Data Centers Suck

No, seriously! They do. I'm not talking about your friend that has a few servers in his basement, but about the Hyperscale data centers that are popping up around the world.

They suck... Power. Electricity consumption ranges depending on the facility, but 50-150 Megawatts seems typical with annual consumption as high as 4+ GWh. Curious how much that is? It's as much as 90,000 to 100,000 residential dwellings.

They suck... Water. We've already got a water-capacity crisis in Waterloo Region. A data center will push us further towards a catastrophe.

They suck... Land. Hundreds of acres! And since these are not infill developments or on brownfield sites, they will permanently pave over massive amounts of farmland in Waterloo Region. The best farmland in the world, and once it's gone... it ain't ever coming back.

They suck... at Creating Jobs. These are some of the most automated industrial facilities that we've ever built. Covering hundreds of acres, they will employ... dozens. That's all. Not hundreds, and certainly not thousands. Dozens.

The resistance to data centers is growing around the world. Let's not go down that path while others show more caution.