Politician’s claim Earth’s magnetic poles could flip if NT doesn’t use more groundwater criticised by experts
Summary
A Northern Territory minister claimed that using underground water could prevent the Earth’s magnetic poles from flipping. Experts rejected this, saying the poles flip due to processes deep in the Earth’s core, not from groundwater changes. The government is promoting new data center projects in the NT that use significant water and energy resources, raising concerns about environmental impacts.Key Facts
- NT Minister Robyn Cahill said using groundwater might stop the Earth’s magnetic poles from flipping.
- Experts, including scientists and environmental groups, said this claim has no scientific basis.
- Earth’s magnetic poles flip roughly every hundreds of thousands of years due to deep Earth processes, not surface water.
- The last major magnetic pole flip happened about 780,000 years ago and takes thousands of years to occur.
- The NT government wants to make the region a hub for large data centers (called hyperscalers).
- These data centers need a lot of water and power to operate and cool their equipment.
- One new project announced will use gas power to generate up to 2 gigawatts, enough to power about 2 million homes.
- Environmental groups worry that using groundwater for data centers could harm local water supplies and ecosystems.
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