A Data Furnace is an idea that was first described by a paper where computer resources are distributed to homes where the waste heat could be use to warm the home.

Questions

• what work loads should be included
  • GPU coin mining
  • distributed storage
• initial costs
• energy costs for South-Western Ontario
• expected costs to upgrade hardware over time
• connectivity requirement and availability
• could hardware be systematically bought used/surplus
  • https://www.gcsurplus.ca/mn-eng.cfm

Existing projects or products

• Neralizer
• Vaper.io Chamber
• Quarnot
• Project Exergy
  • seem to have been a DIY and kickstarter, but does not seem to be doing anything else now
  • https://www.networkworld.com/article/2872580/project-exergy-using-cloud-computing-to-heat-homes.html
  • https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?77916-My-Rig-in-Popular-Mechanics
  • https://forums.evga.com/m/tm.aspx?m=2400896&p=1
• LeafCloud
• Heata
  • https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/heata_offers_free_hot_water/
  • https://www.tomshardware.com/news/heata-server-hot-water-trial-uk
• Heatbit
  • https://hackaday.com/2023/05/13/home-heating-with-bitcoin-miners-is-now-a-real-thing/

Distributed computing/storage projects

• https://www.inrupt.com/
• https://golem.network/
• https://www.rendertoken.com/
• Bitcoin
• Ethereum
• descriptions for modular ceph clusters with one CPU-per-HDD
  • https://www.ambedded.com.tw/en/product/ceph-storage-appliance.html
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rY3yrE2ysQ&feature=emb_logo
• GridCoin

References

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_furnace
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15620010
• https://www.cloudandheat.com/en/private-infrastructure.html
• KWLUG November 2017: Large-scale Open Source Storage and Filesharing
• 6 GPU Ethereum Mining Rig Hardware Build Guide - Coin Mining Rigs
• The era of the cloud’s total dominance is drawing to a close
• Backblaze storage pod specs
• Hyper-converged infrastructure
  • seems like a PR term, but it might contain some useful ideas
  • the important part seems to be about easily distributing computation between the cloud and local hardware
• https://www.fourmilab.ch/fourmilog/archives/2018-10/001787.html
• ohmm Mining
  • project bitcoin from energy in vented gas in oil and gas projects in isolated locations
  • ideas seems to be that the gas must be vented, and there is no infrastructure to send the power back to the grid
  • but it there can be enough power to run their mining rig
• Gaming PC vs. Space Heater Efficiency (2013)
• description of a fanless desktop build with GPU
  • might be some useful part for adding heatsinks and heatpipes to GPUs
  • https://fabiensanglard.net/the_beautiful_machine/index.html
  • Streacom might provide some product or design ideas
• How I heat my home by mining crypto currencies, 2021-02-03
  • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26235414
• Mining Bitcoin for Heat, Strawberries and Chickens
• NVTC Presentation: The Data Center Transformation
• AMD Ryzen beats Intel Core i7 as a heater (that's also a server)
• Dutch companies try warming homes with cloud servers
• https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/heat-your-home-with-the-cloud/
• https://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=15-P13-00010&segmentID=8
• https://www.cloudandheat.com/
• https://automationartist.com/crypto-heater/