N.S. protests call for moratorium on data centre proposals in province

The chants of nearly 1,000 Nova Scotians drowned out the rain in downtown Halifax Saturday as residents took to the streets to protest a proposed artificial intelligence data centre in southern Cape Breton.

Protesters gathered in front of the provincial legislature at noon, taking up an entire block of Hollis Street before marching through the city’s downtown core.

They called for a moratorium on all large-scale AI data centre proposals in the province after proponent Everwind Fuels announced last month it plans to lease a data centre in Pont Tupper, N.S., to U.S. AI company Anthropic.

Ned Zimmerman, a tech worker from Dartmouth, N.S., and one of the organizers of the rally, said large-scale AI data centres are socially destructive and environmentally irresponsible.

“We feel that the push to integrate AI into everything raises a lot of concerns for society, and this is not the kind of thing that we want to see being imposed on our communities, on our landscapes, our ecosystems, and our populations,” Zimmerman said.

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Organizers of the rally said it was one of seven happening across the province on Saturday.

Everwind has described the $10-billion project as the largest private investment in provincial history. Anthropic has signed a 20-year lease for the 18,600-square-metre facility, which it will use to power its AI assistant Claude.

2:04 Two Nova Scotia parents share their concerns about proposed Cape Breton data centre

It is expected to come online in 2027 and draw 95 megawatts of electricity in its first phase. A 325-megawatt expansion is scheduled for mid-2028, bringing the total energy demand to 420 megawatts.

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But it has faced backlash from Nova Scotians who are concerned about its potential impact on the environment and on power rates.

A petition to stop the development of AI data centres in Nova Scotia on Change.org garnered nearly 28,000 signatures.

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Everwind says it will cover the cost of all electricity infrastructure, and the project will not increase power rates for customers.

A statement from Premier Tim Houston’s office said the data centre will only proceed if it meets provincial and federal guidelines, which it noted includes protecting the water, the environment, power rates and capacity.

Zimmerman said those guidelines are not enough for a project of this scale, adding that communication from the provincial government has been sparse. He also said Everwind has not done enough to consult with communities about the data centre, demonstrating a lack of transparency and accountability.

“It was kept closely under wraps. And broader community consent, community consultation was not engaged until the project was announced,” he said.

Everwind did not respond to request for comment about the protest.

Earlier this week, the company held two lengthy information sessions in Cape Breton. Some attendees said they were left with outstanding questions. Everwind’s engagement director said at a session Wednesday night that more consultations would be arranged.

Rebecca Lawrence from Dartmouth was among the protesters Saturday in Halifax. She said the provincial government is rushing the data centre project without acknowledging the potential harm it could cause.

She said she’s worried about potential noise pollution, as well as the centre’s impact on the local water supply.

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Water from nearby Landrie Lake, which is also used to supply water to the town of Port Hawkesbury, will be used to cool the Point Tupper data centre’s servers. The system will use an average of 100,000 litres of water per day in the first phase, expanding to an average draw of 500,000 litres per day in its next phase.

“I think that one drop of drinking water wasted on generative AI is too much,” Lawrence said.

EverWind said the cooling system will be closed-loop, similar to a car’s radiator, with cooling fluid recycled or disposed of off-site, not in local waterways.

Ashley Drodge, another organizer of Saturday’s protest in Halifax, said said she’s concerned about the lack of binding regulations for AI data centre development and the absence of an environmental impact assessment for the project.

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“This is short-sighted, money in your pocket development,” she said.

Earlier this month, Nova Scotia’s Minister of Environment, Timothy Halman, said that instead of an environmental impact assessment, the project requires industrial approval, a tool he described as the most appropriate for this type of project.

“What is being utilized here is a very robust regulatory tool to ensure safe construction and operation of a proposed facility,” he told reporters.

Houston has previously said he doesn’t know whether any new legislation is needed to regulate the data centre.

However, the statement from his office about the protest said the province would be open to legislative changes “should we find ourselves in a situation where we require them.”

Lawrence said Saturday her message to the premier is to listen to Nova Scotians.

“Nova Scotian’s are pretty vocal on the fact that we don’t want this,” she said. “On every side there’s people from all across the spectrum who are saying no to these data centres.”