Data Centers…in the Sky?

Mexican water law has been undergoing a reform since last year, when a bill was introduced to amend the constitution to make water a human right and change how it is owned and allocated. The bill is now moving toward enactment.  If completed, only the government would be allowed to issue water concessions—meaning it will not be possible to transfer water between private individuals, which in the past has created inequality in terms of distribution, according to National Water Commission Director Efraín Morales.

Farmers see the legislation as taking away their right to transfer water to their heirs. However, Morales said that water rights would still be allowed to be passed down to one’s children. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said that millions of cubic meters of water concessions have been issued to farmers and companies that are not using it, and under the existing law it can’t be used by anyone else. The new amendment would prevent such stockpiling, selling to third parties, and changing its use, such as an irrigator selling to a real estate developer. Sheinbaum added that this new order guarantees water as a human right and a resource of the country.

The chair of the European Parliament’s delegation to COP30 said that efforts to approve a real mitigation and phase-out of global warming fuels were stymied by a united BRICS-Arab front. The BRICS is an organization of 11 states that include Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

At the end of COP30, Irene Vélez Torres, the Minister in Charge of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia said that the conference could not end without a clear, just, and equitable roadmap for the global phaseout of fossil fuels. Delegates from more than 80 countries had hoped for that roadmap at the summit.

The frustration felt by countries that wanted such an agreement has led to a new course of action. The governments of Colombia and the Netherlands have announced that they will co-host the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in April 2026. Next year’s meeting will be held in Santa Marta, Colombia, a major port for coal exports. In 2023, Colombia’s largest exports were petroleum and coal. The country’s government said that hosting the event there will show that fossil-fuel-producing nations are willing to transition away from them, but it must be a fair process. 

Sophie Hermans, Deputy Prime Minister for Climate Policy in the Netherlands, said that recent history shows countries can transition away from fossil fuels responsibly and there is clear momentum toward that end. The Netherlands aims to eliminate coal-fired power by 2029. 

The new conference is intended to complement the UN’s COP process and hopes to attract governmental leaders, Indigenous Peoples, industry, and academia.

There are new chips on the block so to speak, called qubits, which facilitate the evolving world of quantum computing. They’re different from the chips we currently use in classic computers that store and process data in zeros or ones. Qubits can exist in both states at once, enabling quantum devices to solve complex problems faster and more efficiently. 

However, qubits require extremely low temperatures and lots of energy to run cryogenic cooling systems, so where on Earth could these data centers be located? Above the Earth, say researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia (KAUST). The team is conceptualizing flying data centers that operate in the stratosphere.

The helium-filled blimps, or Quantum Computing-Enabled High-Altitude Platforms (QC-HAPs), could take some of the load off their earthbound counterparts by using solar energy to run servers and residing in temperatures qubits like around -58 °F. The airships would communicate with quantum data centers (QDCs) on the ground via light waves, a technique known as free-space optical communication. They could also migrate to locations in the Northern Hemisphere in June and Southern Hemisphere in December to optimize solar radiation and the daylight duration.

The team says the blimps could save up to 14 percent of energy requirements of terrestrial data centers and reduce their carbon footprint, given that many operate on fossil fuels.

The cart may be before the proverbial horse, as quantum computing still needs significant advancement. Also, there are numerous challenges to overcome, such as the qubit payload possible, maintenance, and the economics of operating nearly 12 miles above the ground—problems, the researchers say, might be solved by, you guessed it, AI. 

The study was published in the journal npj Wireless Technology. 

Now, new research from the team says kestrels provide another benefit—food safety. That’s because fruit-eating birds defecate. The mess they leave behind could contain pathogens that would make people sick.

In their initial research, the team had installed nest boxes near sweet cherry orchards in northern Michigan and found that when kestrels—which rely on tree cavities to raise their chicks—quickly moved in, robins, grackles, and starlings moved out. By intimidating the hungry visitors, kestrels naturally reduced the likelihood of cherry damage more than tenfold—and reduced droppings that could contain pathogens by three-fold.

The kestrels gained more than room and board in the studies. The birds are listed as a species of conservation concern. Their numbers are declining from climate change-related habitat loss affecting their migration routes. So, when growers deploy kestrels to protect their orchards, the cherry on top is that the orchards, in turn, are protecting the birds. 

The study was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.