An environmental reckoning? Data centre rush hits hard realities

Assertions repeated often in the pro-data centre narrative wrongly hint that the build-out represents an environmentally responsible generator of Alberta wealth, many of the researchers, critics and other commenters dissecting the boom concur.

In fact some say the province and the rest of the world are embarking on barely understood territory by striving to meet artificial intelligence’s appetite for water, power and, in Alberta’s case, natural gas.

The hard truth is that nobody knows what exactly to expect on the environmental front, says Tricia Stadnyk, a University of Calgary professor who uses computer modelling to research the interplay of hydrology, water use, drought and climate change.

“I’m not against data centres, first and foremost,” she says. “I’m an engineer, so I actually use AI, just as most of the public does. And I think it’s a brilliant strategy for Alberta to invest in.”

But she cautions: “The question to be asking is: do we know the environmental impact of these data centres? And the answer, unequivocally, worldwide, is hell no we don’t. Science doesn’t know. Operationally we don’t know.”

The Closed-Loop Illusion

Stadnyk, who holds a national research chair, says closed-loop cooling systems at newer data centres aren’t the water-friendly approach the province implies they are.

Closed-loops don’t reduce water needs, Stadnyk says. They simply shift water use to power plants — whether on or off site — because closed-loop systems require more electricity than other cooling types do.

It’s called the water-energy nexus, and it means the two are closely linked. It takes energy to get, distribute and treat water. And it takes water to produce energy of almost all forms.

The government says closed-loop systems are akin to the radiator and hoses that cool your car’s engine. An AI data centre typically requires about the same amount of water as a golf course does.

But the province is “almost doing a bait and switch with the public,” says Stadnyk. “They’re saying, Oh, don’t worry about the water because we’re going to have closed-loop systems.”

Shifting water needs from data centres to power plants is something the province “is not talking about or being transparent about, and they 100 per cent know about it.”

On the power generation side of the equation, Stadnyk says closed-loop systems require two to three times more water than other cooling technologies do.

One gigawatt of power produced in Alberta to offset closed-loop cooling draws up to 950 million litres from Alberta’s available water supply per year. That’s 380 Olympic pools’ worth, and it doesn’t account for extraction of natural gas, which also requires power and water.

A paper on the Alberta Wilderness Association website says that AI data centres consume “considerable volumes of water for both cooling purposes and when generating electricity, which can contribute to local water scarcity, particularly in drought-prone regions.”

Although data centres say they will limit water withdrawals or use closed-loop systems, “the exact volumes, technologies and management procedures remain vague,” says the paper.

But there’s plenty of water up north and inter-basin transfers are now enabled under Alberta law. So if the licensing isn’t available in water-stressed southern Alberta, can’t a data centre or power plant simply get its water piped from somewhere else?

It’s not that simple, AWA says in a policy briefing published late last year.

 “Each river basin has unique chemical, physical and biological compositions,” the association notes. “Moving water from one to the other risks changing chemical concentrations, pH, temperature, and introducing disease or invasive species into the receiving waterbody.”

The paper, which makes a case against Alberta’s Water Amendment Act, says the provincial government “wants to remove the current level of review and scrutiny … without any clear science, research or public demand to support this change.”

The act received royal assent late last year, and its implementation and regulations will roll out over time.

AWA, the oldest wilderness conservation group in Alberta, bills itself as an independent advocate for wildlands, wild water and wildlife. Its staff includes a team of scientists and conservationists. 

Stadnyk, like AWA, isn’t in favour of major water diversion projects.

“The Alberta government has promised that they won’t do it to the point that it impacts the end outflow of a river. So they might do it locally, but they won’t do it as a major basin diversion, like, let’s say, the Peace River down into the Red Deer River,” she acknowledges.

But she wonders where the water will come from for data centres and power plants in the south.

An Inherent Imbalance

Alberta has an 80-20 makeup — about 80 per cent of the water is where 20 per cent of the people live, and vice versa.

If larger inter-basin transfers aren’t happening, “then I have serious questions based on the data that I live with on a daily basis as to where the water is coming from for some of these planned facilities.”

In southern Alberta, “you can’t buy a (water) licence to save your life. You have to negotiate on the open market to be able to get additional licences.”

If local water isn’t available for large data centres, long-distance transmission of energy becomes necessary. Which means more infrastructure and more loss of power during transmission.

Hovering over the whole issue is air quality, climate change and the province’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 16 million tonnes by 2035.

‘Worse Than Coal Days’

The Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank, calculates that the natural gas-fired plant to serve the Sturgeon county Meta centre alone will emit three million tonnes of GHGs a year. That footprint is equal to about 17 per cent of the emissions created by Alberta’s entire electricity sector today.

The queue of proposed new power generation before the Alberta Energy System Operator sits at around 20 gigawatts, or close to twice typical peak demand for the entire province.

“If all of (the) data centres go forward … that would put our carbon emissions from electricity higher than when we were running our electricity system off mostly coal,” Will Noel, a senior electricity analyst with Pembina, told the publication Taproot in mid-2025.

But the province contends that natural gas — because it’s cleaner than coal and provides grid stability that renewables technology so far can’t come close to matching — is a necessary transitional choice for powering data centres.

Natural gas is part of a responsible, economy-supporting path towards hitting reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions, goes the provincial portrayal.

The bonus is that Alberta has plenty of the stuff, about 130 trillion cubic feet of it that’s proven and recoverable. That represents enough to heat every home in Alberta for roughly 700 years.

Carbon Becomes Code

The abundance makes data centres a modern way to keep secondary profits and value at home instead of shipping them across borders. Essentially, they’re a new revenue stream that marries the carbon economy to the knowledge economy.

Think of AI data centres as digital refineries, the government says. They’re exactly the kind of value-added use for a non-renewable resource that economists and policy wonks have been saying for a half century or more that Alberta needs more of.

But relying on natural gas is not worth the downside, AWA says.

“Most proposed projects indicate similar intentions to construct large, natural gas-based generators, which will increase air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as compete with the public and other industries for the supply of natural gas within the province. 

“The chemical compounds released when burning natural gas … decrease air quality and are associated with increased short- and long-term health burdens on the public, including respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, neurological disorders, poor reproductive outcomes and premature mortality.”

Cold Climate, Hot Climate

On the climate side — some would say ironically — the government has promoted centres as a way for Big Tech to capitalize on cold weather, because it provides a level of natural cooling of data centres.

Not so fast, says Stadnyk. 

“There’s a lot of disagreement about precipitation, how that’s changing. But the one thing (scientists) are unanimous on is that it will get hotter here, and it’s going to get hotter not by a little bit but by a lot,” she says.

Based on the Florida of today, Alberta is on a path to having Florida-like summers by 2035.

“The reality is that we’re becoming more and more like California and Arizona, which were water scarce and in drought for 20-plus years until they decided they can’t actually call it drought if it’s kind of the new normal.”

Given the effects of climate change, the province should have used its call for investments in AI data centres to get Big Tech dollars put towards renewables.

Renewables have drawbacks. The intermittency of sunshine and wind, combined with the need for more robust battery storage, are among them.

The province could even have used the boom as a chance to partner with industry and become an international leader in battery storage and renewables development, she notes.

“That is not just my opinion. That’s the opinion of a number of colleagues who are actually experts in the renewables field,” says Stadnyk.

Copyright 2026, The Macleod Gazette. All rights reserved.

George Lee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Macleod Gazette.