alt Hacker NewsThese "gas turbines" are located next door to the Allen Combined Cycle Plant, a grid scale natural gas power plant with 1.1GW capacity. It's there to power a nearby steel mill. That's the kind of neighborhood xAI has put its cluster in.
I'm incredibly skeptical of any claim that xAI's power use is putting a dent in the local environment, and "environmental racism" just reeks of the usual agenda pushing.
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i’m curious, are you skeptical xai would wiggle around regulations and pollute a city?
by “agenda pushing” do you mean those who have an agenda to have breathable air? because that seems like an entirely reasonable agenda to me.
Here are some quotes from an article [1] that directly addresses your point:
> The turbines spew nitrogen oxides, also known as NOx, at an estimated rate of 1,200 to 2,000 tons a year — far more than the gas-fired power plant across the street or the oil refinery down the road.
> The turbines are only temporary and don’t require federal permits for their emissions of NOx and other hazardous air pollutants like formaldehyde, xAI’s environmental consultant, Shannon Lynn, said during a webinar hosted by the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. The argument appears to rely on a loophole in federal regulations that environmental groups and former EPA officials say shouldn’t apply to the situation.
> Mayo and Lynn didn’t respond to calls and texts from POLITICO’s E&E News requesting comment and have not said publicly how much longer the “temporary” turbines will remain onsite. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
As you can see, xAI is being deliberately deceptive here and this has been known, but unaddressed for a while now. Remember that we are talking about a grave threat to the health and life of the entire population of a town. That too in a country where healthcare is deliberately unaffordable to ordinary folks. I don't know if you know how nasty formaldehyde and NOx smells.
How do you so casually trivialize and vilify such concerns as 'agenda pushing'? It's very sad that HN has too many apologists for these greedy serial violators and abusers. At the same time, the sheer lack of empathy towards the unprivileged is appalling! They're humans too!
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...
This stance strikes me as questionable, to use the first hunch that comes to mind to seed doubt in a topic that is researched and reported by multiple fairly reputable sources and multiple people on the ground.
Or the usual Musk externalizing costs and letting someone else handle the cleanup. Who's going to fine him? The government?
Ah so because they're black people and they're already near _some_ pollution, we can just add _more_ pollution since they won't notice.
/s because some of you are fucking psychopaths
Polluting the environment in any form is a violation of property rights. It’s unfortunate our government hasn’t codified that reality.
My neighbor’s don’t have a right to pollute my property by shining a bright light on it or blowing smoke into it or dumping chemicals into my underground well. Even if it’s mostly legal, it’s still a violation of my underlying right to property
That plant is subject to regulations. The xAI turbines have evaded regulations by claiming that they are portable.
How tall are the stacks at the combined cycle plant compared to the ones at the xAI datacenter?
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/xai-datacen...
https://maps.app.goo.gl/uPkQtSQzMZC3rPZB6