"Google operates nine giant data centers across the U.S. and Europe. And it’s building four more in Asia and South America. But only one has a sauna. Yes, that would be the one in Hamina, Finland." —Steven Levy's WIRED profile on Google's sauna-server centers is well worth a read.

  • GawainLavers

    Warm seawater is sent back to the gulf, where Google further cools it down, typically to around 25 degrees Centigrade. “Our permit doesn’t call for that, but we decided that we weren’t going to have any negative impact on the local ecology,” says Kava.

    Warm water pumped into smaller water sources can be devastating, even at a few extra degrees.  Most nuclear plants have this issue.  I’m less clear about how much impact it would have in the ocean (probably very localized and minimal), but 25°C isn’t exactly cool.

    I thought the punchline would be that they had routed their waste heat from the server farm into the sauna. They should do that at all their locations!

    • http://twitter.com/leortnoc Kalle Karjalainen

      Usually the main heat source in saunas is the stove, or a pile or rocks heated from underneath. It’s about one meter high, with the rocks usually occupying a bit more than a half of the space.

      But it’s also an essential element to the whole sauna experience, when water thrown onto the rocks makes a familiar sound.

      The water comes from buckets via ladels—both made in varying materials and kinds—which further add to the experience.

      When entering a public sauna it is polite to offer to fill the bucket or throw more water onto the stove.

      So if they push in the hot air from somewhere, isolating the sauna-goers from the moving air, they also have to design the stove to be a lot smaller thing which still would have at least a single layer of steaming hot rocks, or they risk a boring-as-bits shared experience.

      I’m not sure if they have them that small as I’m not an expert in saunas. Just a Finn. ;)

      • GawainLavers

        I’m not an expert in saunas. Just a Finn.

        Is that possible? ;)

  • hyljelyhje

    I also expected server-heated sauna or something equally cool; sauna is almost as common as shower around here. I am also skeptical of the part about polar bear…

    • Lobster

       Don’t you mean something equally warm? :)

    • CH

      Yea, I though first that the article writer had just “translated” an ordinary brown bear into a more exotic sounding polar bear. But then I realized that it only stated that they had encountered the polar bear while working on the fiber connection to Helsinki, they didn’t say that the connection was straight from Hamina to Helsinki. Perhaps it takes the scenic route via the North Pole.

  • Pekka Pohjanheimo

    They forget to mention that the polar bear was wrestling with penguins when they came across it! Both really common all around in Finland.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      They were distracted by all the 6′-6″ blonds.