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

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This story was initially printed by Grist. Join Grist’s weekly publication right here.

Earlier this yr, the e-commerce company Amazon secured approval to open two new information facilities in Santiago, Chile. The $400 million enterprise is the corporate’s first foray into finding its information amenities, which guzzle large quantities of electrical energy and water as a way to energy cloud computing companies and on-line applications, in Latin America — and in one of the vital water-stressed international locations on this planet, the place residents have protested towards the trade’s enlargement.

This week, the tech large made a separate however associated announcement. It plans to spend money on water conservation alongside the Maipo River, which is the first supply of water for the Santiago area. Amazon will accomplice with a water expertise startup to assist farmers alongside the river set up drip irrigation programs on 165 acres of farmland. The plan is poised to preserve sufficient water to provide round 300 properties per yr, and it’s a part of Amazon’s marketing campaign to make its cloud computing operations “water constructive” by 2030, which means the corporate’s net companies division will preserve or replenish extra water than it makes use of up.

The reasoning behind this water initiative is obvious: Information facilities require giant quantities of water to chill their servers, and Amazon plans to spend $100 billion to construct extra of them over the following decade as a part of a giant guess on its Amazon Net Companies cloud-computing platform. Different tech firms resembling Microsoft and Meta, that are additionally investing in information facilities to maintain the artificial-intelligence increase, have made related water pledges amid a rising controversy concerning the sector’s thirst for water and energy.

Amazon claims that its information facilities are already among the many most water-efficient within the trade, and it plans to roll out extra conservation tasks to mitigate its thirst. Nonetheless, identical to company pledges to achieve “net-zero” emissions, these water pledges are extra advanced than they appear at first look. Whereas the corporate has certainly taken steps to chop water utilization at its amenities, its calculations don’t account for the huge water wants of the ability vegetation that hold the lights on at these exact same amenities. With no bigger dedication to mitigating Amazon’s underlying stress on electrical energy grids, conservation efforts by the corporate and its fellow tech giants will solely deal with a part of the issue, based on consultants who spoke to Grist.

The highly effective servers in giant information facilities run scorching as they course of unprecedented quantities of data, and holding them from overheating requires each water and electrical energy. Somewhat than attempt to hold these rooms cool with conventional air-conditioning items, many firms use water as a coolant, operating it previous the servers to sit back them out. The facilities additionally want enormous quantities of electrical energy to run all their servers: They already account for round 3 p.c of U.S. energy demand, a quantity that might greater than double by 2030. On high of that, the coal, gasoline, and nuclear energy vegetation that produce that electrical energy themselves devour even bigger portions of water to remain cool.

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Will Hewes, who leads water sustainability for Amazon Net Companies, informed Grist that the corporate makes use of water in its information facilities as a way to save on energy-intensive air-con items, thus decreasing its reliance on fossil fuels.

“Utilizing water for cooling in most locations actually reduces the quantity of power that we use, and so it helps us meet different sustainability objectives,” he stated. “We may at all times determine to not use water for cooling, however we need to, quite a bit, due to these power and effectivity advantages.”

With a purpose to save on power prices, the corporate’s information facilities must evaporate hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per yr. It’s onerous to say for certain how a lot water the information heart trade consumes, however the ballpark estimates are substantial. One 2021 examine discovered that U.S. information facilities consumed round 415,000 acre-feet of water in 2018, even earlier than the artificial-intelligence increase. That’s sufficient to provide round 1,000,000 common properties yearly, or about as a lot as California’s Imperial Valley takes from the Colorado River every year to develop winter greens. One other examine discovered that information facilities operated by Microsoft, Google, and Meta withdrew twice as a lot water from rivers and aquifers as the complete nation of Denmark.

It’s nearly sure that this quantity has ballooned even larger in recent times as firms have constructed extra facilities to maintain up with the artificial-intelligence increase, since AI applications resembling ChatGPT require large quantities of server actual property. Tech firms have constructed tons of of latest information facilities in the previous couple of years alone, and they’re planning tons of extra. One latest estimate discovered that ChatGPT requires an average-sized bottle of water for each 10 to 50 chat responses it supplies. The on-site water consumption at any one among these firms’ information facilities may now rival that of a significant beverage firm resembling PepsiCo.

Amazon doesn’t present statistics on its absolute water consumption; Hewes informed Grist the corporate is “centered on effectivity.” Nonetheless, the tech large’s water utilization is probably going decrease than a few of its opponents — partially as a result of the corporate has constructed most of its information facilities with so-called evaporative cooling programs, which require far much less water than different cooling applied sciences and solely activate when temperatures get too excessive. The corporate pegs its water utilization at round 10 p.c of the trade common, and in temperate places resembling Sweden, it doesn’t use any water to chill down information facilities besides throughout peak summer time temperatures.

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Firms can scale back the environmental affect of their AI enterprise by constructing them in temperate areas which have loads of water, however they have to steadiness these effectivity issues with issues about land and electrical energy prices, in addition to the should be near main prospects. Latest research have discovered that information heart water consumption within the U.S. is “skewed towards water pressured subbasins” in locations just like the Southwest, however Amazon has clustered a lot of its enterprise farther east, particularly in Virginia, which boasts low cost energy and monetary incentives for tech corporations.

“A variety of the places are pushed by buyer wants, but additionally by [prices for] actual property and energy,” stated Hewes. “Some huge parts of our information heart footprint are in locations that aren’t tremendous scorching, that aren’t in tremendous water pressured areas. Virginia, Ohio — they get scorching in the summertime, however then there are huge chunks of the yr the place we don’t want to make use of water for cooling.”  Even so, the corporate’s enlargement in Virginia is already inflicting issues over water availability.

To mitigate its impacts in such basins, the corporate additionally funds dozens of conservation and recharge tasks just like the one in Chile. It donates recycled water from its information facilities to farmers, who use it to irrigate their crops, and it has additionally helped restore the rivers that provide water-stressed cities resembling Cape City, South Africa; in northern Virginia, it has labored to put in cowl crop farmland that may scale back runoff air pollution in native waterways. The corporate treats these tasks the best way different firms deal with carbon offsets, counting every gallon recharged towards a gallon it consumes at its information facilities. Amazon stated in its most up-to-date sustainability report that it’s 41 p.c of the best way to assembly its aim of being “water constructive.” In different phrases, it has funded tasks that recharge or preserve just a little over 4 gallons of water for each 10 gallons of water it makes use of.

However regardless of all this, the corporate’s water stewardship aim doesn’t embody the water consumed by the ability vegetation that provide its information facilities. This consumption may be as a lot as three to 10 instances as giant because the on-site water consumption at an information heart, based on Shaolei Ren, a professor of engineering on the College of California, Riverside, who research information heart water utilization. For instance, Ren pointed to an Amazon information heart in Pennsylvania that depends on a nuclear energy plant lower than a mile away. That information heart makes use of round 20 p.c of the ability plant’s capability.

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“They are saying they’re utilizing little or no water, however there’s a giant water evaporation taking place simply close by, and that’s for powering their information heart,” he stated.

Firms like Amazon can scale back this secondary water utilization by counting on renewable power sources, which don’t require wherever close to as a lot water as conventional energy vegetation. Hewes says the corporate has been attempting to “handle down” each water and power wants via a separate aim of working on one hundred pc renewable power, however Ren factors out that the corporate’s information facilities want round the clock energy, which suggests intermittently out there renewables like photo voltaic and wind farms can solely go up to now.

Amazon isn’t the one firm coping with this drawback. CyrusOne, one other main information heart agency, revealed in its sustainability report earlier this yr that it used greater than eight instances as a lot water to supply energy because it did on-site at its information facilities.

“So long as we’re reliant on grid electrical energy that features thermoelectric sources to energy our amenities, we’re not directly chargeable for the consumption of huge quantities of water within the manufacturing of that electrical energy,” the report stated.

As for replenishment tasks just like the one in Chile, they too will solely go a part of the best way towards decreasing the affect of the information heart explosion. Even when Amazon’s cloud operations are “water constructive” on a worldwide scale, with tasks in lots of the identical basins the place it owns information facilities, that doesn’t imply it received’t nonetheless compromise water entry in particular watersheds. The corporate’s information facilities and their energy vegetation should still withdraw extra water than the corporate replenishes in a given space, and replenishment tasks in different aquifers all over the world received’t tackle the bodily penalties of that particular overdraft.

“If they can seize a number of the rising water and clear it and return to the group, that’s higher than nothing, however I feel it’s not likely decreasing the precise consumption,” Ren stated. “It masks out loads of actual issues, as a result of water is a very regional situation.”

Correction: This story has been corrected to make clear that Amazon’s “water constructive” pledge applies solely to its net companies division.

This text initially appeared in Grist. Grist is a nonprofit, impartial media group devoted to telling tales of local weather options and a simply future. Study extra at Grist.org.

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