..."Musk’s data centers will probably bring in only a few hundred jobs to Memphis while consuming millions of gallons of water a day and more electricity than is needed to power all the city’s homes. Natural-gas turbines powering the data centers have brought pollution and controversy over their use—xAI has argued that many of the structures are temporary and don’t require a permit. Some residents question plans for the utility to issue rebates to xAI for building the new power structures it needs.
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Musk decided to name the data center Colossus—a reference to a popular trilogy of sci-fi novels from the 1960s by D.F. Jones, in which scientists built a supercomputer named Colossus that gained autonomy and plunged the world into war and chaos.
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The turbines were very large and emitted enough nitrogen oxides and other pollutants to require a permit from local authorities, according to an August 2024 letter from the Southern Environmental Law Center to the Shelby County Health Department reviewed by the Journal. But xAI wasn’t required to obtain a permit for them because the setup was supposed to be temporary, health officials said in July this year to the legal nonprofit.
In the poor, mostly Black neighborhoods of South Memphis near the data center, residents said they smelled the pollutants not long after xAI started operations."....(more)
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