The company behind a controversial $10-billion AI data centre proposed in Cape Breton is trying to reassure Nova Scotians that water will be protected and power rates won’t spike.
Meanwhile, opposition parties say AI data centre regulations need to be legislated in order to ease major worries about the plan.
Representatives from EverWind Fuels were witnesses at a meeting of the standing committee on natural resources and economic development Tuesday to discuss their planned data centre.
The company announced earlier this month that the U.S. artificial intelligence company Anthropic had signed a 20-year lease for a 18,600-square-metre facility in Point Tupper, N.S., that would draw 95 megawatts of electricity during its first phase. Between the Oct. 16 announcement and Tuesday evening, a petition to stop the development of AI data centres in Nova Scotia on Change.org garnered about 23,800 signatures.
“We recognize that a development of this scale raises important questions and concerns, particularly for those communities closest to the project,” Matthew Tinari, EverWind’s chief financial officer, told the committee.
“Nova Scotians deserve clear, factual answers and we’re committed to listening, providing information and addressing those concerns as the development moves forward,” he added.
After the meeting, Tinari told reporters EverWind is proposing a memorandum of understanding that would lay out the company’s commitments to developing the project responsibly.
Tinari said the implementation agreement would commit to preventing rate hikes for household electricity customers, protecting water supply and minimizing water use. He told reporters that the federal and provincial guidelines for data centres would be a “large portion” of the memorandum of understanding.
“What we’ve heard from community is (that) industry should have binding commitments. So we were proposing to the province some type of agreement like that,” Tinari said.
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Premier Tim Houston said he recently became aware that EverWind has suggested a memorandum of understanding with the province.
“Like we’ve said from the beginning, the proposal was the first step in this process. The next step for this proposal is for the proponent to undergo consultations with communities, which will help inform any future agreements,” he said in an emailed statement.
The premier would not say if his Progressive Conservative government would make an agreement of this kind legally binding.
EverWind says it will cover the cost of all electricity infrastructure, which is why the project will not increase power rates. The firm says the project would include a closed-loop cooling system using recycled water as well as an external cooling system that would require the use of additional water on very hot days without any wind.
Tinari told the committee the electricity at their proposed centre “is designed to be interruptible,” which means they can be disconnected from the grid during peak energy use or when the province’s electrical grid is “constrained.”
The company estimates the system would use an average of 100,000 litres of water per day in the first phase and an average of 500,000 litres per day when the expansion is complete from a nearby lake. Tinari said the volume of water needed at full capacity represents 1.5 per cent of Landrie Lake’s estimated sustainable daily yield.
Tinari told the committee the data centre would create 2,000 construction jobs and 215 permanent roles in the community.
He said he’s aware of worries coming from community members, and said “their concerns are valid.” The company is set to host community consultation sessions in southeastern Cape Breton next week. Tinari said the company was not able to do any community consultation prior to the announcement because of strict non-disclosure agreements EverWind signed with Anthropic.
“The announcement doesn’t mean that the data centre is turning on tomorrow. The announcement means the conversation is starting,” Tinari said.
EverWind has said it plans to build the data centre by late 2027.
Following Tuesday’s meeting, Opposition NDP Leader Claudia Chender said she has no confidence the government will implement safeguards to protect Nova Scotians from rate hikes or environmental harm.
“We did not see a single concrete assurance for Nova Scotians that their rates will be protected, that the environment will be appropriately protected,” she told reporters.
“A contract would be great, we haven’t seen one … and ideally, let’s have a piece of legislation that governs this novel, giant industry so Nova Scotians know that they’re protected,” Chender added.
Interim Liberal leader Iain Rankin agreed, saying none of the plans presented in Tuesday’s committee replace a regulatory framework, and the project ought to be subjected to an environmental assessment.
Lora MacEachern, deputy minister of environment and climate change, told the committee that the industrial approval process is the right process to ensure the data centre project is managed properly, and it doesn’t need to go through an environmental assessment.
“The industrial approval provisions apply, and those are good, robust processes in place to protect the environment,” MacEachern told reporters after the meeting.
AI data centres are not on the list of projects that would automatically trigger an environmental assessment in Nova Scotia. This list includes quarries, mines, energy generation projects and other industrial facilities.
A recent United Nations University report says the environmental footprint of data centres globally already rivals some of the world’s largest countries. The report also predicts their water and energy use and pollution will double in just four years as use of artificial intelligence grows.
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