Figure 1: Electricity generation by Fuel Type (2021)
I assume principally with natural gas.
EDIT: And upon me actually reading the article, that does seem to be the case:
The natural gas facility, proposed by Synapse Data Centre Inc., will produce 1.4 gigawatts of energy each day, solely to power what could become the largest artificial intelligence (AI) data centre in the county.
EDIT2: I was wondering if they could use waste heat from the power plant to do district heating, but while it looks like Olds, Alberta is pretty compact, looking at it in Google Earth, it also looks like it’s mostly low-density single-family homes and that the town’s surrounded by farmland. I don’t know if it’d be economical to do so; district heating makes more sense in higher-density areas.
Downtown Calgary is somewhat built-up, but that’s a good 85 km away from Olds.
There’s also the problem of if the local residents could be arsed to get on a new-fangled central heating scheme. Maybe some kind of other local industry could use it - there is a kind of college there IIRC.
So, a large gas fired generating station produces about 400 MW, so they are going to need four new ones running at near 100% 24/7 just to power this thing.
Yep. And there will be more jobs running the power plants than the data centre. For a project that’s revenue projections are effectively tech moguls going “Trust me bro!”
And how exactly are they going to power this thing?
With a newly built, 1.2GW devoted natural gas power plant, IIRC.
Edit: 1.4GW per the article.
Alberta electricity mix:
https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-alberta.html
I assume principally with natural gas.
EDIT: And upon me actually reading the article, that does seem to be the case:
EDIT2: I was wondering if they could use waste heat from the power plant to do district heating, but while it looks like Olds, Alberta is pretty compact, looking at it in Google Earth, it also looks like it’s mostly low-density single-family homes and that the town’s surrounded by farmland. I don’t know if it’d be economical to do so; district heating makes more sense in higher-density areas.
Downtown Calgary is somewhat built-up, but that’s a good 85 km away from Olds.
Goddamn, I didn’t realise we were that far behind on solar. The potential for it is great; it’s sunny and cold.Edit: Oh, this is 5 years old. I should have clued in, since we don’t have coal power at all anymore.
There’s also the problem of if the local residents could be arsed to get on a new-fangled central heating scheme. Maybe some kind of other local industry could use it - there is a kind of college there IIRC.
They burn Coke? O.o
So, a large gas fired generating station produces about 400 MW, so they are going to need four new ones running at near 100% 24/7 just to power this thing.
Yep. And there will be more jobs running the power plants than the data centre. For a project that’s revenue projections are effectively tech moguls going “Trust me bro!”