Article URL: https://illegal.solutions/posts/xai_pollution Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49201342 Points: 113 # Comments: 71

In the latest example of corporations existing outside of the law, SpaceX (who is for some reason the controlling entity of xAI now) announced they'll be removing the illegal, unpermitted gas turbines they've been running at their Memphis Colossus data center... by July 2027. xAI gets to flout economic planning and restrictions that any normal group would have to follow, all for the sake of being able to get another fuckass data center built in record time. In the meantime, real people will face declining health and increased pollution. This is not a new story, but it's worth telling anyway. For those blissfully unaware, xAI is the subsidiary of SpaceX (previously under X, which itself was previously Twitter) that is in charge of AI development and data centers for the xAI series of products. This includes Grok, which has thus far been involved in controversies including but not limited to: Beyond that, xAI has also been happy to partner with the federal government for the use of its models across agencies including the Department of Defense (come on, enough with this Department of War shit). Now with a product like that, you might be surprised to learn that some people aren't jazzed about its continuing development and growth, especially when it spews smog in their backyard. xAI continues to barge forward however; decriers be damned in the name of "progress". The AI models keep expanding, requiring more memory and cores for what "improvements" there are. So the name of the game right now is data centers; acres and acres of computer racks, loaded with the best money hardware can buy (and some less so, given the current supply crunch). These racks are needed to keep up with the ballooning requirements of each new "frontier" (a buzzword label with no actual inclination of performance of improvement) model developed, which everyone bought into the AI hype will immediately hop to because it's all novelty over utility. The Colossus I Data Center was brought online in 122 days from breaking ground to operation. Some hail that as an achievement, but others (like myself) see it as a brutal pace to avoid having to answer pesky questions like "How will this affect the nearby area?" and "What sort of mitigation plans to do you have for the data center's waste?" The data center is powered by dozens of unpermitted gas turbines, which they initially refused to acknowledge were running until journalists and groups used thermal imaging to prove they were indeed on and spewing toxins into the air (including smog, formaldehyde, and other nasty things). This resulted in a suit from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on behalf of the NAACP for violations of the Clean Air Act. Their claim was that the company operated without public oversight or accountability for these illegal constructions and sought legal stoppage until proper accounting can be done of the effects of said turbines. Enter the Federal Government and the Department of Justice, who pushed the courts to dismiss the suit as a matter of national security, stating that the xAI models were needed for "artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations." So, residents are left without legal means of contesting these developments, barring individual claims and damages. This all brings us to July 30, 2026, where xAI announced that the company had entered an agreement with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (as it sits on the border of Tennessee and Mississippi) that it will complete removal of the "temporary" turbines (now online for 2 years) and replace them with a natural gas power plant by July 2027. This reads, to me at least, as a swift stomp on the balls of the nearby area for several reasons. First, it seems all but certain they will face no punishment for spewing toxins into the environment for the past years because this is now in a timeline agreed upon by the state, with no announcement of any fines or actions. Embarassingly, they can't seem to get their propaganda straight either, as in their update on the construction where they announced the agreement, they specify "69... temporary, mobile turbines that currently power our facility in Southaven, Mississippi." This seems at odds with their "Fact V. Fiction" FAQ linked at the bottom of the page, which contains a string of statements I truly can't make heads or tales of. Please check out the link and we'll reconvene to talk about what it says.