6 ms·

Colossus 1 datacenter is the one using illegal power, is poisoning the air for poor communities near Memphis, and is potentially poisoning the water. It's likel

• boldlybold 6mo ago
  Illegal is a strong term here. While the wiki link you included indicates there might be some permitting nuances, I've seen nothing claiming the power is "illegal."
  • fancyfredbot 6mo ago
    The ethics are questionable, legal or not. Anthropic are tarnishing their image again here. Not sure how much it hurts then compared to blocking openclaw though.
    • port11 6mo ago
      I find the ethics of power generation, resource use, and pollution in a world struggling with climate change to be more of a challenge than whether a few people can run some software. And that’s coming from a Claude user that’s getting tired of their shenanigans.
    • DonsDiscountGas 6mo ago
      I don't quite understand the business logic behind "blocking" openclaw (you can still use it at API rates) but I never saw how this was unethical. Anthropic has no ethical obligation to support other people's software
      • butlike 6mo ago
        I don't get it. On the one hand we had Steve Jobs saying "No App Store!" and everyone getting up in arms, then here we have "no obligation to have Anthropic support other people's software," and that being OK. So which is it? Or does the answer change daily depending on what makes us feel good?
        • DonsDiscountGas 6mo ago
          I'm not even sure what you're talking about. The answer changes depending on who you talk to because different people have different opinions
      • fancyfredbot 6mo ago
        Blocking openclaw made everyone realise that what anthropic giveth, anthropic can take away. It is similar to the xAI gas turbines in that it tarnished their image - at least amongst those naive people who saw them as a plucky startup rather than a profit seeking corporation who don't like competition. I agree with you that the ethics are very different.
  • Thrymr 6mo ago
    xAI removed its illegal gas turbines and obtained permits for the others only after being sued by the Southern Environmental Law Center. They then built another unpermitted site (Colossus 2) across the state line in Mississippi, and they are being sued again. [0] "The company began operations at its first site, Colossus 1, in June of 2024 and used as many as 35 unpermitted gas turbines to power the facility. Despite receiving intense public pushback over the use of illegal turbines and the lack of public input and transparency around Colossus 1, xAI officials said it planned on “copying and pasting” its unlawful turbine strategy to power Colossus 2." "xAI removed its unpermitted turbines at the Colossus 1 data center after SELC, on behalf of the NAACP, sent a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Air Act. The company obtained permits for its remaining 15 turbines." [0] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-to-power-its-data-center/ https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
    • everfrustrated 6mo ago
      [flagged]
    • BrianGragg 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      • Thrymr 6mo ago
        Public power utilities get permits for their operations. xAI tried to get around permitting regulations and environmental laws by claiming the generators were temporary, got sued [0], and even the Trump administration's EPA ruled against them [1]. They are also now trying to do it again in another state with Colossus 2 [2]. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/18/xai-is-facing-a-lawsuit-for-operating-over-400-mw-of-gas-turbines-without-permits/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/18/xai-is-facing-a-lawsuit-fo... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk-xai-datacenter-memphis https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk... [2] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-to-power-its-data-center/ https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
      • avianlyric 6mo ago
  • breadsniffer 6mo ago
    from perplexity deep research: "Colossus‑related gas‑turbine power plants have been run in ways alleged to violate the Clean Air Act, in already over‑polluted Black and low‑income communities near Memphis, and Anthropic has now become the main user of that infrastructure." sources: https://www.tba.org/?pg=Hastings2025AIX https://www.tba.org/?pg=Hastings2025AIX (Tech, Toxins, and Memphis: Evaluating the Environmental Footprint of the xAI Facility)
    • lostmsu 6mo ago
      Any specifics? What are they doing and what statutes are allegedly being violated?
      • SirSavary 6mo ago
        Emphasis my own: > "The xAI facility has already deployed *nearly 20 gas turbines, including four large units with a combined capacity of 100MW*, to power its AI system Grok... There are plans to add *15 more gas turbines between June 2025 and June 2030*, and the turbine application projects *annual emissions of around 11.51 tons of hazardous air pollutants*." > "it is currently *running gas turbines without the necessary permits from the Shelby County Health Department*" > "findings from the Southern Environmental Law Center indicate that the facility has 'installed' gas turbines. This suggests that new industrial systems are in place and that *xAI is obligated to comply with the new NSPS* [New Source Performance Standards] *to avoid violating the Clean Air Act*" > "NSPS are authorized under *Section 211 of the Clean Air Act*... All new sources must comply with the *Best System of Emission Reduction (BSER)*, which mandates the use of state-of-the-art technology to minimize air pollutants." > "there is a history of Elon Musk's companies, such as *SpaceX and the Boring Company, being fined thousands of dollars for violating environmental law* to circumvent regulation"
        • lostmsu 6mo ago
          So they haven't gotten permits, but why? Why where the permits denied? Just the other day we had news that some Californian environment protection agency denied permits for SpaceX for political reasons as opposed to following objective rules, as ruled by a judge. So the fact that some permits were not issued doesn't tell me anything.
• causal 6mo ago
  So I was just Googling this, and apparently most datacenters don't pay any state tax on revenue generated by said datacenter? Huge loophole if true, no wonder capital investment in datacenters is so high. [0] [0] https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/regulations/how-are-data-centers-taxed-and-how-much-do-they-actually-pay- https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/regulations/how-are-data...
  • polski-g 6mo ago
    I like how you said "googling this", but then didn't actually read the article you linked.
    • causal 6mo ago
      > In general, data centers only pay corporate income tax if they generate revenue. Not all data centers do this because many don’t sell goods or services; they simply house servers. By qualifying as business expenses rather than revenue generators, they reduce the tax liability of their parent companies. > Thus, when it comes to income tax, at least, many data centers – especially hyperscale data centers owned by large companies – don’t generate tax revenue because they don’t generate direct operating income.
      • osiris970 6mo ago
        They pay property taxes. The best tax there is as of now (LVT when)
        • skinfaxi 6mo ago
          I would be surprised if these developments didn't have tax abatement clauses.
        • causal 6mo ago
          For a datacenter that generates billions, that is not much.
• MagicMoonlight 6mo ago
  How would a data centre poison the water? They don’t produce any chemicals or do anything.
  • tagawa 6mo ago
    > Data centers can inadvertently pollute water through chemical runoff from evaporative cooling systems, including biocides, corrosion inhibitors, and heavy metals that accumulate at scale when facilities discharge up to 5 million gallons daily. Source: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/sustainability/4-strategies-for-eliminating-data-center-water-pollution https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/sustainability/4-strateg...
    • deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
  • 0xbadcafebee 6mo ago
    This is the specific water pollution issue: https://www.protectouraquifer.org/issues/xai-supercomputer https://www.protectouraquifer.org/issues/xai-supercomputer The plan was to develop a recycled wastewater facility, which will pull arsenic from contaminated shallow acquifers, and pump that into the drinking water supply's acquifers.
• ETH_start 6mo ago
  Not every allegation that appears in print is true. One should be very skeptical about these kinds of allegations, especially when there are deep-pocketed corporations involved who can be sued or pressured to settle in the face of sufficiently "plausible and persistent" (to borrow Hazlitt's term) claims of harm done by their operations.
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
• timmmmmmay 6mo ago
  it's in a former appliance factory that's right next to two pre-existing TVA power plants, a Nucor steel mill, and a sewage treatment facility. you've been lied to about how close it is to a residential area, just look at a map
  • alsetmusic 6mo ago
    Air pollution travels.
  • 0xbadcafebee 6mo ago
    "The independent study, conducted by EmPower Analytics Group and commissioned by the Southern Environmental Law Center, was led by a Harvard-trained environmental health scientist Dr. Michael Cork and shows that operation of xAI’s proposed permanent gas turbines would measurably increase health risks for families throughout the area—even in places as far away as Germantown and North Memphis." - https://www.memphiscap.org/ https://www.memphiscap.org/
• z3ratul163071 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  • AntiUSAbah 6mo ago
    "buddy" its so fitting your use of words for the complete lack of character buddy.
• matthewiiiv 6mo ago
  Are you going to stop using Claude Code then?
  • Zetaphor 6mo ago
    Yes. Was that supposed to be a gotcha? Local models are becoming more useful, and I still remember how to write code.
    • andsoitis 6mo ago
      Now that you have stopped using Claude Code, what have you replaced it with? Would love to know your setup. I am experimenting with local models too, but nothing comes close to Claude (Code), at least for me - not just for coding, mind you.
      • zamalek 6mo ago
        FWIW, if you want frontier-level performance, as it was a few months back, Deepseek v4 and K2.6 are there. Almost zero chance you can run them locally, but you do have choice in terms of providers. Qwen-coder-next is considered SOTA for things you could actually run locally.
• Bombthecat 6mo ago
  Who cares about Memphis! We need more AI bro! /s
• ethagknight 6mo ago
  I live in Memphis, none of this is true. What is true is that there is a concerted effort to smear anything related to xAI‘s presence in Memphis for some reason. For some facts, the colossus data center is next-door to a steel mill and city sewage treatment plant, a vacated gigawatt scale coal power plant complete with nasty Coal Ash Ponds, and a brand new combined cycle gas power plant. The area is at the far edge of Memphis city limits up against the river, in a heavy industrial area. There’s even a major Valero oil refinery right there too. Memphis has trillions and trillions of gallons of water, both in a gigantic underground aquifers and the Mississippi River itself. xAI has agreed to shed load in case of impending brownouts. The fear mongering is out of control. They had a ton of portable turbines that were under operating under a temporary permit, and that was the disputed part. However, the blame should rest with TVA and or Memphis light gas and water for not being able to run an appropriate high voltage connection less than 1 mile from the plant to the data center in a timely manner. However… What difference does it make if the natural gas is burned at TVA plant or very similar gas turbines on site in the same neighborhood. Environmental groups and the county health department tried suing, was struck down, xAI works closely with the State, but the whining continues. xAI is paying gargantuan taxes to the city, no tax breaks. These environmental groups do not care about the nasty unregulated cars burning oil, that I have to breathe every day. We terminated our motor vehicle inspection requirements due to the “burden” it places on the low income population. So they can burn their oil in my face, but then they sue to stop a SOTA turbine in an industrial area? There are junkyards in these same areas that burn their piles of waste tires every year or so “on accident”. No lawsuits there either.
  • whamlastxmas 6mo ago
    Agreed there is a huge effort to smear as much as possible. Between parent comment being very highly voted and Wikipedia page being militantly updated and seeing these tired, wrong talking points everywhere, it's pretty obvious
  • pathartl 6mo ago
    We have similar issues here in Wisconsin. Especially when it comes to solar and battery storage facilities. I absolutely think there needs to be more regulations carved out for data centers, just as there is for any other industrial building, but yeah the great mongering is incredible to see. Especially when the argument of "save our beautiful farmlands" is brought up. Do you even know how nasty agricultural runoff is?
• rcbdev 6mo ago
  > profits matter more than safety For all the big talk from U.S.-Americans on European 'overregulation', they sure seem to have much more dystopian societal failure modes materialize.
• Rover222 6mo ago
  Get out of your bubble, my god.