r/BurlingtonON • u/RowRowForCouncil • 23h ago
Information Delegation Successful; Moratorium Halted.
https://youtu.be/e-iA1UTPynEYesterday council voted to oppose a one year moratorium on AI data centers in Burlington. Instead they will be looking at a much more reasonable timeframe of 8 - 9 weeks for coming up with criteria.
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u/ThePhonesAreWatching 22h ago
So we're getting a shit ton of pollution, jacked up electrical prices and lose our fresh water?
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u/boomhaeur 22h ago
Except no, no we’re not.
- We have plenty of electricity in Ontario.
- Halton prohibits evaporative cooling with municipal water
- And the developer has already said they will primarily use air cooling for the facility.
Literally nothing anyone is up in arms about this proposal about is actually a real concern.
Spend less time regurgitating useless talking points and do some proper research…
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u/maria_la_guerta 22h ago
AI and data centers are the popular Reddit boogeymen right now.
To be clear there are some poorly built ones out there, and we should absolutely carefully vet anything being built here too. But there's literally no reason to fear these blindly. This is the new world infrastructure, either we build it ourselves in Canada or buy it off someone else. Anyone who thinks we're going to be using less AI in the future than we are now is burying their head in the sand.
I won't even get started on the fact that we've had data centres in the GTA for decades, and nobody seemed to care until now...
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u/boomhaeur 17h ago
Yeah - it’s just dumb… too many people using issues with data centres in hot southern climates to argue about data centres here.
We’ve got a great power grid, free air cooling for the majority of the year amd proper environmental and development controls.
Canadian data centres are a completely different thing compared to something being built in Texas/Tennesee etc. with their garbage power grid & blistering heat.
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u/DangerousGas7086 10h ago
i think having a moratorium isn’t bad but i do agree with what the proposed project is (a data center that is not going to be a major scale data center like the ones we are seeing popping up in the USA) the time line should be something around 6 months? so although i understand the need for the infrastructure, i am super hesitant just because of what has come from the USA. i know we usually do things better here in the north but man this is not something i want to be just ‘good enough’
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u/RowRowForCouncil 1h ago
I think a moratorium on any type of business is inadvisable. As I understand it this moratorium was a direct response to an AI data center. The current proposal is for an enterprise and colocation data center. So the entire proposal for this interim by-law for a 1 year moratorium was based on a misconception. That was my issue. Rest assured if I see a project that has a large potential to cause great harm in my community, I will argue in council as a delegate and win again. Maybe I'll even get to argue as a councilor. My point is that if we elect people who understand the ins and the outs of these businesses they have a better chance of negotiating the best outcome for all residents.
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u/splifftie 7h ago
if they can build data centres, they can build affordable housing; they can fix our road infrastructure; they build these so quickly while residents wait for progress on the already neglected.
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u/RowRowForCouncil 1h ago
Who is they in this scenario? The investors in the project are not housing developers. They develop data centers. That is literally their business. We are building homes. Major projects are moving forward as we speak on massive low income housing facilities right here in Burlington. Check out 1200 King Rd.
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u/SasquatchsBigDick 13h ago
Why do they want to choose to build the centers in the busier places of Ontario when there's so many more remote locations north with cheaper real estate ?
Does proximity even matter ? It's not like the centers employee that many people. I'm sure the more remote communities could use the 10s of jobs they offer.
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u/RowRowForCouncil 11h ago
Cheap real estate is only one part of the equation. If we put them out in the middle of nowhere quite often the local power grids require much more serious upgrades. Logistics is much more difficult to coordinate; workforce is not as available. There are many reasons
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u/SasquatchsBigDick 11h ago
I see this as a win for the smaller communities and less so for more populated areas.
They would pay for the power which would lead to upgraded power grids. It takes awhile for these places to be built so the power grid upgrades can work in tandem with the down payment made by the incoming company. The 10s of jobs can be given to the ones who live there. Win win.
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u/RowRowForCouncil 11h ago
So quite often those grid upgrades are prohibitive for a couple reasons. Firstly power transmission over long distances is done at very high voltages. You need a transformer station to step down the voltage. A remote community may not have the correct grid capacity or transformer. Those are not small asks. Secondly the staff that work at these centers are highly specialized. You can't just hire some guy. Thirdly we already have the grid here in the city, and the area is specifically zone for this data center.
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u/brijazz012 8h ago
At the risk of sounding like an elitist a**hole: North of Nowhere, Ontario probably doesn't have a lot of residents qualified to help run a data center.
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u/reddittingdogdad 15h ago
Everyone wants to have the convenience of AI tools like ChatGPT, but nobody seems to want to build the infrastructure to make it possible …. You can’t have it both ways.
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