NT Minister Criticised for Unscientific Claims on Groundwater and Earth's Poles

A Northern Territory minister has been criticised for scientifically inaccurate claims that groundwater in the Northern Territory needs to be used to prevent the Earth’s magnetic poles from flipping.

The NT minister for trade and business, Robyn Cahill, made the claim while speaking in Darwin last week about the government’s push to make the territory “the datacentre capital of the globe”.

“For datacentres, the water supply is already in existence. It’s mainly subterranean,” she said. “The water supply that Darwin has is extraordinary.”

“There’s scientific evidence to suggest that we have so much water underground in the Northern Territory that it actually impacts the axis of the Earth when we have a really bad wet season, so we need to use some of it otherwise we might find ourselves flipping the poles again.”

The Environment Centre NT’s executive director, Kirsty Howey, described Cahill’s claim as “completely cooked”.

“The minister appears to believe that the Northern Territory’s wet season can alter Earth’s axis, which has no scientific basis,” Howey said. “It’s frightening that the people in charge of regulating dangerous industries like fracking and datacentres seem to lack even a high-school understanding of water science.”

Dr Dylan Irvine, a groundwater hydrology expert at Charles Darwin University, told ABC Darwin: “We’re not at risk of the poles flipping … I’m not concerned about the Earth tipping or flipping of poles.”

The Earth’s most recent major geomagnetic reversal – in which the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south flip – is known as the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, and occurred an estimated 780,000 years ago. The flip is not instant: scientific analysis suggests reversals take 7,000 years on average to occur.

A recent temporary flip of the poles, classified as an “excursion” rather than a full geomagnetic reversal – occurred 42,000 years ago and lasted for about 1,000 years.

“This is driven by processes that happen in the deep Earth … that happen in the Earth’s core … not so much groundwater systems,” Irvine said.

Experts have warned, however, about the impact massive datacentre projects will have on already strained water resources, particularly in hotter climates where centres require more energy or water to keep cool.

The ECNT is calling for a public ban on fracking and datacentres so their impacts on the NT’s climate and water supplies can be properly considered.

“We don’t want to see our precious aquifers drained for AI while we get nothing in return,” Howey said. “We don’t want to be the datacentre capital of the globe – we want safe drinking water and a livable future for our kids.”

According to the NT government, as many as a dozen datacentre developers are interested in the region.

“We will be the place all the hyperscalers come to have their datacentres here,” Cahill said last week.

On Wednesday the NT chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro, announced the government had granted Beetaloo Digital – a subsidiary of gas company Beetaloo Energy – an exclusive commitment over 185 hectares of land near Darwin, for “a massive project involving an integrated AI datacentre and on-site gas-fired power generation”.

The project would be “powered by up to 2GW of on-site power generation fuelled by Beetaloo gas”, according to a government statement.

For comparison, 2GW is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of approximately 2m households.

It comes after the announcement of another hyperscale centre, Energy North’s Project Ares, a 1GW project proposed for Murranji station in the NT’s Barkly region.

Cahill was contacted for comment.