Energy Policy

Energy transition, fossil fuels, renewable infrastructure

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    MODEL DATA CENTRE DEVELOPMENT, INFRASTRUCTURE AND OPERATIONS BYLAW

    ByLawrence Nault

    The result is a model framework for regulating the development, infrastructure, operation and eventual closure of data centres.

    It is deliberately jurisdiction-neutral. No municipality should download it and enact it word-for-word.

    Planning legislation differs. Municipal authority differs. Electricity and utility regulation differs. Environmental law differs. Building and fire codes differ. Indigenous consultation obligations differ. Enforcement powers and terminology differ.

    Every provision therefore needs to be treated as a recommendation for consideration, adapted to local circumstances, and reviewed by appropriate legal and technical professionals.

    It is a resource. Not legal advice.

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    When Assessment Becomes the Obstacle

    ByLawrence Nault

    Across North America, environmental assessment is increasingly being reframed as delay, duplication and red tape. But assessment was never supposed to rubber-stamp decisions already made. Its purpose was to ask whether a project should proceed at all. The question we should be asking now is simple: Can the assessment still change the answer?

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    What’s Missing From the Bylaw?

    ByLawrence Nault

    The County of Newell is trying to write data-centre rules before major projects arrive. Civic Sketches examines what the draft bylaw gets right, what may still be missing, and proposes real amendments residents and municipalities can adapt, challenge and use.

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    The Deception Behind Alberta’s “Digital Refineries”

    ByLawrence Nault

    Alberta’s “digital refinery” is more than a metaphor. It is part of a broader language campaign that turns foreign-owned data centres into a familiar story about domestic refining, public benefit and technological sovereignty—even when Albertans may control neither the data going in nor the value coming out.

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    What Are the Hyperscale Data Centres Really For?

    ByLawrence Nault

    This argument depends on more than a belief that digital services will continue growing. It depends on a much narrower and less certain assumption:

    That enormous, centralized hyperscale data centres will remain the dominant way of delivering artificial intelligence long enough to justify the land, water, power plants and public infrastructure now being committed to them.

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    Before the Data Centre Decision

    ByLawrence Nault

    Developers arrive with lawyers, consultants, economic modelling and prepared policy language. Before the Data Centre Decision gives communities and public representatives a prepared resource from the public side of the conversation—one they can download, adapt to a local project and send directly to the officials responsible for reviewing it.

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    Whole Project Assessment and Anti-Fragmentation Policy

    ByLawrence Nault

    Major industrial and infrastructure developments must be assessed according to the complete system required for their construction, operation, expansion, and closure. Where a proposed facility depends on related infrastructure, land interests, resource allocations, public services, agreements, or government commitments, those components must be treated as one integrated project.

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    The Public Return On Corporate Subsidies

    ByLawrence Nault

    Once created, subsidies can become permanent features of the economy without regular proof that they continue to serve the public interest.

    The Public Return on Corporate Subsidies Act would require every major corporate subsidy to be reviewed on a four-year cycle to determine whether it is producing a public return greater than its public cost.