"The company began operations at its first site, Colossus 1, in June of 2024 and used as many as 35 unpermitted gas turbines to power the facility. Despite receiving intense public pushback over the use of illegal turbines and the lack of public input and transparency around Colossus 1, xAI officials said it planned on “copying and pasting” its unlawful turbine strategy to power Colossus 2."
"xAI removed its unpermitted turbines at the Colossus 1 data center after SELC, on behalf of the NAACP, sent a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Air Act. The company obtained permits for its remaining 15 turbines."
[0] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/18/xai-is-facing-a-lawsuit-fo...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk...
[2] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
CO2 is bad for us long term. But there are plenty of other nasty combustion products that are extremely bad for humans in the short term. Which is why we have pollution and air quality regulations.
Portable generators don’t meet any of the stronger requirements that utility scale systems have to meet, because it’s assumed they’re only operated in small numbers for short periods of time. They’re not designed to safe to operate in large numbers over long periods of time in the same place. For that you need proper pollution controls
Not sure how much it hurts then compared to blocking openclaw though.
It is similar to the xAI gas turbines in that it tarnished their image - at least amongst those naive people who saw them as a plucky startup rather than a profit seeking corporation who don't like competition.
I agree with you that the ethics are very different.
sources: https://www.tba.org/?pg=Hastings2025AIX (Tech, Toxins, and Memphis: Evaluating the Environmental Footprint of the xAI Facility)
> "The xAI facility has already deployed *nearly 20 gas turbines, including four large units with a combined capacity of 100MW*, to power its AI system Grok... There are plans to add *15 more gas turbines between June 2025 and June 2030*, and the turbine application projects *annual emissions of around 11.51 tons of hazardous air pollutants*."
> "it is currently *running gas turbines without the necessary permits from the Shelby County Health Department*"
> "findings from the Southern Environmental Law Center indicate that the facility has 'installed' gas turbines. This suggests that new industrial systems are in place and that *xAI is obligated to comply with the new NSPS* [New Source Performance Standards] *to avoid violating the Clean Air Act*"
> "NSPS are authorized under *Section 211 of the Clean Air Act*... All new sources must comply with the *Best System of Emission Reduction (BSER)*, which mandates the use of state-of-the-art technology to minimize air pollutants."
> "there is a history of Elon Musk's companies, such as *SpaceX and the Boring Company, being fined thousands of dollars for violating environmental law* to circumvent regulation"
Just the other day we had news that some Californian environment protection agency denied permits for SpaceX for political reasons as opposed to following objective rules, as ruled by a judge. So the fact that some permits were not issued doesn't tell me anything.
Edit: I re-read https://www.tba.org/?pg=Hastings2025AIX and yes, it seems that xAI never applied for permits related to the gas turbines as they're making the argument that the permits aren't required.
1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nox-reduction-technologies-ga...
2. PDF: https://www.ifc.org/content/dam/ifc/doc/1990/handbook-nitrog...
The independent study, conducted by EmPower Analytics Group and commissioned
by the Southern Environmental Law Center, was led by a Harvard-trained
environmental health scientist Dr. Michael Cork and shows that operation
of xAI’s proposed permanent gas turbines would measurably increase
health risks for families throughout the area—even in places as far away
as Germantown and North Memphis.
[0] https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/regulations/how-are-data...
> Thus, when it comes to income tax, at least, many data centers – especially hyperscale data centers owned by large companies – don’t generate tax revenue because they don’t generate direct operating income.
At the end of the day, people are paying money to utilize the servers within the datacenter. That money is revenue. That revenue ought to be taxed by the state.
The plan was to develop a recycled wastewater facility, which will pull arsenic from contaminated shallow acquifers, and pump that into the drinking water supply's acquifers.
Qwen-coder-next is considered SOTA for things you could actually run locally.
For some facts, the colossus data center is next-door to a steel mill and city sewage treatment plant, a vacated gigawatt scale coal power plant complete with nasty Coal Ash Ponds, and a brand new combined cycle gas power plant. The area is at the far edge of Memphis city limits up against the river, in a heavy industrial area. There’s even a major Valero oil refinery right there too.
Memphis has trillions and trillions of gallons of water, both in a gigantic underground aquifers and the Mississippi River itself. xAI has agreed to shed load in case of impending brownouts. The fear mongering is out of control.
They had a ton of portable turbines that were under operating under a temporary permit, and that was the disputed part. However, the blame should rest with TVA and or Memphis light gas and water for not being able to run an appropriate high voltage connection less than 1 mile from the plant to the data center in a timely manner. However… What difference does it make if the natural gas is burned at TVA plant or very similar gas turbines on site in the same neighborhood. Environmental groups and the county health department tried suing, was struck down, xAI works closely with the State, but the whining continues. xAI is paying gargantuan taxes to the city, no tax breaks.
These environmental groups do not care about the nasty unregulated cars burning oil, that I have to breathe every day. We terminated our motor vehicle inspection requirements due to the “burden” it places on the low income population. So they can burn their oil in my face, but then they sue to stop a SOTA turbine in an industrial area? There are junkyards in these same areas that burn their piles of waste tires every year or so “on accident”. No lawsuits there either.
That's a weird thing to say and makes me doubt everything else in your comment.
Just in case you were talking about some specific group I looked up who was doing the suing and they have lots of stuff about promoting trains and EVs etc.
They are literally suing the Trump administration (that Elon helped elect) on this topic.
> There are junkyards in these same areas that burn their piles of waste tires every year or so “on accident”. No lawsuits there either.
I wonder what drew xAI to this poorly regulated hellscape?
Also, one of the organisations suing xAI is also suing a) cement factories that burn tires for energy and b) tire companies that use the additive that kill salmon
The Shelby County Health Department has been leading the charge against xAI.
For all the big talk from U.S.-Americans on European 'overregulation', they sure seem to have much more dystopian societal failure modes materialize.
So you can put Anthropic on your list of companies that like to talk big about safety, but when the rubber hits the road, profits matter more than safety.