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A proposed data center in northwestern Alberta will reportedly emit a staggering amount of waste heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to an analysis conducted by Utah State University physicist Robert Davies, the Wonder Valley facility will dump \u201cabout 23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy every single day\u201d into the surrounding landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe effect will almost certainly be large, if not extreme,\u201d Davies told the CBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n Davies conducted the preliminary analysis earlier this year for the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation (SLCN). The $70 billion project, backed by celebrity investor Kevin O\u2019Leary, is set to be built 80 miles southwest of SLCN\u2019s reserve. While it does not sit inside the reserve, the reporting notes, it does lie in a patch of land that\u2019s considered the First Nation\u2019s traditional territory.<\/p>\n In April, the Alberta government said it would exempt the Wonder Valley project<\/a> from a more rigorous provincial environmental impact assessment due to its use of standard power and water systems \u2014 a move that disappointed, but perhaps didn\u2019t surprise, legal and environmental experts.<\/p>\n Davies echoed the disappointment. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine allowing it to go forward without those full assessments,\u201d he told CBC, adding that it could be the \u201clargest single-site heat source on the entire planet.\u201d<\/p>\n In all, the data center project will use about nine gigawatts of power using on-site natural gas generators per day, instead of drawing power from an energy grid. All that burning fuel, paired with the heat being generated by the data center operations themselves, totals a daily thermal load of between 16 and 18 gigawatts, Davies calculated \u2014 the equivalent of roughly two dozen atomic bombs. (If this line sounds familiar, it\u2019s because Davies used the same analogy when he analyzed another O\u2019Leary-backed data center project in Utah with a similar thermal load<\/a>.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s a sensational reference point, but it captures the unprecedented concentration of heat that the data center will purportedly pose. Since the power is being generated on site and going straight into the data center, the heat isn\u2019t being spread out the way that a typical power plant\u2019s output would, through the various homes and businesses it\u2019s supplying across an entire region. In other words, the gas turbines are spewing heat as they generate electricity, and the racks upon racks of AI chips are generating heat as they use that electricity to perform calculations, all in the same spot.<\/p>\n The facility will also spew about 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the analysis \u2014 which is more than four percent of Canada\u2019s total emissions.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people talk about environmental regulations that these projects have to adhere to, those regulations were not created with anything of this scale in mind,\u201d Davies said.<\/p>\n In September, the SLCN filed an application for a judicial review on the Wonder Valley\u2019s project exemption from an environmental impact assessment, and requested another review last month.<\/p>\n Responding to the request, Alberta\u2019s Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas stressed in an October 30 statement that the project will still have to obtain \u201call required permits, provide detailed technical assessments on impacts to air, land, and water, and demonstrate the project can be built and operated safely before any project can proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n But the permitting process doesn\u2019t gauge the big picture, Davies argued.<\/p>\n \u201cPermits check the parts. An assessment checks the whole,\u201d he told the CBC. \u201cA project this size is exactly what assessments are for.\u201d<\/p>\n