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Alberta

Didsbury RCMP catch thieves red handed on oil field lease site

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1 minute read

March 25, 2021

Didsbury RCMP catch thieves red handed on oil field lease site

Mountain View County, Alta – Didsbury RCMP were dispatched to a theft in progress at a lease site approximately 5 kilometers west of Didsbury.  Property representatives viewed the suspects on a live video feed and alerted police.  Police immediately attended and arrested two suspects.

Mac Ronald Smith (38) of Clearwater County, Alta. was arrested and has been charged with:

  • Break, enter and theft
  • Theft of copper wire over $5000
  • Possession of break in instruments
  • Possession of a controlled substance – methamphetamine
  • Fail to comply with release conditions et al

April Dawn Sanford (36) of Rocky Mountain House, Alta. was arrested and has been charged with:

  • Break, enter and theft
  • Theft of copper wire over $5000
  • Possession of break in instruments
  • Possession of a controlled substance – methamphetamine
  • Fail to comply with release conditions
  • Fail to comply with probation order (x2)

April Sanford was released by police and is scheduled to appear in Didsbury Provincial Court on April 26, 2021. After a judicial hearing, Mac Smith was released and is scheduled to appear in Didsbury Provincial Court on April 26, 2021.

“Oil companies have been installing sophisticated security systems which was instrumental in the apprehension of these suspects,” said Staff Sergeant Chad Fournier, Didsbury RCMP.

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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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