Offshore Current

America's computer servers burn through as much energy as the state of Mississippi. For stressed power grids and cost-conscious tech companies, that's a big problem.

Google has now filed a patent for a floating, wave-powered data center, anchored several miles offshore and potentially operated off the grid. The step was taken without publicity, and that's in character for Google, which won't even say how many servers it owns. A self-sufficient data center would give the company a huge competitive advantage.

Google's patent calls for ships filled with racks of computers connected to a system of pontoons, developed by the British company Pelamis Wave Power, that convert wave motion into electricity and use ocean water for cooling. The installation could generate 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to power the data center, or 30,000 homes