The US EPA rules that xAI acted illegally by using dozens of methane gas turbines to power its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in the Memphis area
Win for Memphis activists who say ‘Colossus’ facilities add extra pollution to already overburdened communities
The Guardian Dara Kerr
Related Coverage
- Elon Musk's xAI faces tougher road building out data centers after EPA rule update CNBC · Lora Kolodny
- Stationary Gas and Combustion Turbines: New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) US EPA
- EPA rules that xAI's natural gas generators were illegally used TechCrunch · Tim De Chant
- New Source Performance Standards Review for Stationary Combustion Turbines and Stationary Gas Turbines Federal Register
- Data centers must follow clean air rules with their large generators, EPA says WBNS-TV · Hunter Bassler
- EPA: xAI's Colossus data center illegally used gas turbines without permits Sherwood News · Jon Keegan
- xAI data centre ‘Colossus’ found to be generating extra electricity illegally Capacity · Amber Jackson
- How much water does a hyperscale datacenter use? — It turns out, about twice that of a Burger restaurant. … Daniel Golding
- xAI's Data Center May Have Acted Illegally as EPA Clarifies Turbine Loophole PCMag · Will McCurdy
- Analysis: Colossus 2, one of the world's largest AI datacenters, uses roughly the same water resources required to supply 2.5 typical In-N-Out Burger locations SemiAnalysis
- Trump Is Pushing Gas to Power AI Boom, But Building Plants Take Years Energy Connects · Josh Saul
Discussion
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@frydawolff
Fryda Wolff
on bluesky
“Methane gas turbines pump harmful nitrogen oxides into the air, which are known to cause cancer, asthma and other upper respiratory diseases.” For the CSAM machine. [embedded post]
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@ketanjoshi.co
Ketan Joshi
on bluesky
“A US regulator ruled on Thursday that Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company had acted illegally by using dozens of methane gas turbines to power massive data centers in Tennessee” — Not only is Xai designing software that causes massive harm in form of generated abuse, i…
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r/memphis
r
on reddit
“Elon Musk's xAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rules”
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r/energy
r
on reddit
Elon Musk's xAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rules
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@thezvi
Zvi Mowshowitz
on x
I feel the pain of ‘maybe this new framing will let them notice the math’ so much. We tried comparing queries to hamburgers. How about instead comparing data center water use to an In-N-Out Burger restaurant? Will that get through better? I mean, I assume no, but we continue.
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@davidsacks
David Sacks
on x
Narrative violation: The largest AI data center uses roughly the same amount of water as two burger joints. There are over 200,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S. so this is a tiny amount. [image]
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@firstadopter
Tae Kim
on x
Great piece by @SemiAnalysis_ They ran the numbers on how dumb the medias and certain authors/writers obsession over data center water usage is -> https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/ ... [image]
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@sriramk
Sriram Krishnan
on x
Some remarkable reporting on data center water usage. Going to use this In-N-Out burger comparison now.
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@druce.ai
@druce.ai
on bluesky
SemiAnalysis estimates Colossus 2 uses about 346 million gallons of blue water per year, roughly 2.5 times a typical In-N-Out store's annual use (~147 million gallons).