Gigawatt Ledger · one-page briefing
Campus profile Operating
Cumulus / Susquehanna
Amazon Web Services · Salem Township, Pennsylvania
The resource footprint
Modelled averageIn one day, this campus consumes about
7.7450-metre swimming pools
Filled with the volume of water consumed by the campus and its electricity supply.
The actual estimate5,109,200 US gallons consumed
Power-plant water may come from a different watershed. This is a volume comparison, not a claim that households lose this water.
At current operating capacity · Annual model spread evenly over time, not a live meter. Site estimates may differ by roughly ±40%.
Comparison sizes & sources
One pool = 50 × 25 × 2 metres = 2.5 million litres (about 660,430 US gallons). Pool depths vary; this is a defined comparison size.
One home-year = 10,791 kWh, the EIA’s 2022 average US residential electricity purchases. This excludes electricity generated at home and is a fixed US benchmark for all sites.
One car-year = 4.6 tonnes CO₂, the EPA’s typical passenger vehicle tailpipe estimate. The campus model is in CO₂e; the comparison expresses approximate climate scale, not equal mixtures of pollutants.
Monthly values are annual totals ÷ 12; daily values are annual totals ÷ 365. Actual demand varies. Comparisons cover the whole campus, including non-AI uses.
Water: see the numbers and sources
This is water used up, mainly through evaporation. Power-generation water may be used in a different watershed.
- Pressure on local water
- Low — a regional measure of demand compared with available water
- Where the water comes from
- Surface water — river, lake or canal
- Cooling
- Closed-loop with river-water heat rejection
- Basis
- Modelled from cooling design — WUE 0.25 L/kWh
- Claimed vs observed
- 0.129 million gallons a day authorised. Amazon asked for 0.55.
Air: see the numbers and sources
The totals include nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and fine particles. They cover both this site and the power plants supplying it.
- Health range
- $0.34–0.97 million a year. Lower bound is EASIUR national mid-range; upper is EPA benefit-per-ton at a ~$12M VSL.
- Statistical deaths
- 0.08 a year at that VSL — a national-average conversion from tons, not a local concentration study.
- Equals
- 19,711 cars of NOx
- Where it burns
- Dedicated nuclear (co-located PPA)
- Generation mix
- Nuclear ~100%
- Diesel backup
- 109 gensets, 88.6 MW standby. Test-hours term: 10.6 t NOx/yr (50 h at 30% load, 8 kg NOx/MWh).
- Air permit
- 99.0 t/yr NOx enforced cap — 1.00 tons under the 100-ton Title V major-source line
- CO₂e
- 30.8 kt/yr — climate, not air quality
The project, approvals and community concerns
- Who asked for it
- AWS — bought the campus from Talen Energy for $650M
- Who approved it
- FERC initially rejected the amended interconnection agreement in Nov 2024 over cost-shifting to other ratepayers; a restructured deal followed in 2025
- Co-location
- FERC rejected PJM's amended interconnection service agreement on 1 November 2024 that would have raised co-located load at Susquehanna from 300 MW to 480 MW.
- What it serves
- AWS compute co-located with a nuclear plant
- IT capacity
- 300 MW current capacity / 960 MW full-build scenario
The test case for 'behind-the-meter' co-location: plugging a data center straight into a nuclear plant bypasses the grid, and FERC balked because everyone else still pays for the transmission system it stops using.
Keep this guide handy
41.0925°, -76.1447°
Quote or share these estimates
Gigawatt Ledger (2026). Cumulus / Susquehanna: water and air. https://gigawatt-ledger.pages.dev/site/susquehanna/. Modelled from disclosed capacity; site-level error ±40%.
Include the estimate’s date, whether it describes current or proposed capacity, and its uncertainty. Get an embeddable card.
Gigawatt Ledger · September 2026. Water and air figures are estimated from public records and disclosed capacity. How we calculate them · Use this in your community.