Facing mounting scrutiny over data center water consumption, Google today released a set of guidelines it says should become the industry standard.

Why it matters: Communities across the U.S. are increasingly pushing back against new data centers, often citing concerns about water use alongside rising power prices, local air pollution and noise.

• Google argues that better practices — and more transparency — can help ease those fears.

Driving the news: Google's framework calls for:

• Returning more water to local watersheds than its data centers consume by 2030.
• Avoiding water-intensive cooling in more water-stressed regions.
• Helping fund local water infrastructure upgrades.
• Pursuing alternatives such as reclaimed wastewater.
• Disclosing water use annually.

Reality check: None of these commitments are new on their own.

• The announcement largely packages together practices Google says it increasingly follows already — while turning them into a formal framework the company hopes others also adopt.

By the numbers: In 2024, Google consumed 7.2 billion gallons of freshwater and replenished approximately 4.5 billion gallons of water, which is roughly 64%.

What they're saying: "There's so many data center developers, and many of them are not doing it the right way, so people's concerns are legitimate," said Bikash Koley, vice president of global infrastructure at Google.

• "But there is also a lack of information, and water is one of those where lack of information always breeds distrust."

Zoom out: Google joins other tech giants including Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, which have over the past several years announced goals to better manage their water consumption at their data center operations.

• While those efforts have largely focused on company-specific targets, Google is positioning its guidelines as a framework it hopes the broader industry will adopt.

How it works: Data centers need cooling because the chips running AI generate enormous heat.

• That cooling happens in two main places: first, close to the chips themselves; and second, across the broader building.
• For the hottest AI chips, companies are increasingly using liquid cooling, which moves heat away from the chips through sealed pipes. Google says its closed-loop systems use very little water because it's continuously recirculated.

Yes, but: That heat still has to leave the building. The main tradeoff is between water and power.

• Evaporative cooling uses water to carry heat away and can require less electricity, while air cooling uses little or no water onsite but can require more electricity.
• "It becomes a tradeoff between reducing stress on the grid versus reducing stress on the watershed," Koley said.

State of play: Roughly two-thirds of Google's data centers use evaporative cooling, while the remaining third is a combination of air-cooled or using recycled, non-conventional water resources, said Ben Townsend, head of infrastructure and sustainability at Google.

What we're watching: Google's 2025 numbers are coming out in a few weeks.

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🤠 The board of ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, approved plans yesterday to consider connection of proposed data centers to the grid in groups, rather than individually.

• Why it matters: The Texas AI data center market is growing and already among the nation's largest. Regulators want to enable development while protecting grid reliability as these large new demand sources come online.
• What we're watching: The new policy "will materially improve interconnection timelines for data centers" backed by giants like Meta, Amazon and Google, the advisory firm Capstone said in a note.
• What they're saying: The plan is "not perfect," but "it will let us at least get a handle on the amount of demand coming so that the system can get unstuck and actually make a plan," Joshua Rhodes, a UT-Austin electricity scholar, said via email.

⏸️ The New York state legislature looks poised to pass legislation this week imposing a one-year moratorium on large new data centers. It also would require new environmental studies and electricity rate classes.

• Why it matters: It's the latest state-level move to impose new controls amid public pushback to the AI boom.
• What we're watching: Gov. Kathy Hochul's (D) veto pen. A Hochul spokesperson said only that she will review the bill, adding Hochul "continues to look for ways to ensure that data centers are not draining resources or driving up costs for New Yorkers." The spokesperson pointed to this initiative.

🤝 Distributed energy company Voltus has a three-year deal with Google to provide up to 100 megawatts of resources like battery storage and smart thermostats into the huge PJM grid region.

• Why it matters: Tech giants are scrambling to help unlock new — and, when possible, clean — power sources as data centers expand.
• The big picture: "This enables new capacity for the system, channels investment into local communities, and strengthens the grids that serve our data centers," Michael Terrell, Google's head of advanced energy, writes in a blog post. Latitude Media has more.

Analysts are starting to wonder if the world needs less oil than they thought it did when the Iran war started.

Why it matters: Decades ago, a global oil shock triggered permanent changes to the structure of the global economy, and signs are now emerging that it's happening again.

The big picture: Higher gas prices driven by the war are accelerating a global transition to electric vehicles — especially in China and Europe — and are helping stave off the deeper economic pain that past energy crises have created.

• "History suggests that past oil shocks often left lasting declines in gasoline demand, and this episode may prove no different," commodity analysts at JPMorgan recently wrote.

Zoom in: Globally, retail prices for gas are up 28% from this time last year, and up 33% for diesel, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note Sunday night.

• That has decreased demand for gasoline and diesel, as well as for petrochemicals and jet fuel.

The intrigue: Such "demand destruction" hasn't brought an anticipated economic slowdown, analysts at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan noted.

• That's partly because consumers have options: People are switching to electric vehicles in Europe and, especially, in China.
• In the rest of Asia, demand has fallen as governments encourage more remote work, as well.

Full story ... Get Axios Markets

👍 The House easily approved legislation yesterday aimed at boosting geothermal development on federal lands.

• Why it matters: The passage by voice vote signals bipartisan support as a suite of startups look to commercialize next-generation methods of tapping subsurface heat to create power.
• Driving the news: A broad bill has multiple provisions to speed permitting and in some cases streamline environmental review of geothermal projects, and a separate measure would increase the frequency of geothermal lease sales.
• What we're watching: Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who has sponsored bipartisan Senate versions of parts of the wide-ranging House bill, said she'll work with colleagues to get floor time.

⚖️ Seven Northeast states sued the Trump administration yesterday over its payment of $795 million to TotalEnergies to give up a wind lease in a coastal region off New York and New Jersey.

• Why it matters: The deal with the French energy giant is among the White House's most aggressive moves targeting offshore wind development. Full story

That's how many tons of CO2 are removed annually by emerging methods like direct air capture and enhanced weathering, a major independent scientific assessment finds.

Why it matters: "Conventional" methods — such as forest revival and creation — account for 99.9% of the 2.2 billion tons removed annually, per the annual State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report.

• Total global emissions are about 44 billion tons.

The bottom line: While novel methods are expanding, far more aggressive scale-up is needed to become an important tool against global warming, it finds.