Alberta Pipelines, Australian Gas, & Data Centers… As the World Burns
At least 12 people have been killed and 23 are unaccounted for after one of Spain’s deadliest wildfires broke out in the south-eastern province of Almería as the country endures its second heatwave of the summer.
The regional government of Andalucía said the victims, four of whom are believed to be British, had died while trying to escape the flames near the village of Bédar in the municipality of Los Gallardos.
“There are no words for such pain and I want to offer our condolences to the families of the dead,” Antonio Sanz, the region’s emergency minister, said on Friday morning. “This is terrible news and today the hearts of the people of Andalucía are in mourning.”
- Fast-spreading wildfire kills at least 12 in southern Spain, Guardian
… this is worse than a mistake, it’s a crime scene.
- JM Hamilton
By Gregg Wall (7-10-2026)
As the summer heats up, the planet warms, and Europe and North America burns, the climate crisis denialism among elected shills increases, seemingly, in correlation.
In Canada, PM Carney dumped a $20 billion in infrastructure commitments on British Columbia (BC) Premier David Eby’s lap right before announcing a new pipeline in Alberta that would cut across BC. Mr. Eby and some First Nations tribes had objected to more pipelines, but apparently the price was right, as Eby subsequently backed off and said it really wasn’t his decision to make.
It’s no longer the private sector's decision either, apparently, as there are no private sector backers at this point, except for a 10% stake by Pembina pipeline corporation. As of this writing, the Canadian taxpayer is expected to shell out for another corporate welfare project that the American owners of the Alberta tar sands appear to have limited or no interest in. Oil and Gas majors and OPEC are more interested in profits than increasing global supply and bringing down prices, so a new Alberta pipeline appears to work counter to their interests. Besides the Americans have the best deal going, a captive lock on Alberta oil, which is mostly land locked. Unsurprisingly, Carney and Alberta’s Premier Smith left out a great many inconvenient facts in their pipeline announcement, such as:
· American shareholders own Alberta O&G;
· Americans haul the Alberta product South for huge profits;
· Americans collect billions in subsidies and free pipelines from the Canadian taxpayer;
· America underpays Canadian royalties and taxes, under a private sector extraction method, versus Norway’s public sector extraction methodology;
· America leaves hundreds of billions of oil field externalities and liabilities for Canadians to pay… there is zero push by Premier Smith and the UCP government to hold the Americans accountable and collect adequate collateral, bonds, security, taxes, and escrow to pay for cleanup and remediation (and the bill is climbing fast);
· And, when Canada exports to Asia, it’s still at the direction of the Americans, who profit… not Canada;
· If in fact, the Americans continue to collect the profits and dump hundreds of billions of liabilities, externalities, healthcare costs, environmental damages, economic damages, forgone opportunity costs on the Canadian people… so that for every barrel extracted, subsidies and externalities exceed royalties and taxes… there is little doubt Alberta O&G is a net loser for Canada. Especially when we consider that renewables hires far more people (3X per dollar of CAPEX spent), while the oil patch is gutting its workforce.
· In fact, nearly all the positives about oil and gas… how it’s a source of revenue to fund social programs… can be said about renewables, w/out the planetary destruction hangover, boom bust cycles, the externalities, the opportunity costs, endless corruption, the endless Middle East wars fought to keep O&G prices elevated, etc. Note too, unlike the Oil Majors and OPEC endlessly manipulating supply, corporations will have a harder time manipulating the sun. Corporate greed will have a hard time manipulating hydro and wind, which probably explains why billionaires, oligarchs, the politicians are in no hurry to see Oil & Gas go and for renewables to take over. There’s an awful lot of money to be made in manipulated markets.
Seems odd that the Harvard educated Carney would leave out all this information and facts. What could have been an opportunity for Carney to educate Alberta at the pipeline announcement, became little more than a box checking event, a one-sided sales pitch, another prospective taxpayer funded public works/jobs program in a dead end and dying industry, and a pitiful appeal to separatist traitors in Alberta. The pipeline will do nothing to lower retail gas prices for Canadians, who are presently paying $6.32 CAD per U.S. gallon… an absolutely criminal figure for a nation so rich in oil and gas. Many separatist leaders have already gone on record as non-plussed by the Carney-Smith pact. Carney and Smith will likely both be out of office long before this latest proposed pipeline is completed, if it gets off the ground and doesn’t stall out mid-stream.
The reality, the cost benefit analysis is in on Alberta’s/Canada’s foray into a privatized oil and gas patch, versus Norway’s publicly owned North Sea oil patch:
Alberta Heritage account: $31billion.
Norway Sovereign wealth fund: $2 trillion.
Factor hundreds of billions in unpaid externalities and liabilities… and Canada is in the hole. In total, Canada is in the hole, as well, for hundreds of billions in revenue that should have gone to the Canadian people (see Norway), not American O&G and private shareholders, plus hundreds of billions in externalities & subsidies. And now, we are compounding this epic environmental and financial disaster by a failure not to convert to renewable energy rapidly enough. Forgone opportunity costs for the public (the public extraction Norway model), plus hundreds of billions in externalities and subsidies, shifted onto the backs of the public… this is worse than a mistake, it’s a crime scene.
Good times, good times… up next was Premier Smith’s announced Meta/Zuckerberg data center. Many Albertans are well educated on data centers and have seen Americans raising hell and organizing politically against oligarchy data centers, surveillance state data centers, police state data centers, Orwellian/German Stasi data centers, EVIL DATA CENTERS. It’s hard to miss. Specifically, Americans object to what I refer to as the data center tax: higher utility costs, higher electricity bills, depleted water supplies, noise and environmental pollution, eminent domain, confiscated farmland and property. The usual American scam: privatized profits, while costs, expenses, taxes are shifted onto the backs of the families, the public, the taxpayer. And there’s the corruption and the knowledge that US democracy is crumbling as many data centers are crammed down the public’s throat with zero or limited input and consultation. The data center tax is a serious nut, at time Americans are drowning in an affordability crisis.
But there’s not an oligarch that Queen Dani, seemingly, won’t cater to. And there’s not a citizen’s back that Queen Dani, seemingly, won’t step on and break with her cowboy boots if they dare get in the way of a data center and a data center press announcement. To cut to the chase, seemingly missed by Dani and UCP was another inconvenient fact: Americans are running billionaires, surveillance/police state data centers, and all the chaos data centers deliver out of the United States (at least newly proposed data centers). So, in her lust for headlines, it should surprise no one that the Queen of Failure and Greed opens her arms wide for what Americans are overwhelmingly rejecting.
Besides, data centers increase O&G demand, increase lowballed taxes and meager royalties from UCP’s beloved O&G industry… and with that increase in demand so goes the increase in the aforementioned environmental damages, healthcare costs, poisoned communities, and burned up towns. Meta was originally going to build out their own energy source, so Alberta was told, only for the public to find out that Meta is hooking up to the main utility grid, at least during construction and early stages of data center operation (w/ Meta’s own grid and power source operating in 2030, or so we are told).
It’s a never-ending cycle of hell with the UCP government.
Which should give Alberta pause, as Dani has big plans for many, many more data centers.
As for Alberta and Dani’s Stampede surprise, it’s a good time to remember that data centers and their build out is occurring before AI is actually determined to be commercially viable. Moreover, these data centers serve:
· Oligarchs;
· Greed;
· Wall St.;
· Possible asset bubble;
· Politicians desperate to keep the neoliberal economy stumbling forward;
· Surveillance State/Police State;
· Delay the death of Oil & Gas;
· Billionaire capture of AI tech.
The obvious solution: Citizens need to shut down the data centers, go full NIMBY… and insist upon oversight, review, and a seat at the table in regards: AI use, AI misuse, and AI development. Alberta is no exception. Given how loathed and despised billionaires, data centers, AI, and corrupt/criminal politicians have become… the public should exercise considerable leverage in insisting that data centers run on renewable energy and are forced to clean up contaminated water and operate on said water (rather than consume fresh water). Plus pay taxes equal to the upper most income tax bracket Canadians face, w/ no deductions, no loopholes. (This assumes Canadians want data centers; many Canadian will not want data centers under any conditions.) It certainly would be an improvement over Carney’s and Dani’s shock and awe corporate welfare campaigns. Ditto for Carney’s pipeline to nowhere, the one with zero, or limited, private sector support for a fuel source that is lethal.
Finally, and to place a bow on this piece, I wanted to write on Australia’s rebellion over its exploding LNG industry but I’m running out of both steam and time. The Australian LNG crisis should sound very familiar to Canadians: American owners, exorbitant state subsidies, Americans running away from cleanup and remediation, externalities shifted to the taxpayer, lowballed taxes and a manipulated tax code.
Gee, sounds like a business model: buy off local politicians, steal as much & many resources as possible, repatriate earnings to the U.S., and screw the locals on royalties and known costs and expense. Plus, charge extreme prices in the Aussie and Canadian markets. Australians are speaking up… Canadians should do the same.
The same old American scam: privatized profits, socialized cleanup, infrastructure, expense, bailouts, and externalities. Meanwhile, the industry is exporting as much LNG as possible to Asia, manufacturing a shortage of gas for Australia, and gouging Aussies in the process.
Sound familiar, Canada?
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026
