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.

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[–] 74 points 8 months ago (4 children)

One method of solving this type of problem also involves drones.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    So an underground US version of the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces targetting data centres to take them offline?

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  • [–] 33 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Who’s gonna hold them accountable?

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  • [–] 23 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months 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.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Who knew the AI apocalypse would be due to its massive energy usage.

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  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    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?

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months 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.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    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
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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    How is everything this guy does so dystopian.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    thats why he chose red states, regulation free states.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    this isn't a mistake, it's a pattern. He cuts corners with every project.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

    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.

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  • [+] -14 points 8 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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