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Could an antiviral used to treat cat coronavirus hold key to treat COVID-19?

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U of A researchers study an antiviral used to treat cat coronavirus; can it be a treatment for COVID-19?

(Left to right) University of Alberta scientists Dr. Joanne Lemieux, with the Department of Biochemistry, Dr. Lorne Tyrrell, founding director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology and Dr. John Vederas with the Department of Chemistry are combining their labs’ efforts to test this viral inhibitor against the new coronavirus.

Scientists across Canada are racing on developing and implementing countermeasures to rapidly detect, manage, reduce the transmission, treat and to one day cure the COVID-19 virus. Since the start of March, the Canadian government has funded 96 different scientific projects totalling $52.6 million dollars in funding.

One of the funded studies by a group of University of Alberta scientists is getting extra attention from the general public. It is a study of an antiviral that is used to treat cats with a deadly feline coronavirus called, Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP).

Dr. Joanne Lemieux, with the U of A’s  Department of Biochemistry, Dr. Lorne Tyrrell, founding director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology and Dr. John Vederas with the Department of Chemistry are combining their labs’ efforts to test this viral inhibitor against the new coronavirus that is causing the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The trio’s labs are working 7-days a week come to some conclusions and to get results as fast as they can.

Read an extended story on this subject from the University of Alberta Folio’s by Gillian Rutherford.

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Link to read about the current 96 different scientific projects that received $52.6 million from the Canadian government since March 2020.

Alberta

Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

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From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’

Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.

Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.

That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.

“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.

Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.

In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.

According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.

The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.

For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.

“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.

“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”

As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.

“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.

Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.

“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.

“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

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Alberta

Alberta Next: Taxation

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A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.

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