Physicist warns proposed Alberta data centre would emit heat equivalent to 23 Hiroshimas daily
A court expert challenges Alberta's decision to exempt a massive data centre project from environmental impact assessment.
What to know
- A physicist warned a proposed Alberta data centre would release heat energy equivalent to 23 Hiroshima bombs per day.
- Alberta's Environment Ministry exempted the project from required environmental impact assessment review.
- Commenters express concern that exemptions prioritize tech industry interests over environmental protection and resource sovereignty.
- The decision to skip environmental assessment review is a core point of contention among observers.
The dispute Whether the regulatory exemption from environmental assessment was legally proper or represents a problematic bypass of necessary environmental review. · positions read across 26 posts and comments
Regulatory exemptions and approval prioritize tech billionaire interests over environmental protection and national sovereignty.
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“Hard fucking no on this garbage. We can't have a serious conversation about sovereignty while selling our country out to big tech.”
noisebloodassault · Reddit ↗
The process followed established legal requirements, even if the energy consumption is high.
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“In a Oct. 30 statement, Alberta's Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas said it followed the established legal process to determine that no environmental impact assessment (EIA) was required for the project.”
YYCpops · Reddit ↗
Alberta Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas Regulatory authorityUnnamed physicist Court expert witness
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage articlespostscomments
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Physicist testifies data centre would release extreme daily heat output
A physicist presented court evidence that the proposed data centre would release energy equivalent to 23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy per day.
“Hard fucking no on this garbage. We can't have a serious conversation about sovereignty while selling our country out to big tech.”
— noisebloodassault, Reddit commenter · source -
first by Yahoo News Canada, 7d ago · also HN Frontpage, CBC
2 more headlines
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2 outlets New AI Data Center Is So Huge That It'll Generate the Heat of 23 Atomic Bombs Every Single Day
first by Mastodon, 5d ago · also Futurism
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If Kevin O'Leary's Wonder Valley data centre goes ahead, "about 23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy every single day will get dumped into that landscape (…) The effect will almost certainly be large, if not extreme". "I can't imagine allowing it to go forward without those full assessments"; if built, it has the potential to be "the…
2 more of the top 3 · 26 posts in this stretch
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I agree with that. I didn’t understand saying the centres themselves release little energy into the environment. They consume a lot of energy, we’re adding city level energy consumption in month timespans all over the place, and all of that goes into the environment. With additional and vastly more negatively resulting heat effects from the…
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"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 — the…
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background
Alberta Environment Ministry exempts data centre from environmental impact assessment — Alberta's Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas determined that no environmental impact assessment (EIA) was required for the proposed data centre project, following established legal processes.
What people are saying 20 voices from 2 sites · best of 26 · verbatim
- Nov 2
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I get that we're all anti-data centre but this is a ridiculous way of expressing the energy use of such a project: Proposed data centre would release ‘23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy’ a day, physicist says | CBC News
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He’s being paid as an expert witness in a big court case. One of the top side hustles for professors.
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A fun little problem for you - calculate how much raw solar power the site experiences in GW.
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Sorry man, my native ancestors were buried around there, I think. And also the spirit of the river, etc..
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You ever reflect on the fact that you’re posting this on Reddit? Literally using a data center to complain about data centers. Fuck Elon Musk though. If you want to hurt him, vote Dem. He’s spent a record amount helping republicans this cycle.
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This is absolute classic NIMBY nonsense, right down to finding an indigenous tribe to halt for whatever reason they think of. Here’s the ironic part - the tribe leader is Chief Sheldon Sunshine . This proposed Wonder Valley data center is on ~7700 acres of land. Well the amount of solar energy that 7700 acres experiences in a day from Sunshine is…
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https://www. cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/wo nder-valley-slcn-court-physicist-9.7403677
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Mote important than housing: you need industry, offices or schools nearby or you can't use the heat during the day. District heating only with Residential areas are not economically viable. In the US, with your very long working hours, office or industry are much more interesting.
- Nov 1
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"We must stop the GTA from eating and releasing daily Hiroshima nukes." - Trump probably
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Does no one know how to use actual units of measurement? Like seriously wtf. But anyone wondering thats a max of about 19,965,277,777 watts a day or about 479,166,666.648 kwh of power draw a day if their “Hiroshima sized atomic bomb” measurements are correct.
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O'Leary .. putz ... --- Proposed data centre would release ‘23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy’ a day, physicist says | CBC News https://www. cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/wo nder-valley-slcn-court-physicist-9.7403677
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What could go wrong? «If the Wonder Valley project goes ahead, “‘about 23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy every single day will get dumped into that landscape,” said Utah State University physicist Robert Davies.» https://www. cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/wo nder-valley-slcn-court-physicist-9.7403677 # FossilFuels # DataCentres
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They also asked a professor at Utah State University to do the research. That’s a second tier university within Utah, which isn’t some academic powerhouse to begin with. (University of Utah is their flagship state university). Clearly just trying to find someone that will be the most extreme on the issue.
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I don't believe it. Esbjerg, Danmark, built a large scale heat pump for district heating and they use the North Sea as heat reservoir. I am pretty sure, that water is a lot cooler than any heat you get from a data center.
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What the...what?!! In a Oct. 30 statement, Alberta’s Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas said it followed the established legal process to determine that no environmental impact assessment (EIA) was required for the project.
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This is why the UCP worked to remove environmental assessments. This helps nobody except tech billionaires. It'll provide hardly any jobs once at steady state.
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Yes that’s exactly the point, the amount of nuance needed to understand what he’s saying, even if it’s true, is not something the average person would be able to do.
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They aren’t though, not in any meaningful way. Most of the companies that fired people for AI are having to hire people back.
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I'm also okay with fighting AI terminator robots with videos of cats playing on their faces for fresh drinking water, in the future. The videos are there to give us that last hit of dopamine right before death.
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Can everyone have an electric car? Sure, but Elon says it’s not fair that electricity is wasted by consumers when it could be better utilized by him in his data centers. /s