Wind West offers significant opportunities if we take the time to look at what it can accomplish. This post presents an opportunity to initiate a discussion on the topic.
While Wind West will cost approximately $60 billion to bring into service, it could produce up to 66 GW of power. Those numbers are significant. It represents slightly over a quarter of Canada’s electrical consumption. But we should look beyond simply exporting off yet another “raw material.”
Just one Gigawatt (GW) of power could desalinate approximately 3.5 million cubic meters of seawater per day. This represents an approximation, but it also represents 3,500,000,000 litres of water per day (3.5 billion). Putting this in perspective, Halifax Water produced 40 billion litres of drinking water in 2019/2020. Those numbers would point to 1 GW of power producing almost a year’s water supply in a couple of weeks.
The population has grown, so let’s adjust those numbers accordingly. Let’s say that we can produce enough drinking water for the City of Halifax in two months.
Now let’s look at our current situation–drought. That comes with a list of challenges. Dug wells run dry. Water reservoirs run low. The chances of more difficult wildfires increase. And so on.
This kind of production could not only meet the demand. It offers an opportunity for another source of water to replenish those reservoirs, provide emergency sources of water for firefighting, and can easily support significant cooling efforts (such as needed by hyperscale data centres).
From a coastal community perspective, we see communities running short of water consistently now. This kind of production could easily support those communities.
On that point, the average data centre in the USA (hyperscale) uses about 2.1 million litres of water a day in its cooling. Those steam systems, however, can recover the water after evaporation.
In short, the water production levels would not only exceed the City of Halifax’s consumption, but also support at least one hyperscale datacenter and have room for emergencies in many of its surrounding communities. And, ultimately, it is water, meaning that as long as it drains safely, its environmental impact is marginal.
As we look at some of the shortfalls in our utilities and the opportunities in front, shouldn’t we be looking at these kinds of solutions?