Critics Slam Amazon’s ‘Water Positive’ Pledge as Data Centers Strain Local Resources

This communicative was primitively published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.

Earlier this year, the e-commerce corp Amazon secured support to unfastened two new information centers successful Santiago, Chile. The $400 cardinal task is the company’s archetypal foray into locating its information facilities, which guzzle monolithic amounts of energy and h2o successful bid to powerfulness unreality computing services and online programs, successful Latin America — and successful 1 of the astir water-stressed countries successful the world, wherever residents person protested against the industry’s expansion.

This week, the tech elephantine made a abstracted but related announcement. It plans to put successful water conservation on the Maipo River, which is the superior root of h2o for the Santiago region. Amazon volition spouse with a h2o exertion startup to assistance farmers on the stream instal drip irrigation systems connected 165 acres of farmland. The program is poised to conserve capable h2o to proviso astir 300 homes per year, and it’s portion of Amazon’s run to make its unreality computing operations “water positive” by 2030, meaning the company’s web services division will conserve oregon replenish much h2o than it uses up.

The reasoning down this h2o inaugural is clear: Data centers necessitate ample amounts of h2o to chill their servers, and Amazon plans to walk $100 billion to physique much of them implicit the adjacent decennary arsenic portion of a large stake connected its Amazon Web Services cloud-computing platform. Other tech companies specified arsenic Microsoft and Meta, which are besides investing successful information centers to prolong the artificial-intelligence boom, person made similar water pledges amid a increasing contention astir the sector’s thirst for h2o and power.

Amazon claims that its information centers are already among the astir water-efficient successful the industry, and it plans to rotation retired much conservation projects to mitigate its thirst. However, conscionable similar firm pledges to scope “net-zero” emissions, these h2o pledges are much analyzable than they look astatine archetypal glance. While the institution has so taken steps to chopped h2o usage astatine its facilities, its calculations don’t relationship for the monolithic h2o needs of the powerfulness plants that support the lights connected astatine those precise aforesaid facilities. Without a larger committedness to mitigating Amazon’s underlying accent connected energy grids, conservation efforts by the institution and its chap tech giants volition lone tackle portion of the problem, according to experts who spoke to Grist.

The almighty servers successful ample information centers tally blistery arsenic they process unprecedented amounts of information, and keeping them from overheating requires some h2o and electricity. Rather than effort to support these rooms chill with accepted air-conditioning units, galore companies usage h2o arsenic a coolant, moving it past the servers to chill them out. The centers besides request immense amounts of energy to tally each their servers: They already relationship for astir 3 percent of U.S. powerfulness demand, a fig that could more than treble by 2030. On apical of that, the coal, gas, and atomic powerfulness plants that nutrient that energy themselves devour adjacent larger quantities of h2o to enactment cool.

Will Hewes, who leads h2o sustainability for Amazon Web Services, told Grist that the institution uses h2o successful its information centers successful bid to prevention connected energy-intensive aerial conditioning units, frankincense reducing its reliance connected fossil fuels.

“Using h2o for cooling successful astir places truly reduces the magnitude of vigor that we use, and truthful it helps america conscionable different sustainability goals,” helium said. “We could ever determine to not usage h2o for cooling, but we privation to, a lot, due to the fact that of those vigor and ratio benefits.”

In bid to prevention connected vigor costs, the company’s information centers person to evaporate millions of gallons of h2o per year. It’s hard to accidental for definite however overmuch h2o the information halfway manufacture consumes, but the ballpark estimates are substantial. One 2021 survey found that U.S. information centers consumed astir 415,000 acre-feet of h2o successful 2018, adjacent earlier the artificial-intelligence boom. That’s capable to proviso astir a cardinal mean homes annually, oregon astir arsenic overmuch arsenic California’s Imperial Valley takes from the Colorado River each twelvemonth to turn wintertime vegetables. Another survey recovered that information centers operated by Microsoft, Google, and Meta withdrew doubly arsenic overmuch h2o from rivers and aquifers arsenic the full state of Denmark.

It’s astir definite that this fig has ballooned adjacent higher successful caller years arsenic companies person built much centers to support up with the artificial-intelligence boom, since AI programs specified arsenic ChatGPT necessitate monolithic amounts of server existent estate. Tech companies person built hundreds of caller information centers successful the past fewer years alone, and they are readying hundreds more. One caller estimation recovered that ChatGPT requires an average-sized vessel of water for each 10 to 50 chat responses it provides. The on-site h2o depletion astatine immoderate 1 of these companies’ information centers could present rival that of a major beverage company specified arsenic PepsiCo.

Amazon doesn’t supply statistic connected its implicit h2o consumption; Hewes told Grist the institution is “focused connected efficiency.” However, the tech giant’s h2o usage is apt little than immoderate of its competitors — successful portion due to the fact that the institution has built astir of its information centers with alleged evaporative cooling systems, which necessitate acold little h2o than different cooling technologies and lone crook connected erstwhile temperatures get excessively high. The institution pegs its h2o usage astatine astir 10 percent of the manufacture average, and successful temperate locations specified arsenic Sweden, it doesn’t usage immoderate h2o to chill down information centers but during highest summertime temperatures.

Companies tin trim the biology interaction of their AI concern by gathering them successful temperate regions that person plentifulness of water, but they indispensable equilibrium those ratio concerns with concerns astir onshore and energy costs, arsenic good arsenic the request to beryllium adjacent to large customers. Recent studies person recovered that data halfway h2o depletion successful the U.S. is “skewed toward h2o stressed subbasins” successful places similar the Southwest, but Amazon has clustered overmuch of its business farther east, particularly successful Virginia, which boasts cheap power and fiscal incentives for tech firms.

“A batch of the locations are driven by lawsuit needs, but besides by [prices for] existent property and power,” said Hewes. “Some large portions of our information halfway footprint are successful places that aren’t ace hot, that aren’t successful ace h2o stressed regions. Virginia, Ohio — they get blistery successful the summer, but past determination are large chunks of the twelvemonth wherever we don’t request to usage h2o for cooling.”  Even so, the company’s enlargement successful Virginia is already causing concerns over h2o availability.

To mitigate its impacts successful specified basins, the institution besides funds dozens of conservation and recharge projects similar the 1 successful Chile. It donates recycled h2o from its information centers to farmers, who usage it to irrigate their crops, and it has besides helped restore the rivers that proviso water-stressed cities specified arsenic Cape Town, South Africa; successful bluish Virginia, it has worked to install screen harvest farmland that tin trim runoff contamination successful section waterways. The institution treats these projects the mode different companies dainty c offsets, counting each gallon recharged against a gallon it consumes astatine its information centers. Amazon said successful its most caller sustainability report that it is 41 percent of the mode to gathering its extremity of being “water positive.” In different words, it has funded projects that recharge oregon conserve a small implicit 4 gallons of h2o for each 10 gallons of h2o it uses.

But contempt each this, the company’s h2o stewardship extremity doesn’t see the h2o consumed by the powerfulness plants that proviso its information centers. This depletion tin beryllium arsenic overmuch arsenic 3 to 10 times arsenic ample arsenic the on-site h2o depletion astatine a information center, according to Shaolei Ren, a prof of engineering astatine the University of California, Riverside, who studies information halfway h2o usage. As an example, Ren pointed to an Amazon information center successful Pennsylvania that relies connected a nuclear powerfulness works little than a mile away. That information halfway uses astir 20 percent of the powerfulness plant’s capacity.

“They accidental they’re utilizing precise small water, but there’s a large h2o evaporation happening conscionable nearby, and that’s for powering their information center,” helium said.

Companies similar Amazon tin trim this secondary h2o usage by relying connected renewable vigor sources, which don’t necessitate anyplace adjacent arsenic overmuch h2o arsenic accepted powerfulness plants. Hewes says the institution has been trying to “manage down” some h2o and vigor needs done a abstracted extremity of operating connected 100 percent renewable energy, but Ren points retired that the company’s information centers request round-the-clock power, which means intermittently disposable renewables similar star and upwind farms tin lone spell truthful far.

Amazon isn’t the lone institution dealing with this problem. CyrusOne, different large information halfway firm, revealed successful its sustainability report earlier this twelvemonth that it utilized much than 8 times arsenic overmuch h2o to root powerfulness arsenic it did on-site astatine its information centers.

“As agelong arsenic we are reliant connected grid energy that includes thermoelectric sources to powerfulness our facilities, we are indirectly liable for the depletion of ample amounts of h2o successful the accumulation of that electricity,” the study said.

As for replenishment projects similar the 1 successful Chile, they excessively volition lone spell portion of the mode toward reducing the interaction of the information halfway explosion. Even if Amazon’s unreality operations are “water positive” connected a planetary scale, with projects successful galore of the aforesaid basins wherever it owns information centers, that doesn’t mean it won’t inactive compromise h2o entree successful circumstantial watersheds. The company’s information centers and their powerfulness plants whitethorn inactive retreat much h2o than the institution replenishes successful a fixed area, and replenishment projects successful different aquifers astir the satellite won’t code the carnal consequences of that circumstantial overdraft.

“If they are capable to seizure immoderate of the increasing h2o and cleanable it and instrumentality to the community, that’s amended than nothing, but I deliberation it’s not truly reducing the existent consumption,” Ren said. “It masks retired a batch of existent problems, due to the fact that h2o is simply a truly determination issue.”

Correction: This communicative has been corrected to clarify that Amazon’s “water positive” pledge applies lone to its web services division.

This nonfiction primitively appeared successful Grist. Grist is simply a nonprofit, autarkic media enactment dedicated to telling stories of clime solutions and a conscionable future. Learn much astatine Grist.org.