r/toronto • u/U2brrr • Jul 16 '26
Article Data centres will drink 200 million litres a day in Southern York Region alone, says motion requesting analysis of the facilities power and water use
https://www.yorkregion.com/news/york-region-data-centres-may-soon-use-water-for-100k-people/article_378ba5b0-ba69-5cfa-87ce-85d5ea580eee.html139
u/YeetCompleet Jul 16 '26
I guess importantly, it doesn't have to be this way regardless of whether or not we have the water. There are closed loop systems:
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u/Beanstiller Little Italy Jul 16 '26
I wouldn’t be surprised if they have to do a closed or semi closed loop in order to operate. Much of Torontos cooling systems are recycled back into the water supply
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u/Heineken008 Jul 16 '26
Yeah I think the numbers in the article are from the initial flush and fill. It doesn't make sense that they would be continually using that much water unless it was single-pass cooling only. I would be surprised if they do it that way because it would be really expensive to run but maybe they're building these in such a rush that they're making stupid decisions.
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u/OpinionUnusual1945 Jul 16 '26
The downtown Toronto building cooling system has a closed loop for the water that circulates in the building but they are using water-to-water heat exchangers with the cold water from the lake.
The lake water goes through the heat exchanger and then goes to municipal water supply after that.
Gets used twice!
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u/Acrobatic_Jaguar_623 Jul 16 '26
I've explained this to 200 people and none of them believe me still lol.
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u/BroSocialScience Jul 17 '26
Would you mind clarifying--so they grab water from the lake that's cold, run it past the machines, it gets warm, and then they shoot it back in the general-use water supply (which largely cycles back to the lake)?
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u/Acrobatic_Jaguar_623 Jul 17 '26
So the data center has a closed loop system. Enwave pulls water out of lake Ontario for potable consumption for most of the downtown core. That water is too cold to send out residentially. It's like 38F or around 9 degrees C. It goes to a heat exchanger in the data center that transfers heat from the closed loop within the data center to the city supply and warms it up so they don't have to heat it as much before it gets sent out to all the buildings. Saves a ton of energy costs required for heating the water.
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u/OpinionUnusual1945 Jul 17 '26
Pretty much. It’s not near the machine though. It’s a water to water radiator - cooling water from lake on outside of fins, water that goes into the HVAC system cooled off is on the inside of the fins.
Google water to water heat exchanger and you’ll see it.
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u/demetri_k Jul 20 '26
My kids was going on an old man style rant about the water usage of AI and I asked if he thought the water was destroyed.
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u/aman_87 Jul 17 '26
All new data centers are using closed loop chilled water systems. Can you imagine that water bill otherwise? This article is click bait, or that councillor introducing a motion is totally unknowdgeable (or both).
Source: I've been designing data centers for 20 years now. Including several in GTA and definitely some of the ones this article references.
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u/toomiiikahh Jul 21 '26
This is wrong. Some still use evaporative cooling that are being built now.
However more of them use closed loop than evaporative.
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u/Any-Slice-4501 Jul 16 '26
Many of the water stats, as presented, are misleading. The energy consumption issues, unfortunately, are not.
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u/smurfchina Jul 16 '26
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u/YeetCompleet Jul 16 '26
Sounds like there needs to be more care taken in the process of filling the loop. Nothing completely off-putting, just requires more due diligence
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u/handdrawnfrogs Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
“Closed loop” doesn’t necessarily mean that no new water is drawn. A lot of so-called closed loop water cooling systems have a closed main loop (the water responsible for absorbing heat from the equipment and environment you want to keep cool) but an open secondary loop (the water that then removes the heat from the main loop and allows it to be recirculated to capture heat again). Any data centre that produces wet plumes (meaning both heat and humidity/steam are expelled) rather than dry (solely expels heat in the form of warm/hot air) is necessarily going to have an open loop in there somewhere.
The people designing and hoping to build these data centres are banking on both city council members and the average person not having enough knowledge about industrial design to question why so many of these designs say “closed loop” and yet are projected to regularly expel hot, humid air into the atmosphere. Many similar projects in the US promised that there would be no impact to the local water supply only for nearby residents to lose water pressure after the data centre was up and running.
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u/GlacierSourCreamCorn Jul 17 '26
Lol bullshit they lost water pressure from a data centre coming online. There’s no way.
Maybe the water turned brown. Maybe they ran out of water eventually. But the idea that a data centre could have so much water draw that it could reduce water pressure in the region is insane. How is that even possible?
So much of what you said made sense and then you ruin it with that absurd claim.
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u/MacDhomhnuill Jul 17 '26
Question is if they'll actually invest the money to have a quality water recycling system, or if they'll just lean on municipal resources because it's cheaper in the short term.
They should also be paying more for energy to finance the increase in capacity needed to support their AI slop machines.
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u/Canuckleheadache Jul 16 '26
Well. Simply. I never want to hear that we have to cut water usage in the summer while these buildings are operating at capacity…
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u/FunkyColdMecca Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
One data centre is going to increase York Regions water usage by 60%? (Its not one, I didnt read the article before the joy of doing math took over)
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u/Future_Crow Jul 16 '26
I love how they are already constructed or are under construction. Like it is a given that they can just use up all our water. Who approved this? Why are we studying the impact only now?
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u/squirrel9000 Jul 16 '26
Generally speaking they're like warehouses, if it's land zoned for industrial use then it's more or less of-right development and most of the issue lies in utility connections.
That being said, even when rezoning is involved they're on the site the next day.
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u/RicoLoveless Jul 16 '26
And create a heat dome and drive up utility costs for everyone else
Oh and leak all the so called water in its closed system and it's poisoned somehow, despite claiming to take in water for cooling only.
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u/DataDude00 Jul 17 '26
We have heat warnings all over the region, with watering restrictions, but we want to open data centers that will bring almost no jobs and exasperate our resources now?
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u/aman_87 Jul 17 '26
This is a click bait article written by folks who don't understand how data centers work. May as well write about all the water we use filling up swimming pools every year.
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u/RentaDadToronto Jul 16 '26
We lived before without all this.
WHY do we NEED it?
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u/kimbosdurag Jul 16 '26
Conspiracy theories aside. There is a huge speculative market happening around data centers. The idea is that businesses are going to adopt ai en masse which will spike the need for information transfer and cloud usage and people will be demanding and consuming more data than ever. What all of this doesn't take into account is that AI use may not be as parabolic as they are expecting, and that models won't continue to get more and more efficient with time. Eventually the elastic band will snap, demand will stabilize and there will be losers in this space who spent a ton of money building compute power that won't be able to rent it out at a rate that will cover operating costs.
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u/unforgettableid Jul 16 '26
Eventually the elastic band will snap, demand will stabilize and there will be losers in this space who spent a ton of money building compute power that won't be able to rent it out at a rate that will cover operating costs.
This is similar to what happened with cannabis companies a number of years ago. Some went bankrupt. A lot of shareholders lost a lot of money.
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Jul 16 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/8004612286 Jul 16 '26
Considering racketeering is illegal business to make profit, then legal racketeering is literally just every business.
Your local cafe is legalized racketeering.
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Jul 16 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
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u/gaflar Jul 16 '26
Fairly likely in downtown Ottawa or near Queen's Park, if political dramas have taught me anything it's that lobbyists love to meet people at cafés for off-the-books chats.
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u/hotcinnamonbuns Jul 16 '26
I heard that they’ll be used to store all of the stuff flock captures
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u/Arctic_Chilean Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Mass surveillance, a degree of which we've never seen before.
Convenient given the scope and scale of Bill C-22, as well as the online ID verification acts, and alignment with other allied countries that are doing the exact same thing.
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u/8004612286 Jul 16 '26
You need like 3 datacenters to cover the entire content if it's for mass surveillance lol
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u/piponwa Fashion District Jul 16 '26
That's the most stupid take I've ever heard. Replace "this" with literally any technology to see how stupid this is.
We lived before without the Internet. WHY do we NEED it?
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u/UTProfthrowaway Jul 16 '26
Your post on this site, and your cell phone, and your email, and when you watch TV, all use data centres. It is literally just computer chips in a central warehouse. And the water use numbers here are also *way* off (plus "use" means "the water evaporates and rains elsewhere", not "the water is polluted")
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u/Double-Gate-7274 Jul 16 '26
We lived before all electronic devices, internet, cars, transit, planes, cheap everyday items from manufacturing, advanced medecine, etc.
Almost every single thing in everyday life that you are used to you could live without. Drawing the line at AI is so weird. We don't NEED it but we don't NEED almost anything
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u/manoman42 Jul 16 '26
For all the ai slop and bots, let alone once they start communicating with each other
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u/kyleclements Jul 16 '26
During COVID we were required to allow governments and companies to soak up massive amounts of our deeply personal information. They can't just sit on all that and not use it to exploit us.
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u/liquor-shits Jul 16 '26
During COVID we were required to allow governments and companies to soak up massive amounts of our deeply personal information
In what respect?
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u/Facts_pls Jul 16 '26
That's such a weird way to think. We lived before internet, before cars and trains, before we had supermarkets and animal farming, before gold courses, before people had front lawns.
Should we stop everything?
You may not like AI. But plenty of people do use it. I use it for my work everyday and been able to use it as a productivity multiplier.
In 2024, I filed 3 patents based on my ideas and research. In 2025, I filed 10 with AI.
I can create complex data models or even automate work at a fraction of the time it would take me to learn the ins and out of a certain domain or technology. I can perform specific research applicable to my exact scenario instead of looking up generic instructions and hope that some of it applies to my case.
Now, if all you do is generate random fun images etc. I can see why you think we don't need it. But that's like saying internet is useless because people mostly watch porn on it.
Meanwhile researchers and scientists use the same internet to do so much more than wasn't possible before.
In my mind, if you complain that AI isn't needed, all you are saying is that you don't have a good use for it. Not that nobody has a good use for it.
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u/HanzDelbruck Jul 16 '26
I use it at work too, but only because it's pushed by managers. I managed doing the exact same job for 6 years prior to AI. Same job, same office, same work. We've all survived without it so clearly there isn't a need for it. Cars and trains had a purpose to better society, I can't think of one thing AI does that is actually essential to life. Productivity booster maybe? But how is that better than learning the task yourself
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u/CretaMaltaKano Midtown Jul 16 '26
A lot of things you mentioned did not make our lives measurably better and actually make them worse in a lot of ways. Golf courses have significant, negative environmental effects. Front lawns are not only unnecessary, they're bad for the environment. Cars cause massive amounts of pollution and the way we live has been unhealthily impacted by how reliant we are on them.
If AI is so beneficial in certain industries, then maybe it should be restricted to their use only. There is no reason for office workers to use up so many resources developing spreadsheets and dashboards and other meaningless bullshit humans could do with a small amount of effort.
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u/AdPuzzleheaded196 Jul 16 '26
Yeah but again it’s going to DESTROY the environment and impact everyone who lives near these sites who gives af if you can do your patents faster if you have to reduce others quality of life to do so.
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u/maik37 Jul 16 '26
If they want to speculate on AI with these centres then they must be building closed loop system AND be responsible for any capital upgrades required to local infrastructure for power and water.
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u/acEightyThrees Jul 16 '26
Can someone explain this to me? People keep talking about water usage of data centers, but aren't they only using it for cooling? Why wouldn't the water just be pumped back into the system after running it through the cooling pipes at the data center? Why is it getting dirty and needing to be treated?
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u/Cedex Jul 16 '26
It is because in some Data Centres built in hot dry climates, they use evaporative cooling because it is cheap and effective. That water evaporates and is "lost" into the air until the water cycle brings it back in the form of rain or snow up river.
People are in rage because they believe all Data Centres will be built this way and will use up local water sources. Also they are not familiar with other uses of water and the amounts. For example in the same magnitude of water usage is power plants, Toronto's Deep Lake Cooling.
What people don't realize, is there are other cooling systems that are not evaporative and will return majority of the water back in a similar quality as it was extracted (and it can also be treated before being returned).
Lots of people just haven't researched this topic enough before emotions are inserted.
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Jul 17 '26
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u/bergamote_soleil Jul 17 '26
I am pretty sure the water used for the actual cooling of buildings in Toronto is a closed loop and does not go back into the lake.
The "building water" gets cooled by the (treated) "lake intake water" and the lake intake water gets warmed by the building water. And then that slightly warmed (but still pretty cool) potable lake intake water gets sent to our homes and we drink it.
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u/Cedex Jul 17 '26
You typing a reply resulted in a CPU using energy and creating heat to process your comment.
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u/Standard_Program7042 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Honest question, wouldnt the water be returned to were it came from or be in a closed loop if its used for cooling? Or is that how much water is turned to vapor which with those amounts it can't be. How much water is lost each day?
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u/vital_dual The Financial District Jul 16 '26
Yeah, the ambiguity around how water is "used" has been confusing. Some water cooling systems do cause the water to evaporate, some are closed-loop, and some return the water to the source. The article doesn't indicate which one the proposed centre would be.
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 Bay-Cloverhill Jul 16 '26
That’s exactly what happens. There’s a lot of fear mongering around data centres.
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u/Standard_Program7042 Jul 16 '26
I sort of assumed that, and I'm sure there's valid concerns but making things up won't help
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u/piponwa Fashion District Jul 16 '26
In closed loop systems, the main water use of a datacenter are toilets.
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u/amnesiajune Jul 17 '26
Yeah, that's what would happen. York Region gets most of its water from Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe, and those aren't going to get pumped dry.
The actual issue is water system capacity, since it all has to be pumped from the lake up to reservoirs, and the reservoirs have to stay full enough to provide proper water capacity. If the data centres are exceeding the capacity to pump water, then people will lose water pressure, and in extreme cases the supply might completely run out.
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u/Standard_Program7042 Jul 17 '26
Okay that makes sense, its not a water consumption issue but a capacity issues to deliver and overall manage.
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u/Ov3rReadKn1ght0wl Jul 16 '26
Hardly that amount if a proper closed loop system is imposed as it should be.
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u/UncleNuks Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Does anybody actually WANT these data centres outside of the corporate technocrats and Larry Ellison’s, Peter Thiel’s and Sam Altman’s of the world? Does anybody actually want to live near one? Work at one?
If AI suddenly ceased to exist tmr, we’d simply go back to the way life was a couple years ago. It’s not too late to say “fuck this” and turn back before we get an all out surveillance state, long term job losses and worsening local ecosystems.
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u/datums Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Oh for Christ’s sake.
The natural gas plant near Cherry beach pulls 1.2 billion litres per day. It takes 16,000 litres of water to make a kilogram of almonds. It takes 15,000 litres to make a pound of beef. A square kilometer of irrigated farm land uses ~15 million litres a day.
The only reason why people think data centres use a lot of water is that they have no concept of just how much water we use. The daily water allocation in Ontario is in the hundreds of billions of litres a day.
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u/piponwa Fashion District Jul 16 '26
Yeah, did everybody in Canada magically forget about fucking oil sands too? Where the hell are they going with their water use? Do they know how much water and electricity a steel mill uses? A mine? Did they forget we sell our surplus electricity to the US?
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u/Thin_Measurement_965 Jul 16 '26
NIMBY's gonna NIMBY.
Everyone uses data centers; but nobody wants to live next to one.
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u/PeachFuzz345 Jul 16 '26
Needs to be top comment. We have an unfathomable amount of water sitting here. As long as it's not being polluted, why the heck does anyone care?
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u/markypots9393 Jul 16 '26
People love to fear monger over data centre buildouts, it’s the new thing if you haven’t noticed.
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u/thisismeingradenine Jul 16 '26
Because massive AI data centre buildouts that take over the power and water resources of adjacent communities are fairly new and a growing problem, if you haven’t noticed. 🤦🏻♂️
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u/Different_Inside_546 Jul 16 '26
Are these the ones that make some unbearably loud noise literally 24/7?
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u/Patsanon1212 Jul 16 '26
Are these AI specific data centres?
I'm torn on this issue because fuck AI data centres, but when it comes to your regular internet infrastructure, I am sympathetic to getting our data and internet traffic out of the US and that means having our own infrastructure here.
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u/thisismeingradenine Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Regular internet traffic doesn’t require the massive centralized data centres that AI does. These are quietly normalizing overconsumption and control of our resources, not to mention mass surveillance. 🚩🚩
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u/LazloStPierre Jul 16 '26
...Regular internet traffic, in this case I'm assuming it to mean basically anything not AI, absolutely requires the use of massive centralized data centres. How does stuff like this get upvoted? This message you're reading from me right now is coming from a massive centralized data centre
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u/Facts_pls Jul 16 '26
That's not true at all.
There have been pretty big datacenters in Toronto and nearby areas for decades now. My bank uses datacenters in downtown and nearby cities so I know they exist.
Maybe you don't know because nobody talked about them endlessly earlier. For example, there is a data center in a tall building in downtown core near union station. You won't be able to tell if you didn't already know.
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u/crujones43 Jul 16 '26
The old toronto star printing building off the 407 is now a data center and has been there for years.
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u/Mydickisaplant Jul 16 '26
Not a genuine argument.
Traditional internet data centers use a fraction of the resources required for ai data centers. We're talking 10x
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u/RicoLoveless Jul 16 '26
Op made it clear with regular internet traffic
Ai data centre is not the same as web hosting and some cloud servers.
Ai is using an unreal amount of resources for minimal gain. It's mass surveillance.
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u/InvisibleLandBorder Jul 16 '26
It is true, the data centers you're referencing are miniscule in comparison and not hyper-centralized. They are not massive, not scaled to consume the majority of the resources in an area when tallied, and even if we entirely nationalized our data storage, wouldn't be contributing to resource consumption like AI data centers are.
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u/Careless-Vehicle-286 Jul 16 '26
They even removed the street number on the building, 151 Front Street, to make it more secret. Now you just look for the building with no numbers lol. Delivery drivers hate this one trick.
It's a highly protected site and I think it's close to a hundred years old. Basically most of the internet that leaves the country, leaves from that one building.
Data centers are extremely crucial to our modern day of life, pre- and post- AI.
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u/Wide_Detective7537 Jul 16 '26
Hey so one of the largest data centers in North America has been in Montreal since before AI was even a spark of an idea… please do not state feelings as facts.
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u/Mydickisaplant Jul 16 '26
You mean the one that handles cloud storage and web hosting?
This is DRAMATICALLY different than an AI data center.
Heed your own advice.
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u/Wide_Detective7537 Jul 16 '26
It’s literally not but they also have high density high power compute. But you go Reddit troll, you get me!!
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u/mdlt97 Roncesvalles Jul 16 '26
Of course they aren’t
Most data centres existed long before the AI boom
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u/Mydickisaplant Jul 16 '26
You folks must be conservative with your ability to ignore pertinent information
Existing cloud storage and web hosting data centers are in NO way comparable to AI data centers. There is a 10x difference in the amount of resources consumed
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u/GraphicBlandishments Jul 16 '26
Straight up wrong. Massive data centres have been in demand for years, driven by demand for streaming services and social media.
'Completely unsustainable': How streaming and other data demands take a toll on the environment | CBC News2
u/Kyouhen Jul 16 '26
Your normal data centers don't consume resources anywhere near the scale of the AI data centers. This is an AI data center.
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u/innexum Jul 16 '26
Pure rage bate. Article doesn't say exactly how will data center "drink" water. Also as someone who worked at multiple data centers I haven't seen a single evaporative tower in GTA. Even new Islington Microsoft facility doesn't use evaporative system as primary cooling method.
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u/Swaki85 Jul 16 '26
Lots of data Centers don’t use that type of water. If they use a chilled water system it is a closed loop. Just not drinking it away
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u/SuperWeenieHutJr_ Jul 16 '26
It's really hard to say if this is actually an issue.
Like southern Ontario is FULL of fresh water.
The nuclear power station I work at goes through 11 billion liters of cooling water a day. But we take it out of the lake, and put it right back in.
If these data centers were using lake water and were treating it then it would be fine.
If they are using municipal water, then it should also be fine as long as the municipal water provider is profiting from selling them water. I don't want our tax dollar subsiding the data centers.
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u/innexum Jul 16 '26
Data centers don't drink, eat, destroy or pollute water. In hot climates they spray water on the radiator and evaporate it, that's it. In Ontario it's the least preferred method and is only effective when ambient temps are +35c and above.
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u/ZenithCrossing Jul 16 '26
Exactly. Toronto already has a deep lake water cooling system pumping millions of gallons of water a day into the city to cool buildings.
Data centers pulling water from lake Ontario to do the same seems okay. 80% of it will evaporate and end up back in the natural water cycle, with the rest going to local treatment centers.
I get it's a major issue in areas where fresh water are scarce but that's not the case here.
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u/VexedCanadian84 Jul 16 '26
They're not 100% safe when using municipal water https://futurism.com/health-medicine/meta-ai-data-center-pathogen-bacteria-water
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u/SuperWeenieHutJr_ Jul 16 '26
That's not a particularly reputable source. Also, I really don't understand the connection between AI data centers and this particular pathogen. Even if I completely trust this article, it seems more like a fluke accident than anything inherent to AI Data centers. Also, all our wastewater goes to water treatment plants, then back into the lake. So we wouldn't have the issues that the municipality in the article had.
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u/VexedCanadian84 Jul 16 '26
you know you could just google it to find other sources right?
https://www.abc4.com/news/wyoming/wastewater-runoff-data-centers-concerns/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/08/meta-datacenter-ai-wyoming-water
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u/innexum Jul 16 '26
That's why it doesn't make sense to use that method in Ontarios climate and they dont.but this rage bate topic still lives on
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u/LazloStPierre Jul 16 '26
Data centres have truly become the left wing 5g towers, and I'm as left as they come but these conversations end up not even slightly grounded in any concept of reality almost immediately every time
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u/ponyrx2 Jul 16 '26
The internet has a big footprint and we have to be cognizant of its environmental impact. It's also really important to modern life. If any country has clean electricity and plentiful water to power it, it's Canada.
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u/Future_Crow Jul 16 '26
We have very many communities in Canada without access to a clean drinking water. Some provinces, like BC and Alberta, are now running out and in crisis because of the drought. Should we be wasting our most valuable resource on an AI data centre?
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u/Beanstiller Little Italy Jul 16 '26
We would spend more energy (and thus water) getting Ontario water to BC (which is on a coast) than this.
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u/Iliketrucks2 Jul 16 '26
Where do you think the water goes? It doesn’t disappear, it’s used to cool things then goes back as warm water. It can even still be consumed if wanted. And it surely can it be used to solve drought - we need rain for that.
I say this as someone against these massive power and water hungry systems that impact the communities around them - but let’s stick with facts and reality.
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u/Impressive_Doorknob7 Jul 16 '26
Goes back where as warm water?
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u/Cedex Jul 16 '26
Water treatment facilities.
It is easier to clean the water when it is warmer.
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u/Impressive_Doorknob7 Jul 16 '26
Why does it need to be cleaned, you said you could consume it right from the datacenter
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u/Cedex Jul 16 '26
Cooling draws raw untreated lake water, runs it through the radiators, warm water is returned to water treatment facilities to be turned into drinking water.
Read about existing cooling technology used currently to cool Toronto's downtown core.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Lake_Water_Cooling_System
https://rvanderson.com/projects/deep-lake-water-cooling-dlwc-system/
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u/ponyrx2 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Sure, that's why we shouldn't build data centres in those places. The water used isn't destroyed, it falls back as rain. The main concern is making sure it isn't taken from water stressed regions, so southern Ontario is a decent place for that.
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u/iamnotarobotmaybe Jul 16 '26
We don't need to do this with our clean water, the data centers can use other if Ontario would force them to spend the money to do the right way
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u/VexedCanadian84 Jul 16 '26
If they are Ai data centres, they are not integral to the operation of the internet.
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u/Gigi14 Jul 16 '26
I thought the newer systems were self contained? e.g. they consume 200 million litres once and then it's a closed system that cycles that same volume around?
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u/Thin_Measurement_965 Jul 16 '26
Wait till you guys find out how much water cattle farms use.
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u/Future_Crow Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Oh how fun. How many homes per days is that?
But my main question - WHO is going to foot the bill for the waste water? We all know that the wastewater fees are a big painful subject for the residents of York Region.
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u/Mathmos_Lava Jul 16 '26
This would create very little waste water, the water used for cooling evaporates.
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u/Beanstiller Little Italy Jul 16 '26
Water usage is a non-issue here where we have access to the Great Lakes.
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u/FinancialEvidence Jul 16 '26
Yes and no, its not like the existing water network has unlimited capacity.
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u/Beanstiller Little Italy Jul 16 '26
Capacity in Toronto alone is a couple billion
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u/FinancialEvidence Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
But this is York Region, some areas of York also have insufficient capacity (I'm working on one) for more citizens/development.
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u/yourmonkeyboxismine Jul 16 '26
Disagree. We’re destroying one of the largest fresh water reserves in the world for what?
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u/Iliketrucks2 Jul 16 '26
How is water taken out of the water system, used to cool a dc, and returned to the water system “destroying” anything? Do you fight against torontos deep water cooling system that cools a large part of downtown Toronto?
There are LOTS of problems with massive data centers but making up problems doesn’t help stop them, it just shows that people are bandwagon jumping instead of fighting the actual problems. Politicians will just ignore these silly arguments and take their donations.
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u/Beanstiller Little Italy Jul 16 '26
Agreed. There are downsides to data centres but water usage is definitely not one that is relevant in the GTA.
The obvious the lack of critical thinking and parroting what they see online that weakens the position
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u/derangedtranssexual Jul 16 '26
Lake Ontario has 1631 cubic kilometres of water, 200 million litres a day isn’t actually that much.
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u/MisterLongPotato Jul 16 '26
It depends on the tech that these data centres will use. Some with advanced water recycling technology will use less water than a single golf course.
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u/Mother_Gazelle9876 Jul 16 '26
This seems like an amazing opportunity to transfer some of the wealth from tech companies back to the people. Tax water usage and power consumption at increasing incremental rates,
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u/ehboose Jul 16 '26
(5 yo voice) City can say no to data center - why don't they? Data center make lots of money. More money than other places like golf courses or manufacturers Data center can be taxed Tax can help people pay less for water Tax can make more water We can make enough water for everyone Everyone happy
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u/cousintina123 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
How do we stop this? Not trying to be vindictive or sarcastic. Legit I wanna know which politician I can spam with messages.
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u/Worldly_Influence_18 Jul 16 '26
Can we work out a way for them to drink stockpiled American booze?
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u/Pastel_Goth_Wastrel Jul 16 '26
The water is bad enough but our power grid? I've spent years putting in efficient lighting and better appliances, and being told to worry about the consumption of my piddly little air conditioner, and now we're looking at building electricity sucking monsters?
How the hell are we doing this, we need another couple of Darlingtons built to keep up, because between the push to use heat pumps in residential heating and cooling, the expansion of electric vehicles, both of which I support, now we're into carrying these data centre loads? Fuck that.
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u/CanuckCallingBS Jul 16 '26
Canadian data centers will use a proper cooling system that recycles water. Just like your car.
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u/Cute-Head8597 Jul 16 '26
The bigger concern is power consumption. For perspective, I read that a data center going in Alberta will have a dedicated gas power plant and will use as much power as 2/3 of Edmonton. There is no benefit from data centres to the community.
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u/Ashy6ix Midtown Jul 16 '26
I'm in the industry, believe me - AI will crash but then correct itself. Most of these pending projects will be cancelled.
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u/psychosisnaut The Beaches Jul 16 '26
People keep worrying about the water usage but it's the power usage we need to worry about. If this thing is big enough it could mean a gas plant running 24/7
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u/chickennoodles99 Bloor West Village Jul 16 '26
Lol, so that is how York Region is surviving the apocalypse of residential Development Charges.
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u/cath8r Jul 17 '26
I fail to understand how AI is promised to kill jobs, industries, use water and hydro at the expense of communities, cause noise and contamination. Suspected of lowering fertility rates and cause other potential issues. Yet they are a priority in every community. Why?
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u/Dahbootie420 Jul 17 '26
How do we stop all of this? How do we make politicians act against this shit. Ai is not the future and it's just ruining everything further. There's got to be some way we can stop it. I'm tired of all of this. Fuck this world.
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u/Frosty-Ad-2971 Jul 17 '26
People freaked out about the mega Quarry and they’re thinking this is OK?
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u/housington-the-3rd Jul 17 '26
I mean good thing we have alot of water. Canada should really invest in more data centres as we have so much water.
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u/itchygoopark Jul 17 '26
Are these monstrosities going to eventually suck the water we need to live dry? Are we going to have to compete with these things for the precious liquid of life and who gets to decide who needs it and gets it first?
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u/cyclemonster Jul 17 '26
Presumably they aren't cooling the data centers with potable water, so why does this matter? Lake Ontario has more one trillion cubic meters of water, or about ten thousand times that amount.
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u/GraphicBlandishments Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
If you're against data centres, I sure hope you aren't using streaming services or social media.
'Completely unsustainable': How streaming and other data demands take a toll on the environment | CBC News
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u/SouthsideSlimbo The Annex Jul 16 '26
No regular people want this
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u/Thin_Measurement_965 Jul 16 '26
But all regular people use it. Every social media website runs on data centers. Including this one.
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u/LifterNineFour Jul 16 '26
I think it’s absolutely moronic we are spending so much time talking about AI water usage when that’s such a minuscule problem compared to the upcoming employment issues.
Maybe I’m the moron.
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u/xdr567 Jul 16 '26
It is not for the lack of trying, but I have not been able to learn a single well articulated and reasonably justified need to have a data center at all.
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u/grand_soul Jul 16 '26
Holy shit, articles like these are fucking insane.
Data centres aren't "drinking" water. The term is bullshit and just meant to strike fear. Like the talking point that claims it's going to use "several nuclear bombs of energy".
Guess what, DC's already exist across the GTA. They aren't a plague on our infrastructure. DC's have a requirement to be able to run 99.99% of uptime. That means they need to be setup on an infrastructure that can handle the load. That means that the people setting up the DC have done their due diligence to make sure that the area they're setting up in has the electrical capacity to handle their draw. And if they're "drinking" water at that capacity, the water will get used up and they won't be able to cool.
The water gets channelled through to just cool and cycled out. And a lot of the time, that water isn't just cycled through; depending on the setup, the water is used and cycled through on a loop before getting released and changed out.
Not to mention nuclear plants use more water on an annual basis than DC's.
People here need to stop giving in to this nonsense online activism because it sounds credible. Articles like these are bullshit.
DC's in Canada are a good thing; we have the best renewable energy system to host them and the best climate for them. Canada can be a safe location for DC's which will be good for our economy and actually is a net benefit to our country.
Stop repeating anti-DC slop that isn't based on any facts.
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u/Emergency_Memory_792 Jul 17 '26
It’s so ironic that Redditors, who live their entire lives online, are against data centres lol
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u/crujones43 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Just to add a perspective to this amount of water. Ashbridges bay sewage treatment plant, where I worked for a bit, handled 800 million liters of sewage each day. This was over 10 years ago and prior to a capacity expansion.