[ExI] Where should we build new multi-gigawatt AI Data centers?

Sat Nov 7 16:22:06 UTC 2026

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: [ExI] Where should we build new multi-gigawatt AI Data centers?

On Fri, Nov 6, 2026 at 11:40 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

>>… Alaska is better than Canada. 

>…I asked MR.GPT about that and he seemed to feel that although Alaska has possibilities Canada would be better….

ChatGPT didn’t deal with the more favorable tax structure for investors in the US vs Canada.  It started to go down that road with this comment:

>…Financing and customers      A project this large needs enormous investment and long-term computing customers.

YES!  Yes it does.  Given sufficient investment capital, all these other problems such as one we haven’t discussed here, is the gravel bed.  That is going to cost money.  Money is what investors supply.  However… GPT immediately wandered off into this:

>…The environmental issue deserves particular attention.

No Mr. Chat, the funding issue deserves particular attention.  We run the place on natural gas, which emits no pollutants, zero.  If we decide to run it on coal, we use all the modern techniques for filtering particulates and catalyzing the nitric oxides, neutralizing the acids, a scaled up version of what your gasoline powered car does, then the exhaust is carbon dioxide and water, almost no pollutants at all.  

The greens want to pretend that CO2 is a pollutant, but it isn’t anymore.  In February 2026, the EPA repealed its notion that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.  So now, natural gas plants are the most environmentally friendly power source, followed by abundant coal (assuming they have modern exhaust scrubbers) followed by nuclear power.  

Alaska is a great choice for the reasons Chat suggested, plus being a US state, the tax structure is better than Canada.  The Alberta separatist movement might change things however.  They don’t necessarily want to be part of the USA (well, imagine that) but if they become a separate nation, that would be a great place to park data centers.  They have coal, natural gas, water, wide open territory great for wind power even if not solar power (too far north) they can make their own environmental rules, It has many of the advantages of Alaska’s north slope with fewer disadvantages as a separate country.  They could make Alberta great again.  

…

>…I would design the facility around three cooling stages:

1.	Liquid cooling at the processors: Cold liquid circulates through cooling plates attached directly to GPUs and other high-power chips.
2.	Heat exchangers: The warmed liquid transfers its heat to a separate cooling circuit.
3.	Outside-air cooling: Large industrial heat exchangers transfer the heat into the Arctic atmosphere….

Alaska and Alberta would be good for direct to air cooling.  The local peaker plant now being repurposed as a data-center power source was originally designed with an evaporative cooling tower, but as I understand it the locals managed to defeat it since those big hourglass shaped towers make it look like a nuclear plant.  So now they have direct to air cooling, which is much less efficient, making the power more expensive.  They also contribute to the noise.

If you go into Google maps and ask for Los Esteros Energy Center, you can see the six fans to the left of the plant, then what looks like a steamy water reservoir down there.  That’s a great location for a power plant since there are no homes near there.  If you walk along Alviso Milpitas Road, in the Google Maps earth view, you will see a bunch of campers and tents and stuff down there.  They complained about the noise so much the local authorities made them move.  Now that plant is running most of the time.  

That plant has a fresh water source: Coyote Creek, which is shown in that Google Maps image.

…

      7. What could go wrong? 

…

>…Environmental impact    Gas combustion produces substantial CO₂ emissions and other pollutants.

As of February 2026, CO2 is not a pollutant in the USA.  As far as I know, it still is in Canada.  Solution: put your power plant in the USA.  It is cleaner here.

>…If that proves true, northern Alaska could become a much more interesting location for the AI industry than most people currently imagine."

  John K Clark

I have been imagining this for some time.  Recognizing that the North Slope has big advantages, there are many sites in Alaska which have enormous promise for data centers, because they can dump heat directly into the sea, which has big advantages.  Coal plant, seawater cooling, result: almost no pollutants emitted into the atmosphere and the sea is big.  It would never notice the heat from a power plant.

spike

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