Telus's plans for two Al data centres in Vancouver could hit a wall, with a city councillor pushing to pause them until the city sorts out some actual rules. OneCity Vancouver Councillor Lucy Maloney is bringing a motion to council on July 15 called "Addressing the Risks of Digital Infrastructure," according to CTV News.

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[–] shitwizard420@crazypeople.online 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

~~Hydro supplies the water?~~

Sorry, I was wrong in assuming this was an error. I didn't realize overuse of reservoirs was a factor in the capacity.

But I don't understand which way you think they will lean?

[–] i_stole_ur_taco@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In the past their marketing has always told people to conserve electricity (the thing they sell). I’m reading the switch to conserving water to mean they know they’re going to be diverting significant water from sources for generating dams to “something else”.

[–] shitwizard420@crazypeople.online 2 points 1 month ago

Hold on... A few things stand out to me.

Why do you think they want people to buy energy? (Regulated)Hydro companies always want people to conserve electricity because it means they don't need to be constantly upgrading the transmission grid.

Secondly, what would they be diverting water to? Who is they? Hydro may physically control the dams and valves but if you are saying the water needs to go to the data centre when the water is going to come from Metro Van water department, in which case the city does get a say because development is only approved if there is enough capacity. If the data centre is using a lot of water, so much so that it will impact HydroBC in terms of lower reservoirs, it's going to be a massive demand in the city run water service.

If you have questions about how these things are controlled I'd be happy to help answer them using the public documents from these utilities.