off the grid. The center would be powered by machines developed by British company Pelamis Wave Power that consist of pumps suspended in the water by pontoons. The engineers calculated that 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to power one center, could be generated by an array of pontoons spread across a square kilometer. Pelamis already has a

Over 150 member companies from around the globe are meeting at The Green Grid consortium's first technical forum in San Francisco. The group develops and promotes energy efficiency for data centers and business computing systems.

Presentations and topics of discussion at the forum will include assessing and reducing energy use, a review of the current state of the industry, and how to address organizational barriers to managing efficiency.