Dozens of people are protesting tech giant Meta’s plan to build its first Canadian data centre in a county north of Edmonton.
Ben Baril is the 20-year-old organizer of the protest in Morinville, a town in Sturgeon County, where the tech giant behind Facebook announced last month it’s building its massive one-gigawatt data centre.
Baril says the $13-billion-plus facility will strain Alberta’s water supply and energy grid, and contribute to the climate crisis in the future.
He says protesters are also against data centres across Canada because the expansion of artificial intelligence threatens jobs.
Meta has said the centre will be online in the next two to three years.
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Premier Danielle Smith has said Alberta’s grid operator will use surplus energy to power the centre until a new natural gas-fired plant — called the Greenlight Electricity Centre — starts powering it in 2030.
Pembina Pipeline Corp., Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management are behind the plant.
Let me know when thebhypocrites cancel their data plans
They are as pathetic as the anti capitalists who lecture people using their iPad
Data center for what?
The data we already have got us what? Where?
Enough with this madness.
Anything that kevn leery cheers for can’t be good for 99.9% of us.
millions applaud it.
Again people are confused about the water usage. How would it contribute to what climate crisis. The reporter failed to mention the mental health issue of Baril.
Remember when you made the commercial showing Albertans freezing in the dark cold weather because there was no way renewables could meet demand? Where was the surplus then?