The Alberta government’s track record on environmental stewardship is dismal. At nearly every turn, you can count on Canada’s oil-producing province to do the wrong thing. In fact, I can’t think of another North American government on this side of the 49th parallel so beholden to industry and unconcerned with preserving its clean air and water. 

Alberta allowed oil companies to rake in billions while leaving toxic messes behind that we now know could cost more than $100 billion to clean up. It allowed coal companies to strip mine and pollute the water. It fined Imperial Oil a laughable $50,000 for failing to tell people living downstream of the oilsands about a poisonous tailings pond leak that went on for nine months. (Imperial earned that much in about 40 seconds in 2023/24.) You get the picture.

The latest environmental threat comes from Big Tech, which has come knocking with proposals for more than 40 data centres throughout the province. Data centres are huge consumers of electricity and water. The bigger they are, the more power it takes to run them and the more water is needed to cool processor chips to protect them from damage caused by overheating.

An investigation by my colleagues Rory White and Natasha Bulowski has found 76 per cent of the data centre campus proposals in Alberta are in regions under high or extremely high water stress. Climate change, caused primarily by humans burning fossil fuels, is making droughts more severe in some parts of Canada. Southern Alberta is particularly vulnerable and building data centres in that region poses a serious risk of water shortages for people, livestock and farming.

Rocky View County, a small community outside Calgary, last fall rejected one such data centre proposal over concerns that neighbouring farmers would be starved of water. Nonetheless, the Alberta government is hellbent on expanding the data centre industry with a goal of attracting investment of up to $100 billion over the next five years.

We all use data and, managed properly, data centres could be laudable for Canada to court so long as they are built in the right locations. They could be a good bet, in some parts of Quebec, BC, and Manitoba — provinces with ample supplies of clean hydroelectricity and water. But Alberta produces almost all its electricity from fossil fuels and is already the country’s heaviest greenhouse gas polluter. Adding data centres powered by electricity produced by burning gas will add to the emissions load.

And then there are the water use concerns. Many of the proposed data centres plan to cluster in large campuses close to major cities with robust electrical transmission lines. That set alarm bells ringing for University of Alberta water management expert Evan Davies, who warned about the “cumulative effects” of placing so many centres in water-stressed locations.

There may be some suitable Alberta data centre locations, but the proposals to build in drought-prone areas seem far too risky. Even in areas that now seem to have enough water, Alberta should require environmental impact assessments that include predictions for worsening droughts. The government should also require companies to minimize water usage with truly closed loop water circulation systems, regardless of location. There is no reason in this day and age to settle for B-grade technology.

  As it stands, it’s unclear whether data centres will be required to undergo an environmental impact assessment at all when they buy or inherit the water rights — CNO’s reporters asked the question but didn’t get an answer.

Elsewhere in Canada, some provinces are beginning to take cautionary measures to ensure data centres don’t leave them with no power. BC has paused the first-come, first-serve power allocation model for industrial power users and now requires data centres to bid for a share of power which is capped for two years. But when it comes to water consumption, Canada is woefully behind American states, most of which have water consumption regulations in place, according to a report by REMI Network, a real estate industry news and information source that examined water use by data centres.

The report points out many Canadian municipalities lack the ability to even measure water usage, a necessary first step for regulation. It predicts this will quickly change and it won’t be long before all commercial and residential buildings will have to reduce long-term water consumption: “In the coming years, the term ‘water risk’ will become increasingly common in Canada. Investors planning commercial or residential developments will increasingly wonder whether to pursue projects in certain areas of the country based on current and future water needs, especially if an AI data centre is planned nearby.”

Alberta would be wise to heed the REMI warning. As climate change makes our summers longer and hotter, droughts will worsen and water will be at a premium. I’d love to think that for once, Alberta will be a province that does the right thing and prioritizes the needs of people, the environment and the farmers who provide its food security. 

© National Observer