Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information or to customize your cookie preferences.

Accept Deny

GoGreenNation news

New Calculations Uncover a Vast Ocean Beneath Pluto’s Ice

News Feed
Friday, July 26, 2024

Recent research has provided deeper insights into the subsurface ocean of Pluto, previously believed to be an impossibility due to the dwarf planet’s extremely low temperatures.Graduate student Alex Nguyen calculated the depth and density of the solar system’s most mysterious and remote body of water.New calculations by Alex Nguyen, a graduate student in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, are bringing into focus the existence of a vast ocean of liquid water beneath Pluto’s icy surface.In a paper published in the journal Icarus, Nguyen used mathematical models and images from the New Horizons spacecraft that passed by Pluto in 2015 to take a closer look at the ocean that likely covers the planet beneath a thick shell of nitrogen, methane, and water ice. Patrick McGovern of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, was a co-author of the paper.For many decades, planetary scientists assumed that Pluto could not support an ocean. The surface temperature is about -220 C, a temperature so cold even gases like nitrogen and methane freeze solid. Water shouldn’t have a chance. “Pluto is a small body,” Nguyen said. “It should have lost almost all of its heat shortly after it was formed, so basic calculations would suggest that it’s frozen solid to its core.”Recent Evidence of Liquid WaterBut in recent years, prominent scientists including Professor Bill McKinnon have gathered evidence suggesting Pluto likely contains an ocean of liquid water beneath the ice. That inference came from several lines of evidence, including Pluto’s cryovolcanoes that spew ice and water vapor. Although there is still some debate, “it’s now generally accepted that Pluto has an ocean,” Nguyen said.The new study probes the ocean in greater detail, even if it’s far too deep below the ice for scientists to ever see. Nguyen and McGovern created mathematical models to explain the cracks and bulges in the ice covering Pluto’s Sputnik Platina Basin, the site of a meteor collision billions of years ago. Their calculations suggest the ocean in this area exists beneath a shell of water ice 40 to 80 km thick, a blanket of protection that likely keeps the inner ocean from freezing solid.They also calculated the likely density or salinity of the ocean based on the fractures in the ice above. They estimate Pluto’s ocean is at most about 8% denser than seawater on Earth, or roughly the same as Utah’s Great Salt Lake. If you could somehow get to Pluto’s ocean, you could effortlessly float.As Nguyen explained, that level of density would explain the abundance of fractures seen on the surface. If the ocean was significantly less dense, the ice shell would collapse, creating many more fractures than actually observed. If the ocean was much denser, there would be fewer fractures. “We estimated a sort of Goldilocks zone where the density and shell thickness is just right,” he said.Space agencies have no plans to return to Pluto any time soon, so many of its mysteries will remain for future generations of researchers. Whether it’s called a planet, a planetoid, or merely one of many objects in the outer reaches of the solar system, it’s worth studying, Nguyen said. “From my perspective, it’s a planet.”Reference: “The role of Pluto’s ocean’s salinity in supporting nitrogen ice loads within the Sputnik Planitia basin” by P.J. McGovern and A.L. Nguyen, 28 January 2024, Icarus.DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.115968

Graduate student Alex Nguyen calculated the depth and density of the solar system’s most mysterious and remote body of water. New calculations by Alex Nguyen,...

Glowing Pluto

Recent research has provided deeper insights into the subsurface ocean of Pluto, previously believed to be an impossibility due to the dwarf planet’s extremely low temperatures.

Graduate student Alex Nguyen calculated the depth and density of the solar system’s most mysterious and remote body of water.

New calculations by Alex Nguyen, a graduate student in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, are bringing into focus the existence of a vast ocean of liquid water beneath Pluto’s icy surface.

In a paper published in the journal Icarus, Nguyen used mathematical models and images from the New Horizons spacecraft that passed by Pluto in 2015 to take a closer look at the ocean that likely covers the planet beneath a thick shell of nitrogen, methane, and water ice.

Patrick McGovern of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, was a co-author of the paper.

For many decades, planetary scientists assumed that Pluto could not support an ocean. The surface temperature is about -220 C, a temperature so cold even gases like nitrogen and methane freeze solid. Water shouldn’t have a chance. “Pluto is a small body,” Nguyen said. “It should have lost almost all of its heat shortly after it was formed, so basic calculations would suggest that it’s frozen solid to its core.”

Recent Evidence of Liquid Water

But in recent years, prominent scientists including Professor Bill McKinnon have gathered evidence suggesting Pluto likely contains an ocean of liquid water beneath the ice. That inference came from several lines of evidence, including Pluto’s cryovolcanoes that spew ice and water vapor. Although there is still some debate, “it’s now generally accepted that Pluto has an ocean,” Nguyen said.

The new study probes the ocean in greater detail, even if it’s far too deep below the ice for scientists to ever see. Nguyen and McGovern created mathematical models to explain the cracks and bulges in the ice covering Pluto’s Sputnik Platina Basin, the site of a meteor collision billions of years ago. Their calculations suggest the ocean in this area exists beneath a shell of water ice 40 to 80 km thick, a blanket of protection that likely keeps the inner ocean from freezing solid.

They also calculated the likely density or salinity of the ocean based on the fractures in the ice above. They estimate Pluto’s ocean is at most about 8% denser than seawater on Earth, or roughly the same as Utah’s Great Salt Lake. If you could somehow get to Pluto’s ocean, you could effortlessly float.

As Nguyen explained, that level of density would explain the abundance of fractures seen on the surface. If the ocean was significantly less dense, the ice shell would collapse, creating many more fractures than actually observed. If the ocean was much denser, there would be fewer fractures. “We estimated a sort of Goldilocks zone where the density and shell thickness is just right,” he said.

Space agencies have no plans to return to Pluto any time soon, so many of its mysteries will remain for future generations of researchers. Whether it’s called a planet, a planetoid, or merely one of many objects in the outer reaches of the solar system, it’s worth studying, Nguyen said. “From my perspective, it’s a planet.”

Reference: “The role of Pluto’s ocean’s salinity in supporting nitrogen ice loads within the Sputnik Planitia basin” by P.J. McGovern and A.L. Nguyen, 28 January 2024, Icarus.
DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.115968

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

How Last Year’s Wildfires Reignited a Battle Over Water Rights on Maui

Native Hawaiians have always understood the value of water. In the Hawaiian language, the word for fresh water is “wai”—and the word for wealth is “waiwai.” An essential asset, water was a resource Hawaiians shared, and they made sure to return what they didn’t use back to the stream. But the 19th-century sugar barons who […]

Native Hawaiians have always understood the value of water. In the Hawaiian language, the word for fresh water is “wai”—and the word for wealth is “waiwai.” An essential asset, water was a resource Hawaiians shared, and they made sure to return what they didn’t use back to the stream. But the 19th-century sugar barons who diverted water to irrigate their plantations did not share those traditions. On Maui, the most important was Alexander & Baldwin, founded in 1870 by the sons of missionaries, which wielded great political and economic power for more than a century. At its height, it sustained its operations by draining plentiful streams of 165 million gallons a day to irrigate its plantation in Maui’s central plain, moving it through 70 miles of tunnels, ditches, flumes, and reservoirs. As stream levels dropped and taro patches dried up, Native Hawaiians, unable to grow their own food, were forced to move. The network became a subsidiary company—East Maui Irrigation—which still controls this water diversion system. Today, EMI is jointly owned by Alexander & Baldwin and agribusiness company Mahi Pono. EMI has been the source of long-running legal battles on Maui, as farmers and environmental groups seek to stop it from sucking up fresh water from the island’s streams. “For more than two decades, Native Hawaiians and the environmental community have been using legal avenues to try to restore at least some flow to these streams,” says Sierra Club attorney David Frankel. “At every turn, A&B and [the Board of Land and Natural Resources] have worked hand-in-hand to thwart those efforts.”   An A&B spokesperson disputes this. “There are laws and statutes in Hawaii that govern the flow of water in streams and these legal processes were followed by the BLNR, A&B, and the Native Hawaiian and environmental communities,” the spokesperson says. “Significant amounts of water have been restored to East Maui streams. A number of priority streams…have been permanently and fully restored and will not be diverted in the future.” The battle over Maui’s water supply intensified last August, when wildfires tore through the island and devastated the community of Lahaina. Earlier that summer, EMI’s legal opponents had scored a victory when a state court reduced the amount it could suck up from Maui’s streams by a quarter. But a day after the historic town was all but wiped out, the state of Hawaii petitioned its Supreme Court to stop the court order and increase the amount of water diverted, ostensibly for the purpose of fighting fires in Upcountry Maui. The state’s petition seemed like a backdoor way to reverse the earlier ruling against EMI, especially when it soon became clear there was more than enough water available to fight the Upcountry fires. And it raised local suspicions that the state was doing the bidding of corporations. Frankel called the effort a “brazen attempt to capitalize on tragedy to subvert the judicial process.” The state Supreme Court ultimately denied the petition. But a year after the Maui fires, the fight at the heart of that case—over who controls the island’s water supply, public or private interests—remains as fierce as ever. The hall of historic Waiola Church in Lahaina and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames in 2023.Matthew Thayer/The Maui News/AP Hawaii’s sugar plantations started closing one by one in the 1950s, as production moved to countries where costs were lower. The last of them, A&B’s Central Maui sugar operation, shut down in 2016. The company is now in the commercial real estate and development business, with a portfolio spanning 39 properties and 3,500 acres across Hawaii. On Maui, A&B’s legacy remains complicated. For some it is an extractive force that has denied Native farmers their cultural lifestyle. For others, it is a benevolent presence that provided jobs, medical care, housing, and scholarships for students. “A&B was a major employer on Maui for over a century,” says Lucienne de Naie, the chairperson of Sierra Club Maui Group. “There were people who were very grateful to A&B. They gave immigrants a chance to work in the fields.” But cross the company, de Naie says, and “you were blackballed. It was hard to get any kind of job on Maui.” Because of its history on the island, any issue having to do with A&B, including water, has deeply divided the island community. “While we can’t speak for our predecessors, we are encouraged by the re-emergence of taro cultivation as a cultural practice and important food source in East Maui,” says an A&B spokesperson. De Naie lives in Huelo, a small town in northeastern Maui, where there is no public water supply. Residents retrieve water from streams or through water catchment. If those sources are dry, they have to purchase water. “We live in an area where our water is taken for other people to use, but we have to buy water from people that come in trucks and deliver it,” de Naie says. Hawaii’s constitution declares that water is a public trust for the benefit of all citizens, and the state government is the only entity that can administer this resource. But there’s a loophole: Businesses, such as A&B, can control and sell the use of their water diversion systems. “The operators of the diversion system end up having a significant amount of leverage over who gets how much water,” says Jonathan Scheuer, co-author of the book Water and Power in West Maui. “This is partly because of the amount of information they have available on how the system operates. Other players have to trust them often when they say this is how much water is available.” The state leases water rights to EMI and other companies. For decades, EMI has received one-year revocable permits from BLNR to divert water from Maui’s streams. In exchange for the use of water for its own purposes, EMI must deliver water to rural residents in Upcountry Maui, for which it is paid 6 cents per thousand gallons by the Maui Department of Water Supply. In 2018, the newly incorporated company Mahi Pono bought 41,000 acres of former plantation lands from A&B for $262 million, making it Maui’s largest landowner. The deal also included a 50 percent interest in EMI for $2.7 million. The company currently employs 350 Maui residents. By the end of 2024, it projects it will complete planting 14,830 acres with a variety of crops, including citrus, coffee, macadamia nut, watermelon, and onions. Though Mahi Pono’s name is Hawaiian—it means “to grow responsibly”—the company is not. It is majority owned by Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP), which manages approximately $200 billion in assets and has been buying up water rights worldwide as long-term investments. “It makes perfect sense for them to invest in water,” says Shay Chan Hodges. She served as vice chair of the Maui County Board of Water Supply from 2018 to 2019, and chair from 2019 to 2021. “Obviously there’s value to 40,000 acres of land, but the real value is the water attached to that land.” Water moves slowly through Lowrie Ditch in 2016 as it passes through a Haiku weir on its way to a siphon on the island of Maui.Matthew Thayer/Maui News/AP That’s something A&B and Mahi Pono evidently agree on, too. Per their sales contract, if A&B is unable to secure water leases with the state of at least 30 million gallons per day or if it’s unable to secure a long-term water lease of 30 years, it must pay Mahi Pono rebates of up to $62 million. Indeed, Mahi Pono’s allocation had been cut below that contractual threshold shortly before the state and A&B petitioned to increase the water usage of the East Maui Irrigation System last August in the wake of the Lahaina blaze. “If Mahi Pono can obtain a 30-year lease from the state allowing for tens of millions of gallons a day (upwards of 90 mgd), the lease itself is an asset that can be monetized and potentially transferred or sold. This adds significant value to Mahi Pono’s holdings,” says Hodges. After the Mahi Pono deal, A&B moved quickly to pursue a 30-year lease to divert up to 92 million gallons per day from Maui’s streams, with 85 mgd earmarked for Mahi Pono’s agricultural holdings. As part of its lease application, EMI filed an environmental impact statement that made plain the Faustian bargain at the heart of Maui’s water system. If it was not granted water rights, its water deliveries “would terminate,” a prospect that would leave tens of thousands of Maui residents without access to fresh water. This language predictably caused local alarm, and the Maui County Board Department of Water Supply created a Temporary Investigative Group in 2019 to research the feasibility of purchasing and maintaining the EMI system. “The Temporary Investigative Group believed that public ownership of the system was necessary for protecting the public health,” says Hodges, who was part of the group. “Because why are we being held hostage? The basic message was, ‘if you don’t do what we say, you won’t get any water.’” Hodges and her colleagues recommended either purchasing or condemning the EMI system, or for the mayor to step in to acquire the long-term leases and give control back to the government, but nothing came of it. For years, A&B and Mahi Pono have sought to influence local politics. “These corporations’ executives have held a number of influential positions in both the state and county governments,” says Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, a member of the Maui County Council. “A&B and Mahi Pono have long donated tremendous amounts to elected officials’ campaigns.” Hannibal Tavares, one of Maui’s former mayors, was a veteran of the sugar industry and an employee of A&B prior to winning office in 1979. The current vice president of A&B also served on the state’s Commission on Water Resource Management (the arm that decides how much water companies can divert) from 2002 to 2005 while working for A&B. Another sugar industry leader twice served on the commission. Since 2006, A&B and its top executives have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to state and county politicians. They’ve donated more than $10,000 to Gov. Josh Green in the past two years. Mahi Pono’s executives began donating to political campaigns in 2020. Thousands of those contributions flowed to Green, too. “This is a case of our elected leaders choosing to be beholden to a private entity,” Hodges says. Workers cut sugar cane at Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar, the state’s last sugar plantation, in this 2010 file photo.Audrey McAvoy/AP Even before last year’s wildfires reinvigorated the fight over Maui’s water supply, activists had begun to gain some ground in their effort to wrest control from A&B and Mahi Pono. Since the former and present mayor didn’t step in, in 2022, voters approved the creation of the East Maui Community Board water authority, which gives the people the power to negotiate water leases with the state. Hodges says she was surprised there was no pushback from corporations when it was put on the ballot, but there was some controversy with the appointment of its 11-member board. After the deadline to apply had closed, the county council received requests to open the process up again. When the county did so, new applicants included a former Mahi Pono executive and former Mayor Alan Arakawa, who had opposed the water authority and said it would “kill Mahi Pono.” (When the 11-member board was eventually approved, it included Arakawa, taro farmers and several water resource experts, including Scheuer, who became the chair.) Delayed by the fire, the water board began holding bimonthly meetings in February, and the director seat will soon be filled. But whether the community water authority and board successfully take East Maui water leases out of the hands of A&B and Mahi Pono, or if more challenges emerge, remains to be seen. If successful, it would be the first time in more than 100 years that the people of East Maui, and not a private corporation, will determine how its water is divided and shared. It could prove to be a model for the rest of the island, where other corporations hold its own separate systems. Currently, EMI has a one-year lease from the state covering 2024, allowing 31.25 million gallons per day to be diverted from East Maui’s streams to Mahi Pono’s land—and the Sierra Club Maui is keeping a sharp eye as its legal battles continue. It’s fighting to stop the issuance of one-year leases, which avoids the rigorous review afforded to long-term leases. De Naie says these court battles will make a difference for the future. “Eventually…we will see a standard set for trusteeship of public resources that should have been in place in the first place.”

Water
Activism
Food

New California water measures aim to increase fines for violators, protect wetlands

California legislators passed a bill to increase fines for those who violate the state's water curtailment orders. The measure awaits Gov. Newsom's signature.

Under California law, anyone caught diverting water in violation of a state order has long been subject to only minimal fines. State legislators have now decided to crack down on violators under a newly approved bill that sharply increases penalties.Assembly Bill 460 was passed by the Legislature last week and is among the water-related measures awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. Other bills that were approved aim to protect the state’s wetlands and add new safeguards for the water supplies of rural communities.Supporters say increasing fines for violations will help the State Water Resources Control Board more effectively enforce its orders to curtail water use when necessary.“It helps the water board enforce the laws that they have on the books,” said Analise Rivero, associate director of policy for the group California Trout, which co-sponsored the bill.The bill, which was introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), is intended to prevent the sort of violations that occurred in 2022 in the Shasta River watershed, when farmers and ranchers who belong to the Shasta River Water Assn. defied a curtailment order for eight days and diverted more than half the river’s flow, flouting requirements aimed at protecting salmon. Aggressive and impactful reporting on climate change, the environment, health and science. The state water board fined the association the maximum amount for the violation: $4,000, which worked out to about $50 for each of its members. Those small fines didn’t deter farmers and ranchers from reducing the river’s flow to a point that threatened salmon and affected the supplies of downstream water users.The case in Siskiyou County led to widespread calls for larger fines and stronger enforcement powers.The legislation increases fines for violations of state water curtailment to as much as $10,000 per day, plus $2,500 for each acre-foot of water diverted. (An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or enough to cover one acre a foot deep.)“This bill closes that loophole and makes the existing law stronger, and it’s an important step in disincentivizing water theft,” Rivero said. Rivero said being able to impose larger fines is important as California grapples with the effects of climate change on water supplies.Leaders of a coalition of environmental groups urged Newsom to sign the bill. In a letter, they said enforcing harsher penalties for violators is crucial for the state water board to “fulfill its mission of protecting fish, water, and people.”Bauer-Kahan said that for too long, breaking the law and paying the fines have been seen as the cost of doing business by some illegal water diverters.“Although we did not go far enough in ensuring that our water rights system functions in times of scarcity, we did take an important step,” Bauer-Kahan said.The legislation raises penalties to “better hold those who steal water accountable,” she said. “Water is a precious resource, and we must do everything possible to ensure its protection.”Proponents of the bill made some sacrifices to secure sufficient support in the Legislature, dropping a provision that would have given the state water board authority to act faster in emergencies to prevent “irreparable injury” to streams, fish or other water users.The result was a relatively modest reform, but one that serves an important purpose, said Cody Phillips, staff attorney for the group California Coastkeeper Alliance.“Being able to get the California Legislature to agree to increase fines in water is a major deal for the practical consequences of preventing water theft, but also to show that we can change these important details about our water rights system, and the sky doesn’t fall,” Phillips said. Other proposals have recently encountered strong opposition from agricultural groups and water agencies.Phillips and other environmental advocates supported another bill, AB 1337, which sought to clarify the state water board’s authority to issue curtailment orders for all diverters, including senior rights holders that use a large portion of the state’s water. But that bill didn’t secure enough support to pass this year in the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee.“Water is often referred to as the third rail in California politics, and we’ve seen that any changes, even modest changes, like 460 and frankly 1337, are met with ferocious pushback,” Phillips said. “But we can’t avoid these issues — climate change, overallocation, they’ve all led to a system where the way that we deal with water just doesn’t work.”Some legal experts said the bill is a step in the right direction.“We know that water is the single most important resource in the state, and yet we do not have a clear understanding of who uses it, where, and when, and we do not have a robust system for correcting unlawful use,” said Jennifer Harder, a professor at University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law.Harder said the state needs to continue improving collection of water use data and should adopt measures to improve oversight of water rights. She said she is optimistic that “local water suppliers will come to understand that state-level standards can support and enhance local management.”One of the other water-related measures passed by the Legislature included a bill intended to protect California’s wetlands after the rollback of federal protections under a Supreme Court decision last year. The court’s ruling in Sackett vs. EPA rewrote the federal definition of wetlands and removed federal protections for many streams that do not flow year-round, leaving ephemeral streams vulnerable to development and pollution.If signed by Newsom, the bill, AB 2875, will codify an executive order that then-Gov. Pete Wilson issued in 1993 establishing a state policy of “no net loss” of wetlands and calling for a long-term increase in the acreage of wetlands. Despite that policy, the state has continued to lose more wetland acres to development during the last three decades.“We have wetlands that only flow certain times of year, and they are seasonal, ephemeral streams that were stripped of protections, and yet they are really, really important biologically and for habitat,” said Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), who introduced the legislation. Wetlands and a riparian forest are sustained by groundwater at the National Audubon Society’s Kern River Preserve. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) Friedman and other supporters of the measure have stressed that because more than 90% of California’s original wetlands have already been drained and destroyed, strong protections for those that remain are vital. They say since the Supreme Court has scaled back the Clean Water Act’s federal protections for wetlands, the state will need to play a bigger role.“We care about our state’s natural resources here in California, and it’s a shame that we right now have a Supreme Court that doesn’t seem to be very concerned about the kind of destruction that we’re seeing to our environment,” Friedman said. “It falls on states to really play whack-a-mole and catch up, because we have relied for a long time on existing, long-standing federal regulations.”Scientists have documented major declines in North American bird populations since the 1970s, and they cite causes including the loss of habitats and warmer, drier conditions driven by climate change, among other factors.The bill was sponsored by leaders of Audubon California, who called the measure an important step toward protecting wetland habitats that birds need to survive.The bill doesn’t create a new regulatory framework but does make “a strong statement that California will protect and add wetlands,” said Mike Lynes, Audubon California’s director of public policy. “We’ve already lost so much of our natural wetland habitat. We’ve seen a decline in biodiversity, and there’s a ton of benefits by creating wetlands, not only for ecosystems, but also for flood control and for recreational opportunities, whether it’s birding, hunting, just hiking out in wetland areas.”Another bill that was approved, AB 828, is aimed at improving safeguards for managed wetlands that are sustained by groundwater pumping, as well as rural communities that depend on wells. The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Damon Connolly (D-San Rafael), would allow these managed wetlands and small communities to temporarily continue to pump amounts of water in line with historical averages without facing mandatory reductions or fees imposed by local agencies under the state’s groundwater law.Supporters said they proposed the change after several local agencies proposed groundwater allocations that would excessively limit supplies for communities or wildlife areas while also limiting pumping by agricultural landowners who are the largest water users. “It sets a pause on pumping restrictions for small community water systems and managed wetlands, and on some fees, until those issues and their needs are considered,” Lynes said.Some communities in the Central Valley have faced unworkable requirements to cut water use dramatically and start paying high fees for exceeding those limits, said Jennifer Clary, state director for the group Clean Water Action.“We wanted a long-term exemption, but there was a lot of concern in the Legislature about that,” Clary said.

Water
Nature
Climate

Amazon says it’s going "water positive" — but there’s a problem

The company’s pledge to conserve water at its data centers doesn’t account for thirsty power plants they rely on

Earlier this year, the e-commerce corporation Amazon secured approval to open two new data centers in Santiago, Chile. The $400 million venture is the company’s first foray into locating its data facilities, which guzzle massive amounts of electricity and water in order to power cloud computing services and online programs, in Latin America — and in one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, where residents have protested against the industry’s expansion. This week, the tech giant made a separate but related announcement. It plans to invest in water conservation along the Maipo River, which is the primary source of water for the Santiago region. Amazon will partner with a water technology startup to help farmers along the river install drip irrigation systems on 165 acres of farmland. The plan is poised to conserve enough water to supply around 300 homes per year, and it’s part of Amazon’s campaign to make its cloud computing operations “water positive” by 2030, meaning the company’s web services division will conserve or replenish more water than it uses up. The reasoning behind this water initiative is clear: Data centers require large amounts of water to cool their servers, and Amazon plans to spend $100 billion to build more of them over the next decade as part of a big bet on its Amazon Web Services cloud-computing platform. Other tech companies such as Microsoft and Meta, which are also investing in data centers to sustain the artificial-intelligence boom, have made similar water pledges amid a growing controversy about the sector’s thirst for water and power. Amazon claims that its data centers are already among the most water-efficient in the industry, and it plans to roll out more conservation projects to mitigate its thirst. However, just like corporate pledges to reach “net-zero” emissions, these water pledges are more complex than they seem at first glance. While the company has indeed taken steps to cut water usage at its facilities, its calculations don’t account for the massive water needs of the power plants that keep the lights on at those very same facilities. Without a larger commitment to mitigating Amazon’s underlying stress on electricity grids, conservation efforts by the company and its fellow tech giants will only tackle part of the problem, according to experts who spoke to Grist. The powerful servers in large data centers run hot as they process unprecedented amounts of information, and keeping them from overheating requires both water and electricity. Rather than try to keep these rooms cool with traditional air-conditioning units, many companies use water as a coolant, running it past the servers to chill them out. The centers also need huge amounts of electricity to run all their servers: They already account for around 3 percent of U.S. power demand, a number that could more than double by 2030. On top of that, the coal, gas, and nuclear power plants that produce that electricity themselves consume even larger quantities of water to stay cool. Will Hewes, who leads water sustainability for Amazon Web Services, told Grist that the company uses water in its data centers in order to save on energy-intensive air conditioning units, thus reducing its reliance on fossil fuels.  “Using water for cooling in most places really reduces the amount of energy that we use, and so it helps us meet other sustainability goals,” he said. “We could always decide to not use water for cooling, but we want to, a lot, because of those energy and efficiency benefits.” It’s almost certain that this number has ballooned even higher in recent years as companies have built more centers to keep up with the artificial-intelligence boom. In order to save on energy costs, the company’s data centers have to evaporate millions of gallons of water per year. It’s hard to say for sure how much water the data center industry consumes, but the ballpark estimates are substantial. One 2021 study found that U.S. data centers consumed around 415,000 acre-feet of water in 2018, even before the artificial-intelligence boom. That’s enough to supply around a million average homes annually, or about as much as California’s Imperial Valley takes from the Colorado River each year to grow winter vegetables. Another study found that data centers operated by Microsoft, Google, and Meta withdrew twice as much water from rivers and aquifers as the entire country of Denmark.  It’s almost certain that this number has ballooned even higher in recent years as companies have built more centers to keep up with the artificial-intelligence boom, since AI programs such as ChatGPT require massive amounts of server real estate. Tech companies have built hundreds of new data centers in the last few years alone, and they are planning hundreds more. One recent estimate found that ChatGPT requires an average-sized bottle of water for every 10 to 50 chat responses it provides. The on-site water consumption at any one of these companies’ data centers could now rival that of a major beverage company such as PepsiCo.  Amazon doesn’t provide statistics on its absolute water consumption; Hewes told Grist the company is “focused on efficiency.” However, the tech giant’s water usage is likely lower than some of its competitors — in part because the company has built most of its data centers with so-called evaporative cooling systems, which require far less water than other cooling technologies and only turn on when temperatures get too high. The company pegs its water usage at around 10 percent of the industry average, and in temperate locations such as Sweden, it doesn’t use any water to cool down data centers except during peak summer temperatures.  Companies can reduce the environmental impact of their AI business by building them in temperate regions that have plenty of water, but they must balance those efficiency concerns with concerns about land and electricity costs, as well as the need to be close to major customers. Recent studies have found that data center water consumption in the U.S. is “skewed toward water stressed subbasins” in places like the Southwest, but Amazon has clustered much of its business farther east, especially in Virginia, which boasts cheap power and financial incentives for tech firms. “A lot of the locations are driven by customer needs, but also by [prices for] real estate and power,” said Hewes. “Some big portions of our data center footprint are in places that aren’t super hot, that aren’t in super water stressed regions. Virginia, Ohio — they get hot in the summer, but then there are big chunks of the year where we don’t need to use water for cooling.”  Even so, the company’s expansion in Virginia is already causing concerns over water availability. To mitigate its impacts in such basins, the company also funds dozens of conservation and recharge projects like the one in Chile. It donates recycled water from its data centers to farmers, who use it to irrigate their crops, and it has also helped restore the rivers that supply water-stressed cities such as Cape Town, South Africa; in northern Virginia, it has worked to install cover crop farmland that can reduce runoff pollution in local waterways. The company treats these projects the way other companies treat carbon offsets, counting each gallon recharged against a gallon it consumes at its data centers. Amazon said in its most recent sustainability report that it is 41 percent of the way to meeting its goal of being “water positive.” In other words, it has funded projects that recharge or conserve a little over 4 gallons of water for every 10 gallons of water it uses.  But despite all this, the company’s water stewardship goal doesn’t include the water consumed by the power plants that supply its data centers. This consumption can be as much as three to 10 times as large as the on-site water consumption at a data center, according to Shaolei Ren, a professor of engineering at the University of California, Riverside, who studies data center water usage. As an example, Ren pointed to an Amazon data center in Pennsylvania that relies on a nuclear power plant less than a mile away. That data center uses around 20 percent of the power plant’s capacity. “They say they’re using very little water, but there’s a big water evaporation happening just nearby, and that’s for powering their data center,” he said. Companies like Amazon can reduce this secondary water usage by relying on renewable energy sources, which don’t require anywhere near as much water as traditional power plants. Hewes says the company has been trying to “manage down” both water and energy needs through a separate goal of operating on 100 percent renewable energy, but Ren points out that the company’s data centers need round-the-clock power, which means intermittently available renewables like solar and wind farms can only go so far. Amazon isn’t the only company dealing with this problem. CyrusOne, another major data center firm, revealed in its sustainability report earlier this year that it used more than eight times as much water to source power as it did on-site at its data centers. “As long as we are reliant on grid electricity that includes thermoelectric sources to power our facilities, we are indirectly responsible for the consumption of large amounts of water in the production of that electricity,” the report said. As for replenishment projects like the one in Chile, they too will only go part of the way toward reducing the impact of the data center explosion. Even if Amazon’s cloud operations are “water positive” on a global scale, with projects in many of the same basins where it owns data centers, that doesn’t mean it won’t still compromise water access in specific watersheds. The company’s data centers and their power plants may still withdraw more water than the company replenishes in a given area, and replenishment projects in other aquifers around the world won’t address the physical consequences of that specific overdraft. “If they are able to capture some of the growing water and clean it and return to the community, that’s better than nothing, but I think it’s not really reducing the actual consumption,” Ren said. “It masks out a lot of real problems, because water is a really regional issue.” Correction: This story has been corrected to clarify that Amazon’s “water positive” pledge applies only to its web services division. This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/technology/amazon-data-centers-water-positive-energy/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org Read more about environmental impacts

Water
Business
Conservation

EPA workers' union calls for telework options over legionella bacteria in three cities

The union representing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff called on the agency to allow temporary remote work after legionella bacteria was found at multiple EPA facilities around the country. Officials have reportedly closed certain sinks, water fountains and other water sources at EPA buildings in Washington, D.C., Houston and Chicago after positive tests for the...

The union representing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff called on the agency to allow temporary remote work after legionella bacteria was found at multiple EPA facilities around the country. Officials have reportedly closed certain sinks, water fountains and other water sources at EPA buildings in Washington, D.C., Houston and Chicago after positive tests for the bacteria. Legionella is associated with various infections, including the pneumonia-like illness Legionnaires’ disease, although the type found in the EPA facilities is not the type most commonly associated with the disease. The General Services Administration, which oversees many federal office buildings, has said repairs are ongoing to address the test results, which also found lead and copper in the Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago. In a statement Thursday, Marie Owens Powell, President of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, which represents thousands of EPA employees, called on the leadership of the agency and the GSA to make telework options available while the outbreak is resolved. “EPA employees work day in and day out to keep our communities safe from environmental hazards. The irony of legionella, along with lead and copper contamination, being found in EPA buildings across the country, is not lost on us. Legionella can become airborne and deadly,” Powell said in a statement. “Expecting staff to come into the office and put themselves at risk of exposure is completely unacceptable. We have the ability and the technology to allow our workers to continue working safely from an alternate work location while the situation is being remediated.” AFGE Local 704, which represents the Chicago facility, has also filed a grievance noting that its contract requires telework options when the agency "cannot provide a safe and healthful workspace,” and also requested a shutdown of all drinking water sources in the affected buildings. The Hill has reached out to the EPA and the GSA for comment.

Water
Government
Technology

Water bosses could be jailed if they cover up sewage dumping under new law

CEOs in England and Wales could face two years in prison under proposals to force firms to supply data quicklyWater bosses in England and Wales could be jailed for up to two years if they cover up sewage dumping, under legislation proposed by the Labour government.At the moment, CEOs of water companies face fines for failing to comply with investigations by the Environment Agency (EA) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), but there have been just three such fines since privatisation three decades ago. Continue reading...

Water bosses in England and Wales could be jailed for up to two years if they cover up sewage dumping, under legislation proposed by the Labour government.At the moment, CEOs of water companies face fines for failing to comply with investigations by the Environment Agency (EA) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), but there have been just three such fines since privatisation three decades ago.Civil servants at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told journalists on Wednesday that they planned to tighten compliance rules to force companies to hand over sewage data quickly, and that the maximum sentence for covering up this information or failing to release it would be two years.Ministers also plan to pass legislation that would force water companies to pay the EA and DWI’s enforcement costs if they are under investigation. The EA has found it hard to inspect polluters owing to funding cuts, so ministers hope this would provide the money to increase the number of prosecutions. Defra has been looking for savings after the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, asked it for £1bn in spending reductions.The new legislation being introduced to parliament on Thursday will also give the regulators powers to ban bonuses for water company CEOs who fail to meet environmental and consumer standards, and if their company is not financially resilient. Journalists were briefed that these environmental standards had not yet been decided by the regulator, Ofwat.Last year, Liv Garfield of Severn Trent took a £584,000 bonus despite her company having been fined £2m for dumping sewage, and the firm scored highly on the EA’s environment rankings despite taking this human waste spillage into account.The environment secretary, Steve Reed, said: “Under this government, water executives will no longer line their own pockets whilst pumping out this filth. If they refuse to comply, they could end up in the dock and face prison time.“This bill is a major step forward in our wider reform to fix the broken water system. We will outline further legislation to fundamentally transform how the water industry is run and speed up the delivery of upgrades to our sewage infrastructure to clean up our waterways for good.”Campaigners and experts said the announcement did not go far enough, and that the whole system needed to change as it had “failed”.The sewage campaigner and former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey said he was still planning to march on parliament next month because he viewed the measures as inadequate.He said: “I have called for a mass protest for a coalition of the concerned to ensure clean, healthy rivers. We need transformational information and action. I see none of that before me. We will still be marching on 26 October to demand clean rivers and strong action.”skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionGuy Linley-Adams, a solicitor for the WildFish charity, said the government was not using existing powers to force the regulators to crack down on polluting water companies.For example, he said that without any new legislation, ministers could remove the “growth duty” from regulators, which prioritises economic growth over the environment.He said: “If the new government really means what it says, that it will not tolerate poor performance across the water sector, then it can start now by issuing new and unambiguous policy steers to Ofwat and the EA right now that force a much tougher financial and environmental regulatory approach, one that prioritises investment in the environment.“The government should also disapply the regulators’ code and the statutory growth duty that currently shackle both the EA and Ofwat’s regulation of the water companies.“And they should direct the EA to stop using soft-touch enforcement undertakings for water company offending and always prosecute water companies aggressively for causing pollution. None of the above requires new law. It can all be done right now.”Charles Watson, the chair and founder of the campaign group River Action, said: “If the secretary of state believes that the few one-off actions announced today, such as curtailing bosses’ bonuses – however appealing they may sound – are going to fix the underlying causes of our poisoned waterways, then he needs to think again.“Only a comprehensive and holistic review focusing on all sources of pollution and that delivers a transformational action plan, with tangible targets and milestones, can reform our failed regulatory system and end the daily polluting of our rivers, lakes and seas.”The Tories claimed that Labour were “attempting to pass off measures implemented under the Conservatives” as their own, pointing to a ban on bonuses for water company bosses whose companies commit serious breaches as an example.The shadow environment minister, Robbie Moore, said: “It was the Conservatives that introduced 100% monitoring for storm overflows and set out a plan to transform our infrastructure to ensure safer, cleaner waters.”

Water
Government
Health

Suggested Viewing

Keeper of the Creek

“If you’ve ever thought ‘Someone should do something about that litter problem’, remember, you’re someone.” Joel Goldes has visited the creek in his suburban Southern California community nearly every day. And for the past 10 years, he’s been picking up litter, trapping invasive crayfish, opening blocked channels, and testifying at local hearings – often the lone voice in support of the under-appreciated ecosystem near his home.

Waste
Water
Inspirational

A River Reborn

As the Little Conemaugh River winds through the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, it forms the backbone of a region with a legacy of industrial might. And like a scribe, the river carries the weight of that history - mile after mile devoid of life, poisoned by toxic pollution from countless abandoned coal mines. Generations of residents and neighbors have turned their back on the river, believing the damage to be irreversible and scolding their children for playing in its orange waters. But a decade-long effort from a coalition of local groups has begun to reveal a different future for the Little Conemaugh and for other rivers in Pennsylvania and beyond that were written off as a casualty of the coal industry. A River Reborn tells the story of the rebirth of the Little Conemaugh, and what it says about our ability to fix what might have been lost forever.

Water
Pollution
Documentary

Crisis

The state of water in the world is critical, but the relationship between a man and a fish that are in story is more critical.

Animation
Water
Conservation

The Heart Whisperer

A childhood discovery inspires a woman to push the boundaries of our compassion in this true story. The esteemed Earthlings creator, Shaun Monson, weaves together archived news clips, never seen before arrest footage, and current interviews to tell this tale that crosses countries and decades. Cameo appearances by Joaquin Phoenix and other famous animal advocates.

Water
Energy
Waste

Daaham Thirst

Water is a precious resource which humanity should use responsibly. Our relationship with Nature should always be guided by reciprocity. Nature protects us all and we in turn should protect natural resources and be sympathetic to the needs of fellow human beings.

Water
Culture
Fiction

Join us to forge
a sustainable future

Our team is always growing.
Become a partner, volunteer, sponsor, or intern today.
Let us know how you would like to get involved!

CONTACT US

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Subscribers receive a free day pass for streaming Cinema Verde.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.