Like, would a skyscraper-style datacenter be practical? Or is just a matter of big, flat buildings being cheaper?

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[–] 75 points 9 months ago (17 children)

Electricity has a hard time flowing up and requires a special pumping system.

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  • [–] [S] 57 points 9 months ago (11 children)

    Which begs the question why not magnets at the top of the building to help pull the electricity up?

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  • [–] 61 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    Because nobody knows how magnets work.

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

    Solution: construct the buildings upside down, so the foundations are up in the air and the roofs are underground. That way, the electricity will flow down instead of up.

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  • [–] 19 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    But then the roof has to support the entire weight of planet Earth on top of it, which is a much harder engineering challenge than pumping the electricity in the first place.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    No, it's not. It's all empty space under the foundation. There's nothing to create crushing force against the building.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    You are failing to account for the weight of the atmosphere on the foundation

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    The atmosphere is just air. Air doesn't have mass or weight, that's why it floats.

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  • [–] 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    You joke, but heat does rise and a tall building would need to make extra concessions for cooling concerns, while also dealing with the issues if weight. Large racks of servers are actually quite heavy, which is why many datacenters in i.e Toronto were built in an ex parking garage

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

    Heat is no issue of relevance for the question. The rising effect it negligible compared to what has to be transported anyway. I also can't imagine racks being heavier than eg books in s library.

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