Meta is building a 1-gigawatt data centre that will “demand the power equivalent to about 876,000 homes for a year, or a city almost the size of Edmonton”.
The data centre will have access to 970 megawatts of power from the province’s existing electricity grid, directly competing with Albertan families for the same power supply.
Investors into private energy companies are being told to expect electricity to skyrocket to more than triple its current price by 2029. An analysis found that the data centre “could add from $270 to $460 a year to Albertans’ electricity bills.”
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The government is trying to attract many more data centres. And a recently leaked government document details the reason why—to raise demand for natural gas by skyrocketing power demands. Since higher demand means higher prices, the result will be higher costs for workers to heat and power our homes, but higher profits for oil companies.
This is capitalism in a nutshell. The state bends over backwards to expand the profits of the capitalists at the expense of everyone else.
– Fable D., Calgary
