Google secret barge floating facilities? Mysterious buildings on barges spotted

A mysterious barge floating in San Francisco Bay is said to be the secret new Google Glass facility, which has cutting edge technology using the sea water for part of its cooling system. The same type of barge is seen in Portland, Maine this week. Both barges carry buildings made out of four stories of shipping containers on a 250-foot long barge floating on the east and west coasts.

There are black nets of secrecy draped over the operation that’s rumored as a floating “giant Apple store,” in the making bobbing in San Francisco Bay, according to Yahoo News on Oct. 26. The other barge in Portland was spotted by folks in New England over the last week, reported yesterday by CNET.

This “secret project,” which is what the locals are calling this massive floating block rising high above the bay water is expected to eventually anchor next to San Francisco’s Fort Mason and open for the public when it’s complete. Google has declined any comment on this barge and they have not offered any indication that they have anything to do with this “secret project” in the bay.

CNET reports that back in 2009, Google obtained a patent for this type of operation, so has it finally materialized? The ocean water will provide a natural cooling center for such a massive operation. The water also provides a “sustainable power source” for this project, as seen in the diagram from the patient office above.

A very similar floating barge, four stories high like the one in San Francisco Bay, is also seen in Portland, Maine. Is this another floating data center for Google? This is what CNET asks today. The two are definitely connected, claims the website. Both buildings are built out of shipping containers and they both are very similar even down to the entrance into the two buildings, both having a slopped covered walkway.

The patient that Google submitted describes the system as:

“A system [that] includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the...computing units."

While everything points to this mystery barge being Google’s new and very secretive Google project, some foresee a problem with this. Google hasn’t applied for the permits need to park a floating Google complex in San Francisco Bay, which is something they will need.

Unless Goggle has a secretive way of getting the OK to park the barge, this doesn’t seem possible, as Bay Conservation and Development Commission director Larry Goldzband said in an interview:

“The law is crystal clear in this case: The Bay is not to be used for something that can be built on land.”

As far as the barge in Portland, it is sitting on a barge registered to the same company that the San Francisco barge is registered to. According to CNET: "The one in San Francisco Bay was built on top of a barge with the registration "BAL 0010," while the one in Portland harbor is on a barge with the registration "BAL 0011."

The next question CNET brings up now that two barges have been spotted, "Is there more out there?"

Mysterious floating barge in San Francisco Bay could be secret new Google Glass facility

A 250-foot long barge with four stories of shipping containers floating in the waters of the San Francisco Bay may actually be the home of Google’s next big marketing push.

KPIX 5 reports that several experts close to local government authorities that oversee such operations say that the barge is likely home to a major marketing effort, a “kind of giant Apple Store,” in support of Google Glass.

The barge itself is reportedly referred to as “the secret project” by locals, with the shipping containers largely concealed under a bed of black netting.

The theory goes that upon completion, Google will pull the barge up to San Francisco’s Fort Mason, where the floating data center would then become open to the public. For it’s part, Google has declined to comment on the speculation.

CNET agrees with the speculation, pointing out that Google obtained a patent for such an operation in 2009 . But why a floating data-center? They say the water provided a natural cooling center for a massive operation like this and that the water itself is also a sustainable power source.

The patent describes such a facility as a, “system [that] includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the...computing units."

There’s just one major problem: many of these same experts say Google hasn’t sought the proper permits to open any such operation.

“Google has spent millions on this,” one anonymous source close to the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) told the station. “But they can’t park this barge on the waterfront without a permit, and they don’t have one.”

A second source confirmed that Google has inquired about “hypothetical operations” that would be water-based but has not specified how or for what purpose any such enterprise would be employed.

Another challenging facing any such enterprise would be in justifying why Google would need the new operation to be water-based.

“The law is crystal clear in this case: The Bay is not to be used for something that can be built on land,” BCDC director Larry Goldzband told the station.

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