8 ms·

>>xAI entirely bypassed the grid and generated power onsite, using truck-mounted gas turbines and engines. These generators polluted the nearby historically bl

by g8oz 10mo ago

>>xAI entirely bypassed the grid and generated power onsite, using truck-mounted gas turbines and engines. These generators polluted the nearby historically black neighborhoods in Memphis Tennessee with nitrogen oxides. Residents are afraid to open their windows, with the elderly, children and those suffering from conditions like COPD particularly affected. Lawsuits alleging environmental racism are pending. xAI says cleaner generators will be installed but I think this episode shows that we cannot allow public interests to be compromised by private sector so easily just because they scream: Jobs! Investment! https://time.com/7308925/elon-musk-memphis-ai-data-center/ https://time.com/7308925/elon-musk-memphis-ai-data-center/

mhb 10mo ago
Why is the skin tone of the residents of the affected community relevant?
- ladidahh 10mo ago
  In the US, we have a living history of discriminatory policies based on race https://www.thesidewalksymposium.com/blog/the-enduring-shadows-redlinings-mark-on-memphis https://www.thesidewalksymposium.com/blog/the-enduring-shado... , here is a quick overview of redlining in Memphis
  - mhb 10mo ago
    Yeah. I've heard about it. So this wouldn't be a problem if it affected a different group of people?
    - butlike 10mo ago
      Probably not because if it affected white neighborhoods, it either wouldn't be enacted, shut down after complaints, or receive enough bad press as to be shut down.
      - mhb 9mo ago
        That's a lot of assumptions. If they wanted that to be the point of the article they could have done it a lot more explicitly.
    - ladidahh 9mo ago
      It would be the exact same problem, and equally bad.
      - mhb 9mo ago
        I agree. Which is why I think that detail is not relevant and just a distraction.
        ladidahh 9mo ago
        Well, if racism in America was over. As in, similar rates of wealth and poverty, incarceration and college degrees, etc etc, across racial lines, then yeah, it would be a distraction. But when economic disadvantage, inherited from outright racist laws, is abundantly clear to see, it's hard for me to accept that we are not still anti black (and anti poor, etc) as a country when things like this happen
    - abenga 9mo ago
      It isn't affecting (and historically doesn't affect) the "different group" though. That's the point.
- skywhopper 9mo ago
  Because the people who decided where to locate it and the people in government who could do something to stop it make decisions about how much they care based on those folks’ skin color. If those generators were placed near a rich white neighborhood, the government response would be wildly different. Mississippi in particular is well known at the state government level to actively choose not to enforce environmental regulations in areas where its Black citizens live.
  - redwall_hp 9mo ago
    And TFA addresses this. South Memphis was a community largely composed of freed slaves, where manufacturers set up shop, the military dumped waste (now a superfund site), and people have continued to mark the area for polluting industries for generations.
  - jordanb 9mo ago
    To be fair they would definitely do this to rural and/or poor white people too.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - kube-system 9mo ago
      Maybe. East Palestine OH got a decent amount of political attention.
badc0ffee 10mo ago
I'm a bit skeptical about this. I know diesel generators make these kind of pollutants, but I haven't heard the same about natural gas. My city has a big NG facility downtown that pipes heated water to a bunch of buildings, and it is surrounded by condos. I've never heard anything about it impacting the air (other than CO2 which is a global and not local issue). Every building here (except for those connected to district heating systems), large and small, has a natural gas boiler or furnace. We have also several NG plants generating electricity within city limits. Again, localized pollution is not what concerns people about these things. Coal plants, on the other hand, tended to be way outside the city when they were still in operation.
- butlike 10mo ago
  Global issues start locally. See: tragedy of the commons
  - cindyllm 10mo ago
    [dead]
- trhway 10mo ago
  >I'm a bit skeptical about this. I know diesel generators make these kind of pollutants, but I haven't heard the same about natural gas. it is about gas turbine high temperature and pressure, not about natural gas. That is why diesel engine does it too, while it isn't such an issue for regular gas engine, nor for "simple" LNG burners/heaters. What xAI does here sounds horrendous. 270MW of gas turbines dumping the exhaust straight into the neighborhood. It is like 1000 diesel trucks running their engine full power 24x7 near your house.
- skywhopper 9mo ago
  Gas furnaces and stoves are known polluters of indoor air: https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/gas-stoves-and-indoor-air-pollution-explained/ https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/gas-stoves-and-indoor-air-p... Large gas plants are probably relatively clean overall, but the temporary, portable gas generators used by eg the xAI datacenter are not as tightly regulated and aren’t inspected or controlled in the same way. Given the particular corporate agent involved, I’d be surprised if any care at all were being taken to minimize air pollution caused by these portable generators.
cl0ckt0wer 10mo ago
We can sue to shut down pollution generators? Finally, I can get rid of that annoying airport...
- kakapo5672 9mo ago
  Adding to their sins, many of those airports are in "historically black neighborhoods", you know!
mucle6 9mo ago
The phrasing 'historically black neighborhoods' feels like it pushes a specific agenda rather than just addressing the pollution. It implies that if this were happening near a non black neighborhood, it wouldn’t be as egregious, which is a strange moral stance. Also 'historically' is irrelevant. Pollution hurts the people living there now.
- lawn 9mo ago
  > It implies that if this were happening near a non black neighborhood, it wouldn’t be as egregious, which is a strange moral stance. I read it the other way: that it simply wouldn't happen in a white neighborhood.
  - mucle6 9mo ago
    That makes sense. For some reason though I still sense a hint of desire for retribution in the original comment
    - SantalBlush 9mo ago
      I think this is an uncharitable interpretation.
      - mucle6 9mo ago
        My interpretation is it would be less likely to happen near a wealthy neighborhood compared to a poor neighborhood. Why talk about race if its not about race?
        enraged_camel 9mo ago
        The correlation is extremely strong, especially in places like Memphis. And nobody said this particular neighborhood is poor.
        dullcrisp 9mo ago
        Who said they were poor?
thisgetsit 9mo ago
> xAI says cleaner generators will be installed but I think this episode shows that we cannot allow public interests to be compromised by private sector so easily just because they scream: Jobs! Investment! 80ish% in the US live <100 miles from their hometown. It would be wise to see "jobs!" Investment!" as little more than a mafioso like threat to agrarian-stay in one place-work to live types. "Sure is a nice Shire you got there. Better hope it doesn't suffer from lack of investment in jobs." Threats of it all imploding are taken seriously by a lot of people. https://www.mentalfloss.com/culture/generations/millennials-live-close-to-hometown https://www.mentalfloss.com/culture/generations/millennials-... So what if it does? That's normal with the passage of time. As long as human biology exists humans will solve for those problems. Beyond that obligation is just socialized memes, ethno objects that come and go with the generations. Everyone alive now worried about propagation of our culture sure does not seem concerned Latin fell out of common use. That they aren't spending their lives keeping old traditions alive should make it obvious old traditions don't mean that much to the living. Politicians and rich need us servicing debt they so graciously took on to invest in jobs or we would be free to police them.
- rangestransform 9mo ago
  The alternative to multiple jurisdictions racing to the bottom is strong centralized control to prevent anyone from racing to the bottom. That will be an even worse pill than datacenter pollution to swallow for Americans. Only the big cities are big enough to resist the race.
renewiltord 9mo ago
[flagged]
casey2 9mo ago
TFA said it's all legal and explicit federal policy. You don't have to like it, but some people are going to have to make minor sacrifices if the majority want AI services. Look on the bright side, when these people all have personal robot doctors caring for them well into their 100s they will be grateful they didn't listen to the NIMBYs
- strange_quark 9mo ago
  I honestly cannot tell if this is satire. Literally a Lord Farquaad level take. Some of you may get asthma and lung cancer, but that’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make to ensure we can deliver MechaHitler to the masses.
- roze_sha 9mo ago
  Would you be willing to volunteer and make that sacrifice for the majority?
- pastel8739 9mo ago
  > some people are going to have to make minor sacrifices if the majority want AI services _Does_ the majority want AI services? I feel like the question “if you could stop AI, would you?” is far too controversial for this to be the case.
ACCount37 9mo ago
These "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.
- bob1029 9mo ago
  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-datacenter-4-please-credit-steve-jones-flight-by-southwings-for-selc.JPG?c=16x9&q=w_2000 https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/xai-datacen... https://maps.app.goo.gl/uPkQtSQzMZC3rPZB6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/uPkQtSQzMZC3rPZB6
  - XorNot 9mo ago
    Seriously this: smoke stacks are a carefully engineered structure specially to ensure air emissions diffuse and don't roll along the ground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnYdt4T76mk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnYdt4T76mk You absolutely cannot park a bunch of truck mounted generators next to an existing plant and go "yeah it won't make a difference".
    - rossjudson 9mo ago
      Once, when I was a child, I remember the carefully engineered smoke stacks in Sudbury Ontario spilling out acrid smoke sideways, and then straight down into the town. Back then, Sudbury looked like Mars.
      - black_puppydog 9mo ago
        So you're saying when not done properly, emissions have very direct negative impact on the surrounding community. Did I get that right?

by g8oz 10mo ago

mhb 10mo ago

Why is the skin tone of the residents of the affected community relevant?

ladidahh 10mo ago
In the US, we have a living history of discriminatory policies based on race https://www.thesidewalksymposium.com/blog/the-enduring-shadows-redlinings-mark-on-memphis https://www.thesidewalksymposium.com/blog/the-enduring-shado... , here is a quick overview of redlining in Memphis
- mhb 10mo ago
  Yeah. I've heard about it. So this wouldn't be a problem if it affected a different group of people?
  - butlike 10mo ago
    Probably not because if it affected white neighborhoods, it either wouldn't be enacted, shut down after complaints, or receive enough bad press as to be shut down.
    - mhb 9mo ago
      That's a lot of assumptions. If they wanted that to be the point of the article they could have done it a lot more explicitly.
  - ladidahh 9mo ago
    It would be the exact same problem, and equally bad.
    - mhb 9mo ago
      I agree. Which is why I think that detail is not relevant and just a distraction.
      - ladidahh 9mo ago
        Well, if racism in America was over. As in, similar rates of wealth and poverty, incarceration and college degrees, etc etc, across racial lines, then yeah, it would be a distraction. But when economic disadvantage, inherited from outright racist laws, is abundantly clear to see, it's hard for me to accept that we are not still anti black (and anti poor, etc) as a country when things like this happen
  - abenga 9mo ago
    It isn't affecting (and historically doesn't affect) the "different group" though. That's the point.
skywhopper 9mo ago
Because the people who decided where to locate it and the people in government who could do something to stop it make decisions about how much they care based on those folks’ skin color. If those generators were placed near a rich white neighborhood, the government response would be wildly different. Mississippi in particular is well known at the state government level to actively choose not to enforce environmental regulations in areas where its Black citizens live.
- redwall_hp 9mo ago
  And TFA addresses this. South Memphis was a community largely composed of freed slaves, where manufacturers set up shop, the military dumped waste (now a superfund site), and people have continued to mark the area for polluting industries for generations.
- jordanb 9mo ago
  To be fair they would definitely do this to rural and/or poor white people too.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - kube-system 9mo ago
    Maybe. East Palestine OH got a decent amount of political attention.

badc0ffee 10mo ago

I'm a bit skeptical about this. I know diesel generators make these kind of pollutants, but I haven't heard the same about natural gas. My city has a big NG facility downtown that pipes heated water to a bunch of buildings, and it is surrounded by condos. I've never heard anything about it impacting the air (other than CO2 which is a global and not local issue). Every building here (except for those connected to district heating systems), large and small, has a natural gas boiler or furnace. We have also several NG plants generating electricity within city limits. Again, localized pollution is not what concerns people about these things. Coal plants, on the other hand, tended to be way outside the city when they were still in operation.

butlike 10mo ago
Global issues start locally. See: tragedy of the commons
- cindyllm 10mo ago
  [dead]
trhway 10mo ago
>I'm a bit skeptical about this. I know diesel generators make these kind of pollutants, but I haven't heard the same about natural gas. it is about gas turbine high temperature and pressure, not about natural gas. That is why diesel engine does it too, while it isn't such an issue for regular gas engine, nor for "simple" LNG burners/heaters. What xAI does here sounds horrendous. 270MW of gas turbines dumping the exhaust straight into the neighborhood. It is like 1000 diesel trucks running their engine full power 24x7 near your house.
skywhopper 9mo ago
Gas furnaces and stoves are known polluters of indoor air: https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/gas-stoves-and-indoor-air-pollution-explained/ https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/gas-stoves-and-indoor-air-p... Large gas plants are probably relatively clean overall, but the temporary, portable gas generators used by eg the xAI datacenter are not as tightly regulated and aren’t inspected or controlled in the same way. Given the particular corporate agent involved, I’d be surprised if any care at all were being taken to minimize air pollution caused by these portable generators.

cl0ckt0wer 10mo ago

We can sue to shut down pollution generators? Finally, I can get rid of that annoying airport...

kakapo5672 9mo ago
Adding to their sins, many of those airports are in "historically black neighborhoods", you know!

mucle6 9mo ago

The phrasing 'historically black neighborhoods' feels like it pushes a specific agenda rather than just addressing the pollution. It implies that if this were happening near a non black neighborhood, it wouldn’t be as egregious, which is a strange moral stance. Also 'historically' is irrelevant. Pollution hurts the people living there now.

lawn 9mo ago
> It implies that if this were happening near a non black neighborhood, it wouldn’t be as egregious, which is a strange moral stance. I read it the other way: that it simply wouldn't happen in a white neighborhood.
- mucle6 9mo ago
  That makes sense. For some reason though I still sense a hint of desire for retribution in the original comment
  - SantalBlush 9mo ago
    I think this is an uncharitable interpretation.
    - mucle6 9mo ago
      My interpretation is it would be less likely to happen near a wealthy neighborhood compared to a poor neighborhood. Why talk about race if its not about race?
      - enraged_camel 9mo ago
        The correlation is extremely strong, especially in places like Memphis. And nobody said this particular neighborhood is poor.
      - dullcrisp 9mo ago
        Who said they were poor?

thisgetsit 9mo ago

> xAI says cleaner generators will be installed but I think this episode shows that we cannot allow public interests to be compromised by private sector so easily just because they scream: Jobs! Investment! 80ish% in the US live <100 miles from their hometown. It would be wise to see "jobs!" Investment!" as little more than a mafioso like threat to agrarian-stay in one place-work to live types. "Sure is a nice Shire you got there. Better hope it doesn't suffer from lack of investment in jobs." Threats of it all imploding are taken seriously by a lot of people. https://www.mentalfloss.com/culture/generations/millennials-live-close-to-hometown https://www.mentalfloss.com/culture/generations/millennials-... So what if it does? That's normal with the passage of time. As long as human biology exists humans will solve for those problems. Beyond that obligation is just socialized memes, ethno objects that come and go with the generations. Everyone alive now worried about propagation of our culture sure does not seem concerned Latin fell out of common use. That they aren't spending their lives keeping old traditions alive should make it obvious old traditions don't mean that much to the living. Politicians and rich need us servicing debt they so graciously took on to invest in jobs or we would be free to police them.

rangestransform 9mo ago
The alternative to multiple jurisdictions racing to the bottom is strong centralized control to prevent anyone from racing to the bottom. That will be an even worse pill than datacenter pollution to swallow for Americans. Only the big cities are big enough to resist the race.

renewiltord 9mo ago

[flagged]

casey2 9mo ago

TFA said it's all legal and explicit federal policy. You don't have to like it, but some people are going to have to make minor sacrifices if the majority want AI services. Look on the bright side, when these people all have personal robot doctors caring for them well into their 100s they will be grateful they didn't listen to the NIMBYs

strange_quark 9mo ago
I honestly cannot tell if this is satire. Literally a Lord Farquaad level take. Some of you may get asthma and lung cancer, but that’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make to ensure we can deliver MechaHitler to the masses.
roze_sha 9mo ago
Would you be willing to volunteer and make that sacrifice for the majority?
pastel8739 9mo ago
> some people are going to have to make minor sacrifices if the majority want AI services _Does_ the majority want AI services? I feel like the question “if you could stop AI, would you?” is far too controversial for this to be the case.

ACCount37 9mo ago

These "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.

bob1029 9mo ago
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-datacenter-4-please-credit-steve-jones-flight-by-southwings-for-selc.JPG?c=16x9&q=w_2000 https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/xai-datacen... https://maps.app.goo.gl/uPkQtSQzMZC3rPZB6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/uPkQtSQzMZC3rPZB6
- XorNot 9mo ago
  Seriously this: smoke stacks are a carefully engineered structure specially to ensure air emissions diffuse and don't roll along the ground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnYdt4T76mk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnYdt4T76mk You absolutely cannot park a bunch of truck mounted generators next to an existing plant and go "yeah it won't make a difference".
  - rossjudson 9mo ago
    Once, when I was a child, I remember the carefully engineered smoke stacks in Sudbury Ontario spilling out acrid smoke sideways, and then straight down into the town. Back then, Sudbury looked like Mars.
    - black_puppydog 9mo ago
      So you're saying when not done properly, emissions have very direct negative impact on the surrounding community. Did I get that right?