Images confirm xAI is continuing to defy EPA regulations in Mississippi to power its flagship datacenters

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its datacenters with unpermitted gas turbines, an investigation by the Floodlight newsroom shows. Thermal footage captured by Floodlight via drone shows xAI is still burning gas at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling reiterating that doing so requires a state permit in advance.

State regulators in Mississippi maintain that since the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they don’t require permits. However, the EPA has long maintained that such pollution sources require permits under the Clean Air Act.

Any exemption for these machines “could leave these engines subject to no emission standards at all”, the agency wrote in a January final ruling.

  • Formfiller@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    15 hours ago

    Guillotine time? Or are we letting it get worse? I have an executive functioning disorder so genuinely asking because I think we should be chopping of heads.

  • finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 day ago

    State regulators in Mississippi maintain that since the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they don’t require permits.

    What sort of stupid fucking ruling is that? Do things magically stop polluting when you put them on tractor trailers, or something?

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      It was probably a law written expecting the use case to be temporary power perhaps for an event or temporary maintenece need. The drafters of that law likely didn’t think someone would blatantly skirt the spirit of the law by simple placing the generators on trailers as a permanent fixture.

      In short, the state needs to update its laws to remove this loophole.

    • tidderuuf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      2 days ago

      Right?! Trump just gutted like the last of the EPA and not a single judge looked up from their roasted stork.

  • grue@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    If the government won’t enforce the law, vigilantism is the only alternative. If the turbines are destroyed, they can’t emit.

  • Sanctus@anarchist.nexus
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    2 days ago

    Looks like if nobody will represent the people, the people must take this into their own hands. Datacenters are polluting enough without the hackjob power source.

  • Unleaded8163@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    2 days ago

    They’ll be in real trouble when they get fined into oblivion. I bet they’re looking a thousands of dollars here!

  • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    As a European it annoys me that

    • the EU is dead set to “not be left behind” wrt AI
    • the main reason the US are ahead is because of shit like this
  • Tanis Nikana@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    I hope that when Elon Musk is guillotined, all of his family goes with him.

    This does except his ex-daughter, who rightfully disowned him.

    Edit: I accidentally misspelled his name, I’ve corrected it. Whoever is in charge of carving his gravestone has the correct spelling now.

      • Tanis Nikana@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        2 days ago

        If Elon dies, the heir raised with his values gets the stuff and perpetuates it.

        This is how executive monarchy inherits in the corporate age.

        • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          14 hours ago

          are they, ELON doesnt seem to give attention to any of his Breed fetish children, only one time as a human shield.and it will be 14+ children trying to fight the same inheritence since they are all the same or very close the same age.

        • otter@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          2 days ago

          If he’s guillotined why not just disinherit his children at that stage?