Creekstone Energy, University of Utah studying feasibility of novel water generation technology

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Creekstone Energy and the University of Utah are testing GIGAWATER technology for the Delta Gigasite data center campus.
• This technology aims to captures water vapor from natural gas combustion and converts it into usable water.
• Creekstone is funding the research and initial results are expected next summer.

SALT LAKE CITY — Data center discussions in the Beehive State start and stop with water.

Justifiably so, with the entire state sitting in either severe or extreme drought conditions, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.

And despite a stretch of heavy rainfall and severe storms that began in late August, experts from the Division of Water Resources said the intense flooding from the storms won't be enough to end the drought.

With this reality in mind, Creekstone Energy — the developer behind the Delta Gigasite, the planned world's largest data center campus in Millard County — on Wednesday announced a project aimed at not just conserving water, but generating it.

'Change the way the data center industry thinks about water'

The patent-pending technology called GIGAWATER, Creekstone Energy CEO Ray Conley explained, aims to capture water vapor produced by the combustion of natural gas for electricity generation and convert it into water.

"We don't believe Utah should have to choose between economic growth and responsible water stewardship," Conley said. "Building the largest data center campus in the world, that comes to the forefront very immediately. And we think that the data centers have to be designed for the places where they're built."

Conley likened the technology to capturing water dripping from a vehicle's exhaust pipe, but at a much larger scale.

"We're taking an existing process of how those engines run and instead of running the exhaust up a pipe and letting it just float up into the air, we're instead running the pipe underground in a special way to capture the exhaust," Conley said.

At this stage, though, the GIGAWATER technology is conceptual only. To test if the system can truly perform as imagined and to scale, Creekstone has signed a formal research agreement with the University of Utah's Energy and Geoscience Institute to objectively and independently review the technology.

Conley noted that Creekstone is entirely funding the U.'s research.

"We have to pay that regardless of what their answer is. So I might end up paying them for the research and get a bad answer. That's the risk we take," Conley said.

The first phase of the U.'s review, Conley said, will test the "core assumptions" of the concept, including the chemistry, thermodynamics, heat transfer and expected water recovery from an operation of the Delta Gigasite's scale.

Milind Deo, principal investigator at the U.'s Energy and Geoscience Institute, called the science behind GIGAWATER "promising."

"(Energy and Geoscience Institute) is committed to rigorous, independent verification, moving from theory and math through computer modeling and, ultimately, to physical demonstration. If the results bear out, this could change the way the data center industry thinks about water," Deo said in a statement.

Phase two would include building a "working pilot" of the technology near the Delta site to actually test the system and confirm whether or not it works as intended.

"(Energy and Geoscience Institute's) work is really meant to just help us determine where the model is right, where it needs refinement and then what would be needed to take it to commercial-scale performance," Conley said, adding that he expects the research to be completed sometime next summer.

Potential water uses

Like the efficacy of the technology itself, there isn't a definite answer for how the collected water could be used.

Conley said he believes there's a good chance that with "at least a little bit of filtration" the water could be potable. He noted that it will likely have a higher degree of acidity, in which case it would have potential agricultural applications.

"We really have to do a little more chemistry ... and frankly, testing it to figure out, 'Is it agricultural? Is it potable?'" Conley said. "The goal doesn't have to be make it drinkable at the end of the day, because there's plenty of other uses."

Creekstone's internal engineering analysis projects a yield of approximately 4,000 acre-feet of water per year, according to a release from the company.

If the company's projections hold, Conley said he expects the site to create "vastly more" water than it would consume.

Who would technically own the water captured remains a question, Conley admitted, saying there's "no precedent" to go by when discussing water rights.

"It's not like we're doing something that's been done before and so it leaves an open question. Those are things that are really matters of law," Conley said.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Logan Stefanich

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Logan Stefanich is a reporter with KSL, covering northern Utah communities, education, business and tech news.