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    <p>Indeed. There's another point that's been missed in the
      "superconductor" suggestion: Why do we get the heat in the first
      place?</p>
    <p>Superconductors are great when it comes to reducing resistive
      losses in long and / or high current conductors (power
      distribution, MRI magnets, ...). But this isn't why computer chips
      get hot. Let me take you back to your Physics 101 when you learned
      that Power P was the product of current I and voltage V. A logic
      chip like a CPU is nothing but an assortment of gazillions of
      little switches. When a switch is open, it may have voltage across
      it but no current flows: no power gets dissipated. If it's closed,
      current may flow but there won't be any voltage across it. Also
      not a source of power loss. <br>
    </p>
    <p>The power loss (heat generation) happens when the little switches
      are switching, i.e., when they are between open and closed and
      when there is both a bit of voltage and a bit of current present.
      Naively you might say that a switch is either on or off, and so
      that shouldn't occur, but in both theory and practice, an
      instantaneous loss-free switching process requires a signal of
      infinite bandwidth when subjected to Fourier analysis. Fourier
      analysis allows us to model any signal as a combination of
      sinusoidal signals of different frequency, amplitude and phase,
      and it's in particular the high-and-in-the-direction-of-infinity
      frequency components of that combination that are needed for the
      "ïnstantaneous"switching. Unfortunately, in any real circuit of
      larger than zero size, reactive elements (capacitive and inductive
      components or parasitic properties of that nature) attenuate
      these. So the only real switching we can actually do in real life
      is switching that dissipates power when it happens - no matter
      whether the chip is built using superconductors or not.</p>
    <p>In a modern CPU, a significant percentage of gates are this this
      "gray" in-between state between 0 and 1 for a significant part of
      the time, which is why you need elaborate cooling fans and water
      coolers etc., and it's also why clock frequencies haven't
      increased substantially in recent years.   <br>
    </p>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 21/04/2023 12:06 am, Dave
      Collier-Brown via Starlink wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:b50e881f-ccad-caa0-7f9e-ab6bbd604cf1@indexexchange.com">
      
      <p>Another point they missed: on earth, we can use conductive
        cooling and transfer the heat from the machines to a flow of
        air.  In space, we can only use radiative cooling, and we need
        to be out of the sun to have enough temperature difference.</p>
      <p>--dave<br>
      </p>
      <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/20/23 07:10, Hesham ElBakoury
        via Starlink wrote:<br>
      </div>
      <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAFvDQ9rDML2NGD09=mOTJ_g34obP+3_oz=z+NQUyxQCgUgHGeQ@mail.gmail.com">
        <div dir="auto">The article about the ASCEND project says:
          <div dir="auto">"Very low ambient temperatures in space will
            dramatically reduce the need for cooling equipment that
            consumes enormous amounts of energy. A significant part of a
            data center’s energy use is for cooling equipment,
            accounting for more than 50% in some facilities.
            Temperatures can be as low as -292°F (-180°C) when an
            orbiting object is in the Earth’s shadow."</div>
          <div dir="auto"><br>
          </div>
          <div dir="auto">Hesham</div>
        </div>
        <br>
        <div class="gmail_quote">
          <div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:44
            PM Daniel Schien <<a href="mailto:Daniel.Schien@bristol.ac.uk" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">Daniel.Schien@bristol.ac.uk</a>>
            wrote:<br>
          </div>
          <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
            .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
            <div>
              <div dir="auto">I assume any object in orbit will be
                hidden from the sun some of the time. So, the machines
                will require some pretty big battery to go up with
                them. </div>
              <div dir="auto"><br>
              </div>
              <div dir="auto">I'd like to also know what the launch cost
                is. </div>
              <div dir="auto"><br>
              </div>
              <div dir="auto">Tom Segert estimates in his LinkedIn post,
                for a<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);display:inline!important"> 100kg
                  satellite payload:</span></div>
              <div dir="auto"><br>
              </div>
              <div dir="auto">"TL:DR ~57 ton CO2e for a typical ESA
                satellite (including Ariane 6 launch), <15t CO2e for
                a satellite built in a factory and launched with a
                re-usable rocket."</div>
              <div dir="auto"><br>
              </div>
              <div dir="auto">Depending on the type of server that
                should go up there, this is a fair amount of carbon to
                offset from brighter sunlight.</div>
              <div dir="auto"><br>
              </div>
              <div dir="auto">The article also gets the carbon footprint
                wrong:</div>
              <div dir="auto"><br>
              </div>
              <div dir="auto">"<span style="color:rgb(25,25,25);font-family:MajritTxRoman,serif;font-size:19px;letter-spacing:-0.01904px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);display:inline!important">Data
                  centers are big energy consumers – between 2% and 3%
                  of all global consumption – a rate that is doubling
                  every year."</span></div>
              <div dir="auto"><span style="color:rgb(25,25,25);font-family:MajritTxRoman,serif;font-size:19px;letter-spacing:-0.01904px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);display:inline!important"><br>
                </span></div>
              <div dir="auto"><span style="color:rgb(25,25,25);font-family:MajritTxRoman,serif;font-size:19px;letter-spacing:-0.01904px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);display:inline!important">The
                  latest was IEA estimating it to be around 220-320 TWh
                  (out of 30,000) in 2021 data and growing between
                  10-60% over 6 years in total (so let's than 10 CAGR).
                  But it's certainly not doubling every year. That's
                  just completely wrong.</span></div>
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                                <h3 color="#000000" style="font-size:12px;margin:0px;color:black"><span>Daniel</span><span> </span><span>Schien</span></h3>
                                <p color="#000000" style="font-size:11px;margin:0px;line-height:22px;color:black">
                                  <span>Senior Lecturer in Computer
                                    Science</span></p>
                                <p color="#000000" style="font-size:11px;font-weight:500;margin:0px;line-height:22px;color:black"><span>Department
                                    of Computer Science</span><span> | </span><span>University
                                    of Bristol</span></p>
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                                        <p color="#000000" style="font-size:14px;margin:0px;line-height:22px;color:black">
                                          <span><b>Submit software
                                              engineering project ideas
                                              for 2022</b></span></p>
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                                      <td><a color="#000000" style="font-size:11px;color:black" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true"><span>http://bris.ac.uk/software-engineering</span></a><br>
                                        <span style="font-size:9pt">Watch: </span><a href="https://youtu.be/lU-ZsBDFWDI" rel="noopener noreferrer
                                          noreferrer" style="font-size:14.67px;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;margin:0px;background-color:white" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:9pt;margin:0px" lang="fr">https://youtu.be/lU-ZsBDFWDI</span></a></td>
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                                      <td><span color="#000000" style="font-size:12px;color:black"><span>Merchant
                                            Venturers Building ,
                                            Woodland Rd Bristol, BS8 1UB</span></span></td>
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                      <td width="30"><span style="height:8px;width:683px;box-sizing:border-box!important"><span style="font-size:9pt"><b>Book a meeting</b>: </span><a href="https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/OfficeHours@bristol.ac.uk/bookings/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:9pt">https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/OfficeHours@bristol.ac.uk/booki</span></a></span></td>
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              <hr style="display:inline-block;width:98%">
              <div id="m_-5278516010422486526divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> E-impact <<a href="mailto:e-impact-bounces@ietf.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">e-impact-bounces@ietf.org</a>>
                  on behalf of Vint Cerf <vint=<a href="mailto:40google.com@dmarc.ietf.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">40google.com@dmarc.ietf.org</a>><br>
                  <b>Sent:</b> Thursday, April 20, 2023 2:16:38 AM<br>
                  <b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:tom@evslin.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">
                    tom@evslin.com</a> <<a href="mailto:tom@evslin.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">tom@evslin.com</a>><br>
                  <b>Cc:</b> Michael Richardson <<a href="mailto:mcr@sandelman.ca" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">mcr@sandelman.ca</a>>;
                  starlink <<a href="mailto:starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a>>;
                  <a href="mailto:e-impact@ietf.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">
                    e-impact@ietf.org</a> <<a href="mailto:e-impact@ietf.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">e-impact@ietf.org</a>><br>
                  <b>Subject:</b> Re: [E-impact] [Starlink] DataCenters
                  in Space (was Re: fiber IXPs in space)</font>
                <div> </div>
              </div>
              <div>
                <div dir="ltr">O&M will be a bear
                  <div>v</div>
                  <div><br>
                  </div>
                </div>
                <br>
                <div>
                  <div dir="ltr">On Wed, Apr 19, 2023 at 9:13 PM Tom
                    Evslin via Starlink <<a href="mailto:starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a>>
                    wrote:<br>
                  </div>
                  <blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px
                    0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
                    rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
                    I think space-based data centers will be the rule
                    rather than the exception. Wrote about that a couple
                    of years ago although, as usual, things have not
                    happened as quickly as I predicted
                    <a href="https://blog.tomevslin.com/2021/07/computing-clouds-in-orbit-a-possible-roadmap.html" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">
https://blog.tomevslin.com/2021/07/computing-clouds-in-orbit-a-possible-roadmap.html</a><br>
                    <br>
                    -----Original Message-----<br>
                    From: Starlink <<a href="mailto:starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net</a>>
                    On Behalf Of Michael Richardson via Starlink<br>
                    Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 7:35 PM<br>
                    To: starlink <<a href="mailto:starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a>>;
                    <a href="mailto:e-impact@ietf.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">
                      e-impact@ietf.org</a><br>
                    Subject: [Starlink] DataCenters in Space (was Re:
                    fiber IXPs in space)<br>
                    <br>
                    <br>
                    I saw this reported in BIS-Spaceflight.<br>
                    (I'm usually a few months behind in reading it) I
                    like the "first objective"!<br>
                    <br>
                    <a href="https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/space/press-release/ascend-thales-alenia-space-lead-european-feasibility-study-data" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/space/press-release/ascend-thales-alenia-space-lead-european-feasibility-study-data</a><br>
                    <br>
                    Cannes, November 14, 2022 – Thales Alenia Space, the
                    joint company between Thales (67%) and Leonardo
                    (33%), has been chosen by the European Commission to
                    lead the ASCEND (Advanced Space Cloud for European
                    Net zero emission and Data sovereignty) feasibility
                    study for data centers in orbit, as part of Europe’s
                    vast Horizon Europe research program.<br>
                    <br>
                    Digital technology’s expanding environmental
                    footprint is becoming a major<br>
                    challenge: the burgeoning need for digitalization
                    means that data centers in Europe and around the
                    world are growing at an exponential pace, which in
                    turn has a critical energy and environmental impact.<br>
                    <br>
                    The first objective of this study will be to assess
                    if the carbon emissions from the production and
                    launch of these space infrastructures will be
                    significantly lower than the emissions generated by
                    ground-based data centers, therefore contributing to
                    the achievement of global carbon neutrality. The
                    second objective will be to prove that it is
                    possible to develop the required launch solution and
                    to ensure the deployment and operability of these
                    spaceborne data centers using robotic assistance
                    technologies currently being developed in Europe,
                    such as the EROSS IOD demonstrator.<br>
                    <br>
                    This project is expected to demonstrate to which
                    extent space-based data centers would limit the
                    energy and environmental impact of their ground
                    counterparts, thus allowing major investments within
                    the scope of Europe’s Green Deal, possibly
                    justifying the development of a more
                    climate-friendly, reusable heavy launch vehicle.
                    Europe could thus regain its leadership in space
                    transport and space logistics, as well as the
                    assembly and operations of large infrastructures in
                    orbit.<br>
                    <br>
                    _______________________________________________<br>
                    Starlink mailing list<br>
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                    <br>
                    _______________________________________________<br>
                    Starlink mailing list<br>
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                  </blockquote>
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                <span>-- </span><br>
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                  <div dir="ltr">
                    <div>Please send any postal/overnight deliveries to:</div>
                    <div>
                      <div>Vint Cerf</div>
                      <div>Google, LLC</div>
                      <div>1900 Reston Metro Plaza, 16th Floor</div>
                      <div>Reston, VA 20190</div>
                      <div>+1 (571) 213 1346<br>
                      </div>
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                      </div>
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                    <div><br>
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                    <div>until further notice</div>
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            -- <br>
            E-impact mailing list<br>
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        <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
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</pre>
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      <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
David Collier-Brown,         | Always do right. This will gratify
System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:dave.collier-brown@indexexchange.com" moz-do-not-send="true">dave.collier-brown@indexexchange.com</a> |              -- Mark Twain</pre>
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      <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
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</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a> 
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a>
****************************************************************



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