What one N.B. town has learned from its data centres

While other communities in New Brunswick and Canada have been debating whether they want data centres, this town has been living with them for years. You know we go outside and all of a sudden it would get real noisy. This data centre is five years old and is operated by Hive Digital and Buzz HPC in an industrial park. Thousands of computers run around the clock, generating cryptocurrency. It's more of a, as you can hear, hiss. Yes. While the other guys, when they first kicked in, it was like a lawnmower, constantly. Like, it was loud. The other guys are over here. This data center was set up by a company called Chief Fuels that was taken over by a tech company in 2021. It opened in 2024. Now the owners of this facility are switching it over from cryptocurrency to AI. They say Canadians need their data in Canada in centres like this. If it's not sovereign to your nation state and you're leasing it from somebody well the idea of leasing intelligence from somebody means that they can turn it off or take it away at any time. That's one argument for data centres but opposition to them has been growing in Canada meaning Grand Falls is ahead of the curve in that debate. There are lessons, particularly to where you're going to put these centres because they're in an industrial section but close to a residential section. The Holt government promised a data centre policy framework in its October throne speech. The framework will set high environment, social, economic and energy standards that data centres project will be required to meet. The centre de données, development of data centres. Grand Falls Council recently gave the province its ideas for the framework and asked the province for a moratorium until it's in place. We wanted to make sure before they expand or they build another one that the government put some guidelines in so that we can make sure that Everything works well for the population and for the data centres also. This centre is less noisy than it used to be and both companies now do noise monitoring with weekly reports to the town office. The mayor says demand on the town's water supply has not been a problem. Then there's electricity. Data centers consume a lot of power. The two here have their own substations connected to the Enby Power grid. A large amount of generation resource that we consume is off hydroelectric and that. Buzz claims it runs on clean energy from Enby Power's nearby Grand Falls Hydro Dam. But that claim doesn't completely hold water. First, the grid doesn't work that way. It's like a big pool of electricity from multiple sources. Second, Buzz consumes 70 megawatts of power, more than the 66 the dam produces. And when the river is low and the dam isn't generating much power, the centers need electricity from other sources, not all of them renewable. Buzz's president acknowledges that. He also acknowledges the political debate that's going on and says that's why it's important to let communities like Grand Falls know what they're up to. I think you combine all those together you have the essence of again a very pragmatic, a very responsible data center infrastructure that the community can embrace. So we shared your concerns with the province and we hope that we will be heard. Oh I understand the need for these data centers and stuff but I mean when it starts impacting the population and the neighborhood like it's real close. Gisele Rioux says Grand Falls Council has been listening to residents like him, and all governments should do the same when it comes to data centres. I think the people should be involved, the people should have a voice, and, you know, not just for show and for politics, but meaningful.