I was bantering back and forth with a couple friends recently about what our dream datacenter/colo space would look like. We estimated with devices with good airflow you could stay within the operating temperature range of most computer components with the outdoor air temperature in North Dakota (at least on the high side... you'd have to close the vent window in the winter). It would be wild to operate a datacenter with no active cooling at all.
The sooner the days of wearing gloves in the datacenter are over the better, in my opinion. Bring the steel toed flip flops and cargo shorts. :)
Microsoft's considering opening a data center in Siberia, but the other side of the equation is the local electricity costs. If the juice to run the computers in Outer
Freezistan costs more than computers + AC in San Francisco, you save no money. Unless you're building a floating data center with built-in hydroelectric and solar thermal or something.
The sooner the days of wearing gloves in the datacenter are over the better, in my opinion. Bring the steel toed flip flops and cargo shorts. :)