Journalist Nick Tsergas

Journalist and activist Nick Tsergas says Canadian governments see the building of hyperscale, AI data centres as key to the development of the natural gas industry.

“That’s what it means in Alberta where Premier Danielle Smith has said the whole point of the AI data centre build-out is to create demand for fossil fuels,” Tsergas said Saturday during a public meeting in Saint John about how to stop the push for data centres across Canada including the 10 now being proposed in New Brunswick.

He said governments promise that power-hungry data centres won’t raise electricity rates.

“What that does is it actually incentivizes a company to just build its own power plant, and that usually means a gas plant,” he said.

The U.S. firm VoltaGrid and its partner Beacon AI Centers of Calgary say they plan to build a 190MW gas plant for  the proposed data centre in Lorneville, near Saint John, but would need an additional 190MW from the NB Power grid.

Tantramar gas plant

West Saint John resident David Thompson speaking into a mic held by moderator Ashley Anthony, a member of the group fighting the proposed Lorneville data centre

“The natural gas plant that NB Power and the government both want to build at the Tantramar marsh, the real purpose is to supply these data centres,” said David Thompson, a member of the audience who lives in West Saint John.

“They could easily use renewable wind power,” he said.

His comments echoed those of Green leader David Coon, who told Warktimes last November that the proposed Tantramar gas plant would generate the additional 190MW that the Lorneville project would need.

“So, where are they going to get it? Well, the only place they could possibly get it is from the new gas plant in Tantramar,” Coon said.

Governments back natural gas

During an interview after the Saturday meeting, Nick Tsergas pointed to a federal document obtained by the environmental group Greenpeace showing that one of the main “public policy benefits to Canada” of building a national network of data centres would be to create markets for Canada’s natural gas.

“The premier of New Brunswick has floated the idea of lifting the moratorium on fracking,” he said.

“I don’t think she ran on that,” he added.

“We’re talking about lifting the fracking ban because of the emergence of this new class of infrastructure, the AI data centre and  the enormous power demands that it carries, and the timing is not a coincidence.”

Nick Tsergas is a freelance journalist reporting on health, business and technology. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario and runs the website stopthedatacentre.ca. He also works with the Small Change Fund, a registered charity that helps raise funds for environmental and social justice projects.

This is the first of three reports on Saturday’s meeting in Saint John.