{"id":117337,"date":"2026-07-05T19:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/117337\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T19:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:22:10","slug":"theres-no-need-to-worry-about-plans-to-build-a-huge-electricity-plant-and-ai-data-centre-near-edmonton-danielle-smith-insists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/117337\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no need to worry about plans to build a huge electricity plant and AI data centre near Edmonton, Danielle Smith insists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alberta\u2019s premier claims it\u2019ll probably reduce electricity costs; don\u2019t count on that, though, says the Pembina Institute<\/p>\n

But what about that other Alberta Government announcement on Thursday?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Prime Minister Mark Carney looking a little tired from his day of flights and news conferences at Thursday night\u2019s newser in Calgary with Premier Smith (Photo: Screenshot of Alberta Government video).<\/p>\n

Thursday afternoon at 3:30, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Utilities Minister RJ Sigurdson climbed up on a stage in Calgary with a couple of corporate bosses to announce something called \u201cthe Greenlight Electricity Centre\u201d in Sturgeon County<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Say what? Ah, it\u2019s just a wee 932-megawatt natural-gas-powered electricity plant up there just northeast of Edmonton in what really is called the region\u2019s \u201cindustrial heartland,\u201d the speakers explained.<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll be used to power one of those AI data centres, but don\u2019t worry about that, all the residential houses are more than a kilometre away, Ms. Smith breezily told a reporter.<\/p>\n

And, eventually, the three corporate partners in this project \u2013 Pembina Pipeline Corp., Kineticor Asset Management LP, and Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners Inc. \u2013 might expand the power plant to 1,800 megawatts \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the risk of being a party pooper \u2013 or not, depending on how you view these things, dear readers \u2013 I will note that according to Google\u2019s now ubiquitous AI research helper, which itself must run on considerable amounts of power from somewhere, 1,000 megawatts \u201cis massive; running continuously, it is generally enough to supply electricity to between 700,000 and 1,000,000 typical homes depending on regional climate and energy use.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Pembina Institute Electricity Director David Pickup predicts that the Greenlight Electricity Centre\u2019s use of natural gas will likely result in higher costs for Alberta consumers (Photo: Pembina Institute). <\/p>\n

Now, before we go on, we should note that it\u2019s not clear why the news conference<\/a> was held at all six and a half hours after Ms. Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney had expected to be on stage together announcing their plan to build another diluted bitumen pipeline mostly along the route of the Trans Mountain Pipeline from the town of Bruderheim<\/a> near Edmonton to the Roberts Bank Superport<\/a> on the Salish Sea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As we all know, the PM\u2019s arrival was delayed by hours. Perhaps the Greenlight announcement was supposed to be the second news conference that day. Or maybe someone decided the delay was an opportunity to hold a quick newser on what is in fact a very significant development at a time reporters\u2019 minds were focused on the bigger announcement to come, which had been rescheduled from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. that night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like the premier and Mr. Sigurdson, Pembina Pipeline President Scott Burrows and Kineticor CEO Andrew Plaunt were on standby for the prime minister\u2019s arrival that evening anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s 250-word news release<\/a> showed signs of having been hastily cobbled together. No canned quotes composed for any of these guys. Pembina Pipeline\u2019s release<\/a> had more detail of the sort written with potential investors in mind. It even had some nice quotes, including one for Premier Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestments like this will lead to thousands of jobs, significant economic growth, and hundreds of millions in provincial revenue that can be reinvested to support the services that matter most to Albertans,\u201d she said in Pembina Pipeline\u2019s release.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives researcher Simon Enoch (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).<\/p>\n

The cost of the project, it was revealed Thursday, will be a whopping $4.6 billion. This will produce about 30 \u201clong-term skilled positions.\u201d So that\u2019s about $153 million per permanent job, I reckon, which if nothing else may tell us something about how efficient the petroleum industry has become at eliminating human work. Regardless, though, the government news release promised there will be about 1,000 construction jobs, so that\u2019s something.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Water use? Nothing at all was said about water use in either news release or the news conference, although we know that water use like electricity demand is a major concern about AI data centres in other jurisdictions. Just because it\u2019s been raining a lot in Alberta for the past month doesn\u2019t mean it always will be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The premier did boast that her government\u2019s \u201cBring Your Own Power\u201d model for AI data centres \u201cis designed to protect the reliability and affordability of electricity that Albertans depend on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBy having data centres bring their own generation and pay for related power infrastructure, this framework ensures that projects like this one will actually reduce transmission costs on Alberta\u2019s utility bills,\u201d she insisted. This may be true, but living five minutes or so away from Sturgeon County myself, I\u2019d feel better if I could see that claim crunched by an impartial expert.<\/p>\n

\"\"Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew (Photo: Office of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan). <\/p>\n

Speaking of experts, a statement written by Pembina Institute Electricity Director David Pickup<\/a> Thursday predicted that higher electricity prices are exactly what is likely to happen because of this and other natural-gas projects. The Pembina Institute, no relation to Pembina Pipeline, is an energy and environmental policy think tank based in Calgary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAdding a new power plant of this size \u2013 generating enough electricity to power a city two-thirds the size of Calgary \u2013 will massively increase demand for gas in the province,\u201d Mr. Pickup wrote in his response to the announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis, combined with Prime Minister Carney\u2019s announcement today that Canada intends to \u2018triple\u2019 LNG exports over the next decade, will expose Albertans to much more intense market competition for the gas they rely on heavily to heat their homes and power their grid,\u201d he continued. \u201cThis likely means household electricity costs for Albertans will keep rising in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Pickup argued such projects should instead have in part relied on cheaper renewable alternatives, such as wind, solar and battery storage \u2013 all of which, unfortunately, are illogically anathema to Ms. Smith and the UCP Government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know from examples around the world that when countries begin to export more gas abroad, they see prices spike for consumers at home,\u201d Mr. Pickup said. \u201cAlbertans, will be very exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He concluded: \u201cAlberta urgently needs to return to a true free electricity market \u2014 where renewables are not suppressed<\/a>, and demand for gas is not artificially enhanced. Until this happens, Albertans will continue to pay the price in their energy bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experience shows that data centres wherever they crop up tend to be rolled out in the same manner, said Saskatchewan-based researcher Simon Enoch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives at a recent presentation on data centres.<\/p>\n

This often includes an implication by political leaders there is no alternative to AI data centres and financing details for the facilities that are cloaked in corporate confidentiality, sometimes enforced with non-disclosure agreements on local governments, Mr. Enoch said. Often such projects are fast tracked by local and regional governments that frequently cut corners to overcome opposition, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Typical concerns raised by residents wherever AI data centres have been proposed include their impact on local electricity rates, water use, relentless noise at every hour of the day and night, hidden government subsidies, lack of environmental assessments, their impact on taxes, and the impact on the local economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The day after Mr. Enoch\u2019s presentation in Regina, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced that his province was pulling the plug on a large natural-gas-powered data centre proposed by a pair of companies from the U.S. and British Columbia on 141 hectares of farmland south of Winnipeg.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve taken a look at this project. We\u2019ve taken a look at AI more broadly,\u201d Mr. Kinew told the CBC<\/a> on June 4. \u201cThese hyperscale data centres don\u2019t appear to be in the best interests of Manitobans. So we\u2019re going to say no to this data centre.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI reject the idea that we have to be slaves to surveillance capitalism in order to participate in the modern economy,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alberta\u2019s premier claims it\u2019ll probably reduce electricity costs; don\u2019t count on that, though, says the Pembina Institute But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[40048,8689,114,3178,52,39199,13703],"class_list":["post-117337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ai-data-centres","tag-alberta-politics","tag-canadian-politics","tag-danielle-smith","tag-edmonton","tag-greenlight-electricity-centre","tag-sturgeon-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}