Billionaires trying to steal our water and pollute the air
In the flatlands north of Edmonton, a $13 billion decision is quietly reshaping what it means to be an industrial nation in the age of artificial intelligence. Meta has chosen Alberta's Sturgeon County as the site of its largest data centre outside the United States — a one-gigawatt facility that will demand its own dedicated power plant and consume land on a scale measured in football fields. The announcement arrives at a moment when nations are competing not just for factories and pipelines, but for the invisible infrastructure of machine cognition, and Alberta has positioned itself as a willing and capable host.
- A facility the size of 33 CFL fields will draw enough power to rival a mid-sized city, anchoring Canada's first major AI data centre in rural Alberta.
- A $4.6 billion natural gas plant must be built from scratch just to keep the lights on — a signal of how far beyond existing infrastructure this project reaches.
- Alberta's grid cannot absorb multiple projects of this scale at once, forcing the province to prioritize only those developers who bring their own power generation.
- Meta's closed-loop cooling system and below-golf-course water usage figures are offered as reassurances, but environmental groups are calling for a moratorium before the next shovel breaks ground.
- With $250 million in projected annual provincial revenues and a $100 billion construction target on the horizon, Alberta is betting its industrial future on becoming the continent's AI backbone.
Meta is building Canada's first major artificial intelligence data centre in Sturgeon County, Alberta — a $13 billion project that will be the company's largest outside the United States. The facility will span nearly 270,000 square metres and consume one gigawatt of power, a demand so vast it required a separate solution: a $4.6 billion natural gas plant, led by Calgary's Pembina Pipeline, built expressly to power the campus. That plant is expected online in the second half of 2030, with permits already secured to double its capacity.
Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw welcomed the project as part of an emerging AI and power corridor, noting that Meta agreed to the environmental standards of the county's designated industrial zone — land not suited for housing or agriculture. Water use, a persistent concern with facilities of this scale, is addressed through a closed-loop cooling system that Meta says will consume less annually than a golf course or a modest canola farm. Alberta's cooler climate further reduces evaporation losses, giving the province a natural edge over warmer competitors.
The economic returns are significant: 3,000 construction jobs, 300 permanent positions, $250 million in annual provincial revenues, and a $60 million commitment to local infrastructure. Alberta has been actively courting hyperscale operators, setting a goal of $100 billion in data centre construction within five years and creating a regulatory concierge service to ease the path for investors.
The province's electricity grid, however, cannot support multiple projects of this magnitude at once, so Alberta is channelling investment toward developers who generate their own power — as Meta is doing. That constraint quietly narrows the field even as ambitions widen.
Not all voices are celebratory. Greenpeace Canada's Keith Stewart called for a moratorium on mega-data centres until legislated protections for the environment and human rights around AI are established, arguing that the benefits flow upward while the costs — water, emissions, displaced opportunity — are borne more broadly. That tension between industrial ambition and environmental accountability will likely define the terms of every data centre proposal that follows.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, is building Canada's first artificial intelligence data centre on its soil—and it will be the largest the company has constructed anywhere outside the United States. The $13 billion project will rise in Sturgeon County, a rural stretch of Alberta north of Edmonton, in a region already being shaped by industrial development.
The facility itself will occupy nearly 270,000 square metres and draw one gigawatt of power, a scale that becomes clearer when you consider it would take about 1.4 gigawatts to power all of Edmonton, or that the campus could fit 33 Canadian Football League fields end to end. To feed that appetite for electricity, a consortium led by Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline will build a dedicated natural gas-fired power plant alongside the data centre, a $4.6 billion undertaking expected to come online in the second half of 2030. The companies involved have already secured permits to double the plant's capacity if demand warrants it.
Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw framed the announcement as a moment of opportunity and responsibility. The county, which borders Edmonton to the north, is becoming part of what she called Canada's emerging AI and power corridor. She emphasized that Meta had committed to the environmental standards required in the county's designated industrial zone and would participate in what she described as responsible land stewardship. The province, for its part, worked with both the county and Meta to identify and address electrical, environmental, and economic concerns. The chosen location is not zoned for housing, farming, or food production.
One of the central anxieties surrounding data centres of this scale is water consumption. Meta's design incorporates a closed-loop liquid cooling system, a technology the company argues will not draw water from the surrounding region. According to Meta's projections, annual operational water use will fall below what a typical golf course or a 50-acre canola farm would consume in the same period. Yize Chen, an engineering professor at the University of Alberta, put it in starker terms: for every 20 to 50 ChatGPT queries processed, the system uses roughly one bottle of water. Alberta's cooler climate, Chen noted, naturally reduces evaporation and thus water loss compared to data centres in warmer regions, giving the province an inherent advantage in hosting such facilities.
The economic case for Alberta is substantial. The province estimates the project will generate 3,000 construction jobs and 300 permanent operational positions. The government also expects to receive $250 million annually in royalties, taxes, levies, and fees. Meta has committed an additional $60 million to improve local infrastructure, including roads and water systems. These numbers align with Alberta's broader ambitions: the province has been actively recruiting hyperscale data centre operators and set a goal of having $100 billion in data centre construction underway within five years. To smooth the path, Alberta established a concierge service to help companies navigate regulatory hurdles.
Yet the province faces a constraint. Its electricity grid does not currently have the capacity to accommodate multiple projects of this magnitude simultaneously. This reality has shaped Alberta's strategy: it is prioritizing projects that either build or contract their own power generation, as Meta is doing. Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish called Meta's announcement a big deal for the province, underscoring the political weight of landing such an investment.
Not everyone sees the project as unambiguous progress. Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, called for a moratorium on what he termed megadata centres until legislated environmental and human rights protections governing AI are in place. He characterized the promises made by data centre developers as cover for what he sees as a fundamental extraction: billionaires, he argued, are securing access to water and electricity while externalizing environmental costs and displacing job opportunities. The tension between Alberta's economic ambitions and the environmental scrutiny these facilities attract will likely shape how the project unfolds and what conditions future data centre proposals will face.
Citações Notáveis
Alberta is becoming an important part of Canada's emerging AI and power corridor, and that brings opportunity and responsibility.— Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw
For every 20 to 50 ChatGPT queries, that will be equivalent to one bottle of water.— Yize Chen, University of Alberta engineering professor
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does Alberta specifically matter for this? There are other provinces with power and space.
Climate and infrastructure. Alberta's cooler temperatures mean less energy spent on cooling—that's built-in efficiency. And the province has already decided to prioritize projects that bring their own power plants, which solves the grid problem that would otherwise block them.
The water use claims seem almost too good to be true. One bottle per 50 ChatGPT queries?
It's a closed-loop system, so water isn't being pulled from the aquifer and lost. But the claim depends on the technology working as promised. That's where the skepticism comes in—we're taking the company's word on something that will run for decades.
What does Greenpeace actually want here?
A pause. They want legislated rules on water, emissions, and labor before more of these centres get built. Right now it's all negotiated case by case, and they see that as companies playing one jurisdiction against another.
Is Alberta's grid actually ready for this?
Not for multiple projects. That's why the province is being selective—only approving ones that build their own power. Meta's doing that. But if Alberta lands five more deals like this, the grid becomes a real bottleneck.
What happens in 2030 when the power plant comes online?
The data centre starts operating. Three hundred permanent jobs. Millions in annual tax revenue flowing to the province. And a facility processing AI queries at continental scale, drawing power from a natural gas plant in rural Alberta.