alt Hacker NewsI think that's the datacenter with the gas turbine generators that operate without permits because they're "portable." Data centers have tremendous externalities but colossus is a particularly nasty offender, and not just due its size.
Edit: They did it with Colossus and now they're doing the exact same thing with Colossus2. https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
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So for a guy that literally has a company that produces batteries and solar panels, choose to use gas turbines. So much for saving the planet.
I dug into this topic in some detail on my blog and it's both enraging and depressing.
Seems like selc's time would be better spent trying to close the loophole that allows for unpermitted turbine generators instead of going after one company for doing what they were allowed to do when they did it.
And Anthropic can pay money to Musk to absorb all that liability while they keep training models.
Yup, and now Anthropic is complicit in the environmental damage and health problems for local residents that these data centers are causing.
But hey, number must go up, right?
So much for Dario’s ethics. He happily partners with Elon. He seems like just another power hungry monopoly seeking liar.
xAI’s turbines produce meaningful local/regional pollution (especially NOx in a vulnerable area) but represent a rounding error nationally and globally.
What's the tremendous externality of gas generators? People heat their own homes with natural gas and it's no big deal. How can a datacenter that is miles away be worse than that?
The newer location is about 3 miles southwest of the Memphis Airport (MEM), one of the world’s largest cargo airports and the center of FedEx operations (500 take-off and landings per day most concentrated in a 6 h FedEx window with lots of engines running on ramps and that produces about 2000 tons of NOx per year).
I live about 18 miles downwind of the new Colossus sites, the airport, and lots of truck logistics sites, and a large refinery.
I definitely will be getting 2x exposure to ozone and particulates from both Colossi when they are running full bore. Plus an extra dose of ultrafine particulate with my morning fresh air.
Yes, wouldn’t it be nice to be in Nashville instead with HCA, Oracle, many insurance and financial institutions, and the joy of country music.
As an avid Opus user I am in an ethical Nimby bind. We do need almost any investments we can get in Shelby County TN. I’ll take Anthropic in preference to Grok NOx. And it will be my NOx.