Imagine a space heater the size of a small town, running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year — even in the middle of July. Now imagine that heater parked next door to your farm, your business, your home.
That is what Goldfinch would do to Wheatland County. And the numbers are staggering.
The Scale: 350 Megawatts of Pure Heat
At full buildout across three phases, Goldfinch would draw up to 350 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 350,000 to 400,000 electric vehicles. All of that electricity ends up as waste heat.
A single 169 MW facility rejects heat equivalent to roughly 200,000 homes running their furnaces continuously. Goldfinch at full buildout? Between 400,000 and 500,000 homes worth of waste heat, dumped into our air every single day.
The Science: Real Measurements, Real Impacts
In May 2026, Dr. David Sailor at Arizona State University published the first-ever direct field measurements of data centre temperature impacts in the Journal of Engineering for Sustainable Buildings and Cities (Sailor et al., 2026). They measured four facilities in Phoenix, Arizona.
Their findings should concern every Wheatland County resident:
- Downwind air temperatures were 1.3 to 1.6°F warmer on average, with peaks up to 4°F
- Impacts were detectable 500 metres from facility perimeters
- Cooling tower condenser air: 14 to 25°F above ambient temperature
- Waste heat flux from condensers: 2,000 to 6,000 W/m² — up to 6 times the intensity of the midday sun
Cooling Towers: Fog, Ice, and Millions of Gallons of Vapour
Evaporative cooling towers at this scale release millions of gallons of water vapour into the air daily. In Alberta winters, that creates real risks for our community:
- Localized fog and visibility hazards on and around RR 264
- Road icing when vapour settles and freezes on pavement
- Persistent ground-level cloud during cold snaps
The ASU study documented these vapour plumes persisting for kilometres downwind of operating facilities.
What This Means for Our Neighbours
Infinity Equine, a major equestrian facility, sits directly adjacent to the proposed site. Horses are highly sensitive to heat stress, noise, and changes in humidity. A microclimate shifted by several degrees and blanketed in cooling tower vapour is no benign neighbour for a multi-million dollar equine operation.
For our farmers, altered growing degree days and shifted frost patterns could affect crop yields in ways that have never been studied — because no research exists on how data centre microclimates affect agriculture.
The Critical Gap: No Independent Study
No independent microclimate study has been conducted for the Goldfinch site. Not one. The applicant has provided internal modelling, but there has been no peer-reviewed, independent assessment of what 350 MW of waste heat will do to our local environment. This is a recognized gap in the scientific literature, and Wheatland County would be the test case.
What Council Should Require
Before any approval moves forward, Council should require an independent, peer-reviewed microclimate study addressing:
- Downwind temperature effects on adjacent properties, including Infinity Equine
- Winter fog, icing, and visibility impacts on RR 264 and local roads
- Agricultural impacts: growing degree days, frost patterns, humidity changes
- Heat and noise stress effects on livestock and horses
- Cumulative impacts if all three phases are built
This is not opposition to progress. It is asking for due diligence before we change the climate of our community permanently.
Read the full evidence brief — including links to the ASU study and our technical analysis of the Goldfinch application.
Get involved — make sure your voice is heard before a decision is made.
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