Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its datacenters with unpermitted gas turbines, an investigation finds. searchlight Newsroom Show. Thermal footage captured by floodlight via drone shows that XAI is still burning gas at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision that doing so requires prior state permission.
State regulators in Mississippi say that because the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they do not require a permit. However, EPA has long required that such pollution sources be permitted under the Clean Air Act.
Any waivers for these machines “could not leave these engines subject to any emissions standards,” the agency wrote in January. final decision.
However, thermal images taken by floodlight – and analyzed by multiple experts – show more than a dozen unpermitted turbines are still spewing pollutants at the plant, nearly two weeks after the EPA’s recent decision.
After reviewing images of the floodlights and EPA regulations, former EPA air enforcement chief Bruce Buckheit said, “This is a violation of the law.” “You have to get permission first.”
XAI, which is seeking permits for dozens more turbines at Southaven, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. EPA, which has taken initiatives under Trump Record-low number of enforcement actionsMusk declined to answer questions about turbines at AI facilities and referred them to local authorities on permits.
The first and only public hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday, February 17, and the public comment period is still open.
The Trump administration has prioritized AI, but as datacenters proliferate across the country, regulators are struggling to keep pace with the industry’s growing reliance on custom-built or ad-hoc power sources and their public health impacts on surrounding communities. And Southaven, where state regulators are at odds with federal guidance, is a prime example.
The turbines there help power the company’s controversial chatbot Grok and emit harmful pollutants linked to health problems Like asthma, lung cancer and heart attack.
“The risks of living next to this type of power plant are well documented,” said Xiaoli Ren, a UC Riverside associate professor who is an expert in the health impacts of datacenters. “From a health standpoint, we know it’s not good.”
Southaven residents have expressed concerns for months about noise and pollution emanating from the 114-acre site, which is largely hidden from public view – a site xAI is looking to expand.
“For them to spread so much pollution in such a populated area, not to mention the fact that there are at least 10 schools within a two-mile radius of the facility, is really worrisome,” said longtime resident Shannon Samsa. “It is appalling to me that we are allowing this in our community.”
from memphis to mississippi
The Southaven turbine cluster is part of xAi’s rapidly growing footprint on the Tennessee-Mississippi border. The expansion began in spring 2024 in South Memphis, next to a historically black neighborhood., Which often bears the disproportionate brunt of pollution from nearby plants, with the construction of Colossus 1, which the company described as the world’s largest AI supercomputer.
Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) Issued Thermal images in April revealed that xAi was operating more than 30 unpermitted gas-powered turbines at the site.
“We were hopeful that the Department of Health would step in,” said SELC senior counsel Patrick Anderson. “It never happened.”
County officials in Tennessee said the turbines do not require permits, despite long-standing EPA policy. In July, amid local opposition, the county permitted 15 turbines for use at the Colossus 1 site.
On January 15, the EPA reiterated its decades-old policy that such machines require permits. By then, xAi had already built a second datacenter, Colossus 2, in the region. To power it, the company parked 27 turbines just across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi, a diverse Memphis suburb where air pollution levels are higher than average.
“When you’re talking about these turbines, think about jet engines,” Buckheit said.
Despite the EPA’s recent directive, floodlight thermal imagery – which has been analyzed by multiple experts – shows 15 unpermitted turbines in operation at the Southaven facility. Public records obtained by Floodlight show that 18 of the 27 turbines have been in use since at least November.
“One would have easily expected, since this has been going on for a few months, that there would at least be a stop work order (issued from the EPA),” said Bakhait, who served during the Republican Gerald Ford and George W. Bush administrations. He also said the EPA could refer the case to the Justice Department.
“But apparently that didn’t happen.”
playing by a different set of rules
An EPA spokesperson did not respond to Floodlight’s questions regarding its enforcement options, saying instead: “EPA does No It shall be the state or local air permitting authority to approve the operation of gas turbines at facilities.”
Indeed, air permits are traditionally controlled by state agencies. However, According to its own websiteEPA is responsible for ensuring that these agencies comply with federal regulations, and “generally will take enforcement action” if a state government fails to “take timely and appropriate action”.
SELC’s Anderson said XAI “violated the Clean Air Act the first time, and now they’ll copy and paste and do it again”. “I had perhaps some naive hope that the regulators who are in the day-to-day business of enforcing the Clean Air Act in Mississippi would do the right thing.”
In response to Floodlight’s questions, a spokesperson for Mississippi’s Department of Environmental Quality said the EPA’s recent rule leaves the decision up to state officials.
“The turbines currently operating at the Southaven facility are classified as portable/mobile units under state law and therefore are exempt from air permit requirements during this temporary period,” he said. “Nothing in EPA’s January 15 rule changed that determination under the Mississippi rules.”
Longtime resident Crystal Polk said she didn’t know XAI was coming to Southaven until black fencing was erected across the street from her home. The area was once peaceful and tranquil, with abundant wildlife, but is now surrounded by constant noise and pollution, he said.
“I feel like xAi is playing by different rules,” he said.
Polk, who has asthma, said he was forced to vacate the home that had been in his family for generations and canceled his plans to retire there because of concerns about his health.
“We’re a casualty of the entire datacenter race,” he said. “I feel like my voice doesn’t matter.”
A spokesperson for Mississippi’s Department of Environmental Quality said the agency takes public concerns about emissions, noise and overall quality of life seriously, and although in the department’s view the turbines do not require a permit, all “applicable air quality standards still apply”.
AI’s growing desire for fossil fuels
Despite high stability Target Presented by industry leaders, datacenters across the country are increasingly turning to fossil fuels to power the AI boom, using custom-built power plants as seen in Southaven.
According to one, about 75% of this electricity comes from natural gas recent reports By Cleanview, which tracks clean energy and datacenter projects.
“Almost every project we reviewed mentions renewable energy, hydrogen, or nuclear power in its public announcements,” the authors wrote, “but renewable energy is not scheduled until 2028 or later.”
And “nuclear power is a decade away”, he said.
Now xAI wants to expand into Southaven, and is applying in January for a permit to operate 41 turbines at the site.
According to XAI’s permit application, the facility could emit more than 6 million tons of greenhouse gases and more than 1,300 tons of health-harming air pollutants each year. This would make it one of the largest fossil fuel power plants in the state. The company also purchased property in Southaven for a third datacenter that, when completed, will make the Colossus cluster – stretching from Memphis to Southaven – one of the largest datacenter complexes in the world.
“It would be devastating,” said Samsa, a Southaven resident. “No community in their right mind would want something like this in their backyard.”
Samsa, a physician’s assistant, had hoped to raise a family in Southaven, but the presence of XAI’s gas-powered turbines has forced her and her husband to reconsider. He has helped collect over 1,000 signatures for a petition Called on Mississippi officials to close the plant.
“I don’t want my children to grow up with this amount of air pollution,” she said. “I don’t want them to have to live in a place where their health and their overall well-being is not considered above economics.”
