Here are some relevant quotes re the Data Centre that certainly help to lend some credence to the project which is scheduled to be located on highway 40 some 40 kilometers south of Grand Prairie. Check out the video at the bottom of this input.
“Projects like this have extremely attractive returns, and so I think Alberta is waking up to what they have just now. I mean, they could easily lead globally in data centres,” O’Leary said Monday in an interview. “We are talking about the demand right now for data centres in the next 15 years — nobody has what Alberta has. Nobody.” Data centres focused on artificial intelligence require huge amounts of electricity. A report last month by consultancy McKinsey & Co. estimated global demand for data centre capacity could triple by the end of this decade. Monday’s announcement by the Municipal District of Greenview — and its Greenview Industrial Gateway (GIG) — confirms a letter of intent has been signed that would allow O’Leary Ventures to acquire and then develop land in the area. Called Wonder Valley — playing off his moniker on TV — the proposal would see the company develop off-grid natural gas and geothermal power generation infrastructure to provide electricity to offer to hyperscalers looking for places to operate data centres. Once fully built out over a five-to-10-year period, the area in northwest Alberta could eventually offer 7.5 gigawatts of energy to its tenants. The area has available land and water, access to fibre-optic networks and proximity to ample supplies of natural gas that can create electricity, O’Leary said. “It’s almost impossible to find what Alberta has — because it’s not just power,” he said. “You need people, you need fibre. There are so many things that are required to build a data centre of this scale.” The first phase would be 1.4 gigawatts, costing about US$2 billion, while the entire development could top $70 billion if fully built out, factoring in data centres, infrastructure, power and other structures, the company said.
Premier Danielle Smith met with O’Leary earlier this month while she was in Abu Dhabi and they toured a data centre, her office confirmed Monday.
Alberta Technology Minister Nate Glubish said access to electricity — and the ability of companies to provide their own power — and speed to market are two key factors for data centre developers.
“The proposed infrastructure from the O’Leary group, being natural gas power with the option to go net-zero in the future, it can be up and running in two years and scale up to 7,500 megawatts over a five-to-10-year period,” said Glubish. “This is a game-changer.”
However, natural gas-fired power generation would create greenhouse gas emissions, and most large tech firms have aggressive net-zero targets.
Expected demand for electricity for data centres is growing faster than the timelines for building new wind and solar transmission, with developers increasingly looking for places where they can get a direct connection to gas, said Ben Levitt with S&P Global Commodity Insights.
“These data centre operators still have clean energy mandates, nearly all of them, and using gas is viewed as kind of a near-term necessity,” Levitt said from Pittsburgh.
“So where’s the clean energy going to come from over the longer term?”
The proponents note the region will have access to underground sequestration for carbon capture and storage, as well as future geothermal power. The land is along Highway 40, about 50 kilometres south of Grand Prairie.
Kyle Reiling, executive director of the Greenview Industrial Gateway, said he first met with O’Leary’s team at Bankers Hall in September to discuss the proposal.
Within three days, the group was flying over the site in a helicopter.
“It’s going to create thousands of jobs,” Reiling said.
“Right now, the O’Leary group is going through their economic analysis of the project that they just announced today, and it really is like a race. Everyone’s pushing as fast as possible.”
MD of Greenview Reeve Tyler Olsen said the project would have a huge impact on the region, and the entire province.
“This seems to be the perfect fit,” Olsen said.
“Coming from this area . . . you think big, but I’ve never thought this big before, so it’s taken a little bit to wrap my head around it.
“But it’s exciting.”
column written and researched by Chris Varcoe, a Calgary Herald columnist.
from the presentation material --
www.alberta.ca
