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| Photo by imgix on Unsplash |
In the old days, when you purchased a computer the most important thing about the computer was the CPU speed and the “working memory” or RAM.
You installed software and data on your computer and processing was done with your local CPU and RAM.
Now the world has really changed. The most important thing about your computing set-up (unless you are a dedicated gamer) is the speed of your internet connection. Data storage and manipulation are happening “in the cloud.”
There is nothing metaphysical about the “cloud.” It’s a computer (or rather a huge collection of computers) in a building somewhere else, drawing electricity in order to move data around and do computations. The building is huge—the average size of a data centre is 100,000 square meters, or about 25 acres.
We don’t think about what happens in the cloud. Every internet search, every remote backup, every time you use your credit card, every time you use streaming services or navigation, it is happening in the cloud. Google Search, Microsoft OneDrive, Whatsapp, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack all happen in the cloud.
When computing happened on our desktops, we could see the electricity we used. It showed up on our bill. Now, we have moved some of that electric bill out of sight. Data centres for cloud computing use approximately 200 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year.
After the cloud came crypto. Crypto uses huge amounts of cloud computing to generate virtual currency. Crypto uses 110-150 TWh/year. And now we have artificial intelligence. AI currently uses only 10 to 15 TWh per year but everyone predicts explosive growth, possibly 40 TWh in 2026 and 402 TWh by 2030.
Is data centre computing bad for the planet? The clearest argument data centres are bad comes from crypto. The argument runs like this . We don’t need crypto. We got along for 5,000 years without it. Crypto mining is being carried out solely for the purpose of making crypto miners rich, so the carbon footprint of crypto is bad and we shouldn’t do it.
But that argument is now irrelevant. Data centres used for cloud computing currently use up as much energy as crypto. Soon both crypto and cloud computing will be dwarfed by AI and large language model demands.
Let’s look more closely at a data centre’s impact. Electricity to run the servers uses a significant amount of energy, about 60% of the total bill. Servers generate a lot of heat and ASHRAE recommends they be cooled to between 18 C and 27 C. That cooling makes up 40% of the electricity use.
Beyond the electricity used, data centres generally use evaporative cooling where hot air from the servers evaporates water, losing local groundwater to the air. The average data centre uses up about one million liters of water every day.
We can certainly make changes that reduce data centre electricity and water use. Groups are working on software changes to train AI and large language models using less electricity. Hardware can be created to allow data centres to run at higher temperatures. Data centres can be built to use ground source heat pumps for cooling and heating.
Where does Canada come in? Building a data centre in Canada comes with three obvious advantages. First, Canada is close to the U.S. Data can be transferred fast from servers in Canada to clients in the US. Second, Canada is farther north and has cooler weather. Finally, there are regions in Canada that have access to abundant water.
What would Canada gain from hosting more data centres? There is a one-time input during construction which creates local jobs, income taxes and sales taxes on equipment and supplies. That is followed by a much smaller number of operational jobs and income from property taxes and utility fees.
What would Canada lose? If data centres are built in provinces with the dirtiest electricity—Alberta and Saskatchewan—Canada’s emissions would climb proportionally with the rise of AI. If data centres come with a commitment to renewable energy, they could drive the adoption of renewables across a province, or silo renewable energy development, making renewable energy a trait confined to data centres.
There is no doubt that Canada would benefit economically from a northward shift of data centres. However, we cannot count on renewable energy commitments from Google and Amazon. Many data centres will be built for colocation, where many businesses rent space in the same data centre. Those businesses will feel no public responsibility and no public commitment for the centre’s environmental impact.
In the U.S., members of Congress have asked the Department the Environment and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require data centres to report environmental impacts. Several states are considering halting tax credits for data centres while they discuss requiring renewable energy investment as a condition of construction.
In Canada, we need to establish a strong policy, monitoring the impact of data centres, requiring them to use the best energy efficiency technology and be fully matched by renewable energy.
We can’t stop the rise of AI but we can prevent it from blowing us out of the water.
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