How does digital growth affect Human Health and the Environment?
What are data centers?
Data centers are large facilities that house, provide power and cooling to large numbers of computing systems, including servers, data storage hardware and other components. Data centers are the heart of digital infrastructure such as cloud and remote storage, data processing technology, and artificial intelligence (AI). Data centers rely on continuous and reliable power and require uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and backup generators to prevent information loss. All these facilities are highly secured.
Some centers might generate their own power on site (gas plants, solar, other sources of energy) or may connect into provincial energy grids.
Are there data centers in Canada?
Data centers exist or are in progress across Canada (Figure 1). The need for data centers is increasing in the information-age. The Canadian government announced that strategic investments in public and commercial computing infrastructure will be made to provide Canadian businesses and researchers with necessary computing capacity, while helping to protect Canadian data sovereignty and intellectual property, and encouraging economic growth. Up to $1 billion of federal investment is proposed for the construction of supercomputing infrastructure over a five-year period from 2025-2029[1].
Figure 1: Existing Data Centers in Canada (https://www.datacentermap.com/canada/)
The provinces of Alberta and Ontario have recently announced plans for investment related to data center. AI and related energy resource development as investments in their respective economies.[1]&[2]
In the United States, there is a recent movement towards evaluating the potential use of Superfund sites for data center[3]. In Canada, each province has its own requirements for the remediation and redevelopment of contaminated sites, and the jurisdiction of contaminated sites on Crown and Indigenous lands is under the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada. The use of brownfields for data center development is an evolving area of innovation in Canada.
Why are there concerns about data centers?
In addition to their sheer size, communities have reported concerns including (but not limited to):
- Air emissions from on-site energy generation
- Water use for cooling—data center require large quantities of water to provide cooling to the data storage units.
- Microbial growth in cooling water and potential for disease
- Use of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in cooling fluids
- Noise from center construction and during operations (databanks)
- Stress and mental health
- Impacts on traditional land uses or land values
- Energy use and increased rates for consumers
- Ecological habitat loss
- Stormwater and runoff management
- End-of-life site management
How can Intrinsik help?
Intrinsik has specialists in public health, toxicology and health impact assessment that can help assess or provide third-party review of:
- Air quality concerns from gas plants and other energy sources that might be on site as well as potential impacts from construction activity emissions
- Health Impact Assessment (HIA) – evaluating social impacts traditional land use, stress, mental health, access to services, electricity costs, impacts on land uses and communities
- Provision of review or assessment of brownfield (remediated contaminated sites) properties that might be suitable for data center development.
- Assistance as expert witnesses for regulatory filings and public hearings
[1]Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ised/en/canadian-sovereign-ai-compute-strategy
[2] Government of Alberta: https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/f6fe5816-12ac-4ba6-805c-d0a0dd5aebf9/resource/26d62103-ff38-4310-a98f-ab4595a4af74/download/ti-albertas-ai-data-centre-strategy.pdf
[3]Government of Ontario: https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1006141/ontarios-energy-plan-unlocking-opportunities-in-the-digital-economy
[4] United States Environmental Protection Agency – Reuse Consideration for Data Centers on Superfund Sites: https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/reuse-considerations-data-centers-superfund-sites