AI & Data Centres

Impacts from AI Data Centres

We’ve been seeing a proliferation of proposals for largely AI-driven data centres in Hamilton and throughout the rest of Ontario and Canada. This will continue unless we stand up and address the damage they cause.

Our governments at both the provincial and federal level are pushing these kinds of infrastructure projects forward as quickly as possible without answering questions from the public, let alone addressing their concerns.

The decision makers don’t take our concerns seriously because they prioritize short-term gain over long-term pain. They’ll be footnotes in history, after all,  by the time the reckoning comes.

We’re not speculating on what-if scenarios here; the impacts of data centres have been felt first-hand in communities around the world.

The impacts of AI-driven data centres

These impacts are two-fold:

  • There are the environmental issues of noise, heat, emissions, and water use in the communities that are forced to host data centres. See “Environmental concerns”, below, for more detail.
  • And there’s the frustration we experience with the proliferation of AI in our everyday lives. We’re fed lofty promises of curing cancer or addressing the climate crisis. But the reality is that AI prevents us from talking to real people with personal experience and actual jobs when we need support. It fills our screens with visual garbage, generated by the theft of intellectual property. And ominously, it’s being used increasingly for surveillance, border policing, and targeted killings in conflict zones around the world.

Data centres—especially AI data centres—are not good for the climate or the environment, even when powered by renewable electricity, and even when using existing permits to take water.

The cost to society is not only in the harm from these projects but the loss of opportunity to use the same resources to do something better.

The impacts to Hamilton

In Hamilton, the electricity and water supplies and the funding required to make an AI data centre at Steelport could be better used to upgrade our steel producers to make green steel and stop polluting the air we breathe.

It could eliminate the carcinogens spewing out of smokestacks every day,  impacting over half a million people and raising our cancer risks. Why is that not the kind of action our governments are talking about when they say they want to fight cancer?

People in Hamilton deserve to be well informed and to be heard on this issue.

Key Environmental Concerns

Many of the opportunities for public comment are geared towards environmental impacts because past generations dealing with the fallout from industry fought for better regulation and oversight to prevent tragedies and injustices from continuing to happen.

This is taking place today predominantly at the municipal level as the provincial and federal government have been systematically eliminating environmental protections and democratic oversight.

Environmental “red flags” for data centres

We encourage you to use them to cut through the greenwashing and help amplify the public comments, letters, delegations, and petitions that we still have at our disposal.

Does the proposal act as a front for a gas power plant?
  • Any private facility likely requires 99.99% uptime and will thus plan to build gas generation as “backup”, but there are no binding conditions in place to prevent running these gas facilities all the time once they are installed.
  • Gas power plants in these applications are largely responsible for the emissions, heat impacts, noise impacts, and local pollution from data centres.
  • Many tout plans for clean energy, but the public should be skeptical of those plans until there is evidence to back up the claims. Are applications for renewable energy approval in place? Is there a planning submission for battery storage?
Does the proposal include a Permit To Take Water (PTTW)?
  • In Ontario, the permitting system starts at 50,000 litres of water per day. For less than that, no provincial PTTW is required.
  • If a new permit is being applied for, where are the environmental impact studies showing the risks to the local watershed? If pulling from groundwater, it is virtually certain that the water demand is unsustainable as aquifers replenish at a slow rate. If pulling from surface water, even if from the Great Lakes where the impact may be negligible in terms of water levels, there is still a question of whether or not this is the best use of water resources when 40% of the world’s population is facing water scarcity and getting worse due to climate change.
  • If the proposal is using an existing PTTW, check the registry to find out more about that permit, including how much water is allocated and when it expires.
How will waste heat be managed?
  • The fastest and cheapest cooling can be achieved through evaporative systems, which boil off water.
  • Some proposals specify liquid cooling systems, and in the cases where those cooling systems are not closed-loop, they typically use untreated surface water to flow through the facility and out back into the same body of water.
  • There are huge loopholes in controls over waste water discharge. For example, there are no controls over how many degrees the temperature of water can be raised that take into account harm to marine ecosystems and impacts such as toxic blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), and discharge less than 10 degrees warmer than the existing body of water is allowed by default.
Will new infrastructure be used to justify raising electricity rates?
Is the development a greenfield site?
  • There is absolutely no justification for destroying what remains of Ontario’s prime agricultural lands, woodlots, wetlands, or forests to service a new industrial park, for data centres or other industries.
Is there a comprehensive plan with oversight for remediation on brownfield land?
  • Brownfield is not a pass. These are areas of historic environmental discrimination. Just because there are currently communities in the area subjected to environmental impacts does not mean that they deserve these conditions to continue.
Will there be stranded assets? Will there be future remediation needed?
  • Hamilton is the site of over a century of corporations getting approvals to cause vast environmental damage, and the minute it ceases to be profitable we have seen companies close or move and leave Hamiltonians with the ongoing impacts and costs of cleanup. What measures will ensure this doesn’t continue to happen with these next industries looking to move fast and break things? What future uses will this stranded infrastructure have if the “AI boom” of high valuations for data centre services doesn’t last?
Does the proposal tout Ontario’s “strong” regulations and environmental protections?
  • Ontario’s regulatory environment has been gutted over successive governments, including gutting the ability of Conservation Authorities to manage local watershed and stop development proposals that put people and ecosystems at risk.
Does it purport that AI will bring climate efficiencies?
  • The claims being made about AI as a climate solution are being systematically debunked as more evidence becomes available, one example is Microsoft.
Data centres are speeding down the approvals path paved by developers, mining and fossil fuel companies
  • Bill 5 in Ontario allows for the creation of “Special Economic Zones” where provincial regulations do not apply. Despite being proposed to rush through mining projects against Indigenous and public opposition in the far north of the province, it is evident with the proposed Toronto Island airport expansion that this will be used wherever and whenever it suits the Premier.
  • The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) finding that increased expansion of Enbridge Gas was not in the public interest led directly to the energy minister overturning that decision and raising gas rates just to raise Enbridge’s profits. This power  now exists for raising electricity rates as well.
  • Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZOs) were used to help push through development applications against local opposition, and beyond.

The Steelport proposal presentation was shared with us because it is the project being most widely discussed in Hamilton right now and it is in the public interest to have accurate details about what is being proposed.

In addition, here’s a link to a comment submitted to the Committee of Adjustment by Hamilton 350’s Lucia Inannantuono, arguing against  the proposed severance at 386 Wilcox Street.