Just read in Globe that now it really is a big deal for big companies to epand their hardware base. I talking about computers and data centers. It was even a case when some Home Security department or something located in Baltimore needed to install another data center but couldn't do that because local electrical company couldn't provide them with enough energy for it.
Now computer hardware manufactures are doing a food job designing chips with lower and lower energy requirements, but people need more and more of them and that's why it's time to think of more advanced cooling technology.
And here the first question comes: why use air when we know that gases are quite ineffective in heat transmisison ? My idea is to build a cooling system, which would use water to accomulate a heat and have a central cooling station where water will cooled again. Yes, this system is harder to install, but hey! For companies, having $35K electricit bills every month it could be an option ! Also there are several option how to build it:
1. Use cooling stations to cool water and establish it's circulation.
2. Make this cooling system to be a branch of entire plumbing system of the building - it will take a cold water, warm it up and output it in the hot water stream - so no cooling stations - no energy required to cool your data center at all!
3. If cooling stations are used - build them in a way so when the winter comes - they would be set outsite (or have windows of the room they are in open) and this way less energy will be required to cool the water down, especially if we are talking about Boston area :))