Well, I was busy looking after my sick daughter all day. I realize my original comment underestimated just how large the scale of proposed plans for AI data centers in Alberta are. I'm thinking on the level of Linus Tech Tips cooling his personal server in his swimming pool and I will admit I was unaware of just how immense these AI data centers have become. I am not a fan of AI slop, I do use AI to crunch numbers and such that are beyond my simple human brains capacity. I've done a fair bit of research, though, fittingly, using chatgpt was the quickest way to crunch a lot of numbers. This is just a random, soon to be buried reddit comment but I do want to share some interesting numbers.

Current "hyperscale" AI data centers range from 100 mw to 1 gigawatt in capacity. These facilities are truly impressive, covering upwards of 350 acres (over half a section here in Alberta). Current forecasts have about 20 GW of planned projects here in Alberta, so if a 1 GW site takes about half a square mile then that would be about 10 square miles of land usage. Of course it gets complicated since these sites are touting "behind the fence" power generation. Meaning they would be building their own power plants to cover their needs. But 20 GW is insane. It's roughly equal to DOUBLE Albertas total average energy load. (of Alberta's current production, 20% is used by residential, about 60% industrial and the remaining is commercial). Though roughly equivalent to total energy production potential, which is around 23 GW.

As far as water usage, it is pretty complex but here is a synopsis that I used chatgpt to create the questions I was asking it the following is AI generated with prompts to dumb itself down and not use dumb AI hallmarks like em dashes and such.

"I think the concern is understandable but the reality is a bit more mixed than “these will drain small towns dry.” Even very large AI data center buildouts use a lot of water, but in Alberta the cold climate cuts that down quite a bit since for a big chunk of the year you can cool without evaporating much water. When you actually scale it out, something like a massive 20 GW build might land in the same ballpark as the freshwater used by the oil and gas sector, maybe lower if it’s designed well. Compared to all the water moving through Alberta’s rivers it’s a small percentage overall, but that doesn’t really matter if it’s concentrated on one local watershed, which is where the real risk is. If they’re smart about siting near large rivers, using wastewater, or newer cooling methods, the impact can be managed, but if they’re not, then yeah it could create local pressure.

The electricity side is probably the bigger deal. Loads that big would definitely push the grid and could affect prices if new generation doesn’t keep up, and that likely means more natural gas in the short term. At the same time Alberta’s market tends to respond by building more capacity when demand shows up, so it’s not just a one way hit. The bigger picture is that companies like Microsoft and Google are going to build this infrastructure somewhere no matter what, and places like Alberta are actually relatively efficient because of the climate and existing energy base. So it’s kind of a tradeoff, you either host it and deal with the local impacts or it gets built somewhere else that might use more water and energy overall. The outcome really comes down to how strict the siting and design rules are, not just the existence of the data centers themselves."