It actually makes more sense to build them in Alberta than most of the US to be honest. If these things are going to be run off fossil fuels anyway, it is more efficient to build them local to the fuel rather than building pipelines to ship it elsewhere then burning it there to run those data centers.
The article says itself that the data center is planned to be closed loop water (so effectively no water use) but then assumes that the natural gas power plant WILL be consuming water, when those too can be built with closed loop water systems.
Personally I’d like to see all datacenters require 100% renewable power going forward, but that’s not realistically happening.
it is more efficient to build them local to the fuel rather than building pipelines to ship it elsewhere then burning it there to run those data centers.
Alberta does not make fuel, they make a tar sludge that needs to be refined in the US to make fuel. 100 years of tar sands and they still haven’t invested in a decent local refinery.
Idk if you’ve ever play Factorio, but it’s the same premise:
Complexity: Essentially, there isn’t enough demand to justify the expense and massive investment of money and resources. With petroleum refinement, you get byproducts and you need to either store them or make products from them, so it’s not just a plant or two, it’s a whole set of them.
Cost: Alberta is rich in extracted, stable crude oil and bitumen, but refineries are expensive. Like, really, really expensive. It doesn’t make economic sense to heavily subsidize its processing locally, when it’s so much cheaper to send it to the USA and elsewhere.
However, these power plants don’t need or use the oil refineries you’re referring to. They are natural gas power plants, and thus need natural gas refineries, which are MUCH simpler and cheaper because it’s mostly just a cleaning step. Alberta already refines and consumes about 50-60% of it’s natural gas production.
It will create some long term jobs, while it’s not like an office with hundreds of people inside of every day it it still requires significant physical upkeep and management.
It’s not like there’s a lack of space in the area and this will take away from higher density offices.
You really will throw every single possible infraction against AI, no mattery how tiny. You’re now blaming AI for a contractor disposing of wastewater during construction that ended up having some higher levels of a bacteria in it? How is that in any way the fault of AI? The construction of datacenters isn’t somehow different such that it’s more likely to generate bacteria wastewater. This is possible in any construction project.
And what does that have to do with construction water treatment by a specific contractor?
I too can dump contaminated water just doing renovations on my home by leaving it out or not following proper procedures for disposing of it.
There isn’t a special AI related cause to it. It’s a relatively rare bacteria that primarily impacts immunosuppressed patients when it shows up (which is rare) and there’s only four known fatalities, and they mostly picked it up in hospitals while being treated for other things.
The contamination from the construction happened while they were doing flush and fill on the pipes at the facility, just like what would happen with any new building that contains plumbing. It can easily be cleaned with standard options like bleach if it’s known to be an issue.
Thousand acre ai compute facilities offer significant drawbacks and no tangible benefits to Alberta.
Personally I’d like to see all datacenters require 100% renewable power going forward, but that’s not realistically happening.
Do not expect that to ever happen. Meta’s facility will use 1GW of power. Right now as I write this, Alberta is generating a total of 10GW. There are something like 25GW of proposed data centre projects in the queue for the province. Renewables cannot and will not be used for facilities that use this much power. It’s impossible.
Where the fuck did you get your numbers? Alberta has almost 25 GW of installed capacity right now, and peak demand of something in the neighborhood of 13-14 GW
In 2024, they installed about 1.4GW of Solar and Wind alone.
It actually makes more sense to build them in Alberta than most of the US to be honest. If these things are going to be run off fossil fuels anyway, it is more efficient to build them local to the fuel rather than building pipelines to ship it elsewhere then burning it there to run those data centers.
The article says itself that the data center is planned to be closed loop water (so effectively no water use) but then assumes that the natural gas power plant WILL be consuming water, when those too can be built with closed loop water systems.
Personally I’d like to see all datacenters require 100% renewable power going forward, but that’s not realistically happening.
Alberta does not make fuel, they make a tar sludge that needs to be refined in the US to make fuel. 100 years of tar sands and they still haven’t invested in a decent local refinery.
Alberta does not have the refinery capacity to make “local fuel”.
If they’re building massive data centers, and power plants, why not build refineries too?
Idk if you’ve ever play Factorio, but it’s the same premise:
Complexity: Essentially, there isn’t enough demand to justify the expense and massive investment of money and resources. With petroleum refinement, you get byproducts and you need to either store them or make products from them, so it’s not just a plant or two, it’s a whole set of them.
Cost: Alberta is rich in extracted, stable crude oil and bitumen, but refineries are expensive. Like, really, really expensive. It doesn’t make economic sense to heavily subsidize its processing locally, when it’s so much cheaper to send it to the USA and elsewhere.
I do play factorio. Complexity is the point…
However, these power plants don’t need or use the oil refineries you’re referring to. They are natural gas power plants, and thus need natural gas refineries, which are MUCH simpler and cheaper because it’s mostly just a cleaning step. Alberta already refines and consumes about 50-60% of it’s natural gas production.
You’re talking out your ass.
What’s the point. Its still an american company building it won’t create any long term jobs. And America laws still apply to all data in it.
It will create some long term jobs, while it’s not like an office with hundreds of people inside of every day it it still requires significant physical upkeep and management.
It’s not like there’s a lack of space in the area and this will take away from higher density offices.
Keep this shit out of my water.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/08/meta-datacenter-ai-wyoming-water
You really will throw every single possible infraction against AI, no mattery how tiny. You’re now blaming AI for a contractor disposing of wastewater during construction that ended up having some higher levels of a bacteria in it? How is that in any way the fault of AI? The construction of datacenters isn’t somehow different such that it’s more likely to generate bacteria wastewater. This is possible in any construction project.
It’s a closed-water data centre owned by Meta which is exactly what has been approved in Alberta.
And what does that have to do with construction water treatment by a specific contractor?
I too can dump contaminated water just doing renovations on my home by leaving it out or not following proper procedures for disposing of it.
There isn’t a special AI related cause to it. It’s a relatively rare bacteria that primarily impacts immunosuppressed patients when it shows up (which is rare) and there’s only four known fatalities, and they mostly picked it up in hospitals while being treated for other things.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971226000780 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5684090/
The contamination from the construction happened while they were doing flush and fill on the pipes at the facility, just like what would happen with any new building that contains plumbing. It can easily be cleaned with standard options like bleach if it’s known to be an issue.
Thousand acre ai compute facilities offer significant drawbacks and no tangible benefits to Alberta.
Do not expect that to ever happen. Meta’s facility will use 1GW of power. Right now as I write this, Alberta is generating a total of 10GW. There are something like 25GW of proposed data centre projects in the queue for the province. Renewables cannot and will not be used for facilities that use this much power. It’s impossible.
Where the fuck did you get your numbers? Alberta has almost 25 GW of installed capacity right now, and peak demand of something in the neighborhood of 13-14 GW
In 2024, they installed about 1.4GW of Solar and Wind alone.
https://ippsa.com/industry
I said 10GW generation not capacity, pay attention.