Crustacean cultivation: Lobsters and data centers
译 者 说
挪威三文鱼、贻贝、龙虾是广受欢迎的海鲜美食。但是在寒冷的北欧要维持温水养殖龙虾，成本不菲。幸好，绿山公司位于挪威Stavanger海湾的数据中心为养殖场提供了免费的温水，让龙虾宝宝们能快快长大，早日端上餐桌。
欧洲龙虾捕捞业陷入了困境。作为餐厅菜单上最贵的海鲜之一，备受推崇的甲壳类动物需求量很大。然而，甲壳类动物需要数年时间才能成熟，而捕捞已经使其数量大为减少。
The European lobster fishing industry is in trouble. The much-prized crustaceans are in huge demand as one of the most expensive items of seafood on restaurant menus. Yet the crustaceans take years to mature, and fishing has decimated populations.
对于任何其他食物种类，答案是建立养鱼场，但龙虾养殖面临几个看似难以解决的问题。龙虾需要相对温暖的海水（20°C）才能生长，而且它们是同类相食的，因此必须在单独的围栏中饲养。这使得传统养殖场需要大量人力和能源而很不经济。
For any other food species, the answer would be to set up fish farms, but lobster cultivation faces several seemingly insurmountable problems. Lobsters need relatively warm seawater (20°C/ 68°F) to grow, and they are cannibalistic, so they have to be reared in individual pens. This has made conventional fish farms too labor-intensive and energy-intensive to be economic.
21 年来，挪威有一个团队一直在努力克服所有这些障碍，建立挪威龙虾养殖场。经过无数次挫折后，该团队终于准备在2022年全面投产——当地数据中心的副产品是该项目走向成功的原因。
For 21 years, a group in Norway has struggled to overcome all these hurdles to set up the Norwegian Lobster Farm. After endless setbacks, the group is finally set to go into full production next year - and by-products from a local data center are what's got the project across the finish line.
吞食者
Cannibals
陆地种苗基地（例如位于康沃尔帕德斯托的英国国家龙虾孵化场）中可以孵化龙虾，将它们培育到幼苗阶段，但是对于任何陆地养殖场来说，将个体培育到完全长成所需的条件要求太高了，养殖场CEO Asbjørn Drengstig说。“幼苗需要六年才能成熟，由于海水温度太低，它们在冬季不生长。”
It is possible to hatch lobsters, and grow them past the larval stage in dryland nurseries, such as the UK's National Lobster Hatchery in Padstow Cornwall, but growing them to full size has been too demanding for any land-based farm, says CEO of the farm, Asbjørn Drengstig. "Juveniles take six years to mature, because they don't grow in the wintertime, because the temperature is too low in the sea," says Drengstig.
挪威龙虾养殖场
在温度常年保持20°C的水中，龙虾可以在两年内成熟。但是在那段时间里，用精心控制的投喂来人工饲养它们是非常昂贵的，保持水温也所费不赀。
Kept in 20°C water all year round, lobsters can mature in two years. But during that time, it is very expensive to hand rear them with carefully controlled feeding. And keeping the water warm is expensive too.
挪威龙虾养殖场已经能够开发出两种技术：一种用于自动化喂养和培育密集个体龙虾的机器人系统，以及一种通过清洁和再循环设施中的温水来节约热量的系统。该系统减少了热量需求，但增加了复杂性。
The Norwegian Lobster Farm has been able to develop two technologies: a robotic system for automating the intensive process of feeding and nurturing individual lobsters, and a system that economizes on heat by cleaning and recirculating the warm water in the facility. This reduces heat requirements but adds complexity.
Drengstig说，这是一场艰苦卓绝的战斗：“起初，我们需要进行基本的研发，以揭示龙虾生长周期以及我们需要了解的所有事情。我们试图扩大养殖规模——然后金融危机在 2008 年出现，限制了进一步的增产。2011 年，整个养殖场又被烧毁，我们在一夜之间失去了一切。接下来我们花了一些时间来恢复公司，重振旗鼓。”
It has been an epic struggle, says Drengstig: "At first we needed to do basic R&D, to reveal the growth cycle and all the things we needed to know. "Then we tried to scale up - and then the financial crisis came in 2008 which restricted further growth. And then in 2011, the whole farm burned down to the ground. We lost everything overnight. And then it took some time to revitalize the company and get it back on its feet."
这次重建得到了两个欧盟资助项目 Automarus 和 Devaela 的支持，以完全实现循环水产养殖技术 (RAS) 系统和机器人龙虾苗圃，该机器人使用视觉系统通过跟踪个体来达到陆上龙虾养殖的可行性、实现龙虾的精确喂养，并将它们相互隔离以减少同类相食。
That recovery had the backing of two EU funded projects, Automarus and Devaela, to fully realize the system of recycling aquaculture technology (RAS), and the robotic lobster nursery, which uses vision systems to make land-based lobster farming viable, by tracking individual lobsters, feeding them precisely, and keeping them separate to reduce cannibalism.
Drengstig 解释说：“我们规划整个孵化操作，以分离不同生长阶段的虾苗并减少同类相食。” 该养殖场正在验证一个先进的系统，该系统将允许对所有虾苗进行实时监控和自动投喂：“每天我们能够跟踪每只龙虾，在整个生长周期中我们都有单独的跟踪。没有其他水产养殖系统可以跟踪到个体部分。”他接着说：“主要的挑战是准确投喂。当它们很小的时候，我们实际上每天只投喂一到两毫米大小的饲料。这是非常高的精度，对吧？”
"We organize the whole hatching operation to separate different stages and reduce the cannibalism," Drengstig explains. The farm is validating an advanced system which will allow live monitoring of all the stock, and automated feeding: "We are able to track each single lobster every day, we have individual tracking throughout the whole cycle. No other aquaculture system can track on individual basis." He goes on: "The main challenge is to have accurate feeding. When they are small we actually feed one-two millimeter size portion every day. Very high accuracy, right?"
为了节省热量，该养殖场一直在使用循环水产养殖技术 (RAS)，这是一项长期循环水的过程，以尽量减少热量浪费。通过不断地重复利用水，养殖场可以将其水资源浪费减少到 5%，但投资成本非常高。RAS确实很贵。
To conserve heat, the farm has been using recycling aquaculture technology (RAS), a long term for the process of recycling its water to minimize the waste of heat. By continually reusing the water, the farm can reduce its water wastage to five percent, but that is at a very high cost in capital terms. RAS is expensive.
所有这一切都让养殖场在火灾发生十年后仍在努力实现最终开放。令 Drengstig 惊讶的是，养殖场有一个邻居可以让 RAS 的复杂性无关紧要，并将项目推向成功。
All this left the farm struggling to get to finally opening, even ten years after the fire. To Drengstig's surprise, the farm had a neighbor who could make the complexity of RAS irrelevant, and push the project across the finishing line.
进入绿山
Enter Green Mountain
绿山的斯塔万格DC1数据中心
托管运营商 Green Mountain（绿山）的斯塔万格（挪威港口城市）DC1数据中心位于 Rennesoy 的一个地堡中，这是龙虾养殖场相邻的一个岛屿。DC1 由峡湾海水冷却，进水水温8°C、出水水温 20°C。它全年生产温水，温度适合甲壳类动物生长。
Colocation operator Green Mountain's DC1-Stavanger data center is located in a bunker on Rennesoy, the next island along from the Lobster Farm. DC1 is cooled by a salt-water fjord, taking in water in at 8°C (46.4°F) and releasing it at 20°C. It produces warm water all year round, at the ideal temperature for Drengstig's crustaceans.
金风玉露一相逢，便胜却人间无数。渔业是挪威文化的核心，绿山与渔场世界从此有了密切的联系。它还为Rennesoy的鳟鱼养殖场提供废热。
The two found each other through mutual contacts. Fishing is central to Norway's culture, and Green Mountain is well-connected in the world of fish farms. It also offers waste heat to a trout farm on Rennesoy.
该公司的前任CEO Knut Molaug 在世界上最大的水产养殖公司 Akva 工作了很长时间后来到公司，并于 2017 年离开，经营一家制造养鱼场机器人的公司 Aqua Robotics。Aqua 的机器人是水上机器人，所以龙虾养殖场没有，但 Molaug 是它的董事会成员。
The company's previous CEO, Knut Molaug, came to the company after a long career in the world's largest aquaculture company, Akva, and left in 2017 to run a firm making fish farm robots, Aqua Robotics. Aqua's bots are aquatic, so there aren't any at the Lobster Farm, but Molaug is on its board.
Drengstig 说，两者之间的伙伴关系没有任何不利之处。挪威龙虾养殖场正在绿山 DC1 旁边建造一个新设施，该设施将于 2022 年开业，并在一年内为餐厅供应龙虾。该计划将节省养殖场 15% 的运营成本，因为它不再需要加热任何水。节省的设备投资更多，因为 Drengstig 可以消除 RAS 的复杂性并节省 25% 的资本投资。
The partnership between the two has no downside, says Drengstig.Norwegian Lobster Farm is building a new facility next to Green Mountain DC1, which should open in 2022, and produce lobsters for restaurants within a year. The arrangement will save 15 percent of the farm's operational cost because it no longer has to heat any water. But there's a bigger saving on equipment, because Drengstig can do away with the complexity of RAS and save 25 percent of its capital investment.
“主要的好处是我们通过利用他们的废热来减少我们的环境足迹，”Drengstig 说，“因为通常我们用回收系统来保存养殖场内部的热量。我们只交换5%新水，但我们仍然需要使用加热器来升高水温。
"The main benefit is we reduce our environmental footprint by using their waste heat," says Drengstig, "because normally we have our recycling system to preserve the heat inside the farm. We only exchange five percent, but still we need to use heaters to heat up the temperature of the water.
“这些温水将是免费的，我们不必投资复杂的再循环基础设施，管理操作将会简化，出错的可能性更少。我们不再需要循环泵、管道、阀门，以及所有使再循环养殖场复杂化的事情。“只有流动的水，它简化了操作，这将是一个不同的世界。”
"This water will be water free of charge, and we don't have to invest in complicated recirculating infrastructure. And managing operations will be less complicated. Fewer things can go wrong. We don't have to have recirculating pumps, pipes, valves, and all those things that complicate a re-circulating farm. "This would just be flow-through water, and it simplifies the operation, it will be a different world."
绿山数据中心的 Tor Kristian Gyland、挪威龙虾养殖场的 Alf Reime 和 Asbjorn Drengstig 合影
数据中心有最佳热量
Data centers have the best heat
Drengstig说他已经研究过其他温水来源，但都不够稳定。“对我来说，最担心的问题是它们突然会进行维护，然后温水水源关闭了——于是养殖场就会出现水温波动。”相比之下，数据中心是稳定的：“他们永远不会停机。他们有冗余，永远不会停止供应温水。如果供水停止了，那他们的问题会比我们大得多！”
Drengstig says he has looked at other sources of warm water, but they are not steady enough. "The problem for me is that suddenly they have maintenance, and then they shut down - and then you have a fluctuation in temperature." By contrast, data centers are steady: "They can never stop. They have redundancy, and will never stop the warm water flow. If the water stops, they have much bigger problems than we have!"
他说，这种关系很密切：“就像手套与手。我用循环经济这个词来减少足迹。提高可持续性并利用能源和有机物质，我认为世界正在转向更环保的思维，以实现过去浪费的资源再利用。”
The relationship is close, he says: "It's like a hand in a glove. I use the term circular economy for reducing the footprint. Increasing sustainability and utilizing energy, and organic material, I think the world is turning towards greener thinking to reuse what previously was a waste. Now it's actually a resource."
在过去 21 年的奋斗中，龙虾养殖场有点像它所培育的生物——在温度允许的情况下生长并耐心等待条件的变化。“这是一段非常有趣的旅程，”Drengstig 说。“我通常会告诉人们你需要耐心，你需要有激情。你需要有点执着。”
For the last 21 years of struggle, the Lobster Farm has been a little like the creatures which it nurtures - growing when the temperature allows and waiting patiently for conditions to change. "It's been a very interesting journey," says Drengstig. "I usually tell people you need to be patient, you need to have passion. And you need to be a little bit stubborn."
“在火灾发生之前，我们得到了烹饪厨师和美食杂志的好评。这是一次价值链下游的奇妙旅程。我们看到这个产品实际上在世界上很受欢迎，所以我们将不断努力。”
"Before the fire, we had tremendous reviews from culinary chefs and gourmet magazines. It has been a fantastic journey going downstream in the value chain. We saw that this product actually has its rights in the world, so we kept on going."
写 在 最 后
冷却即服务（Cooling as a service）与废热利用
2020 年 12 月联合国报告声称，建筑物建造和运营产生的碳排放现在占全球能源相关二氧化碳排放总量的 38% 之后。
在北半球冬季漫长的供暖期，区域供暖比电力或燃气集中供暖更高效，碳排放量更低。过去十年，欧盟一直在推动成员国实施区域供暖计划。北欧在区域供暖方面占有一席之地。在芬兰，区域供暖几乎覆盖了所需建筑供暖能力的一半。但遗憾的是，仍有三分之一的能源来自化石燃料。
付诸行动的爱尔兰都柏林的区域供暖计划已经建立了自己的公有能源公司，称为 Heatworks，将热量从数据中心输送到区域供热网络。当然，如果没有合作的区域供热公司愿意将其从数据中心运营商手中拿走这些废热，如何重新利用这一资源仍存在挑战。
数据中心的废热还能提供其他诸多服务。例如，美国国家可再生能源中心利用多余的废热来加热其位于科罗拉多州戈尔登的总部周围的道路，以使它们在冬天免受冰雪的侵袭，但这几乎不是对宝贵资源的有效利用。
荷兰科技公司 Blockheat 与咨询公司 IT Renew 共同开发了一种更实用的替代解决方案。它设计了一个集装箱式数据中心，可以使用液体冷却来最大限度地捕获热量，并将结果输送到荷兰闻名的商业温室，以帮助在不使用天然气的情况下保持西红柿和甜椒在整个秋季和冬季的生长。
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翻译：
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