xAI Data Center Emits Plumes of Pollution, New Video Shows
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A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.
The picture is a heat signature. Obviously heat is released. But why would it release pollution as methane? They are just cooling computers.
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The picture is a heat signature. Obviously heat is released. But why would it release pollution as methane? They are just cooling computers.
"But through the lens of Wilson’s optical gas imaging camera, a scientific instrument that is used within the oil and gas industry and by regulators to detect methane emissions, the pollution becomes readily apparent. Huge, billowing plumes of pollution, including large volumes of unburned methane, rise into the atmosphere and drift off-site."
Have you read the article at all?
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A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.
When building a data center why wouldn't you secure the required electricity and water before committing to a site?
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"But through the lens of Wilson’s optical gas imaging camera, a scientific instrument that is used within the oil and gas industry and by regulators to detect methane emissions, the pollution becomes readily apparent. Huge, billowing plumes of pollution, including large volumes of unburned methane, rise into the atmosphere and drift off-site."
Have you read the article at all?
I did read that now. But why would it release methane at all? They are cooling computers. Methane is a terrible heat conducting gas last I checked.
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A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.
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When building a data center why wouldn't you secure the required electricity and water before committing to a site?
Why would capitalists give a fuck about any constraint? We've conditioned them for a century to believe they can do anything they want with impunity.
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I did read that now. But why would it release methane at all? They are cooling computers. Methane is a terrible heat conducting gas last I checked.
Direct quote from the article:
Having difficulty securing enough grid power to fuel the energy-hungry data center, xAI brought in 35 portable gas turbines, and assembled them without environmental permits or pollution controls.
Looks like it's not just cooling that they're doing there. The link in the quote leads to an article describing the data centre's new turbines, specifically referring to them as methane gas turbines.
I skimmed that article briefly and I don't think it points out the mechanism by which these turbines work - if it does, I must've missed it. I did however see a line that said the turbines also release formaldehyde during operation.
Methane in this case seems to me to either be a byproduct of power generation or unused fuel somehow leaking from the system. I have no clue how gas turbines work, so I'm talking out of my ass here. In any case this seems to be the source of the methane emissions.
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When building a data center why wouldn't you secure the required electricity and water before committing to a site?
The power companies demanded guarantees, so they wouldn't be on the hook for investing in infrastructure and power generation if the whole hype disappeared the next month. Tech bros then went "how can we do it quick and dirty when we can't get others to pay for it?"
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I did read that now. But why would it release methane at all? They are cooling computers. Methane is a terrible heat conducting gas last I checked.
They’re running generators to power the data centre. Apparently they’re incredibly inefficient if they’re releasing methane
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The picture is a heat signature. Obviously heat is released. But why would it release pollution as methane? They are just cooling computers.
the heat signature is showing the hot methane billowing out of the generators he’s running to power grok.
also he’s using drinking water from the memphis sands aquifer to cool the computers. not greywater, not river water, but clean aquifer water.
please don’t use grok.
️memphis.
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When building a data center why wouldn't you secure the required electricity and water before committing to a site?
Typically.
This is Musk's AI project though, he's not going to wait to secure power or permits or environmental impact studies or anything like that...
Did Jenson deliver the G100s? Grab some generators and get pumping.
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I thought they where using commercial off the shelf generators?
They are using portable generators only intended for short term usage in an emergency. One of the tradeoffs of being portable is that the generators are unable to combust the natural gas "cleanly"(under sufficient temperature and with enough oxygen, resulting in this ideal reaction: CH4 + 2 O2 -> 2 H2O + CO2), leading to incomplete reactions releasing many pollutants, most of which are at least suspected of causing cancer. This is acceptable in an emergency but not if some narcist runs them in a population center without proper permission to feed his horribly inefficient model in an attempt to keep up with other AI labs.
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A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.
"Nonono! It's, uuh... it's like fairy dust, but from the AI!"
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A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.
This article and what they are doing feels fishy, for a few reasons.
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Data centers usually have steam plumes, but only with older cooling systems, newer designs dont vent off nearly as much water vapor and even newer designs have liquid-to-chip, and im not sure how those vent the heat, but its definitly not venting their treated coolant+water. (Because that would be dumb and expensive, but that seems to be the flavor of the day, so lets roll with that)
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If the building was not designed by a monkey, then this is likely just a generator test. I want to put the emphasis on "TEST" because a data center only runs its very inefficent generators when utility power fails. (They will generate exaust, but usually its diesle generators or something with cheap fuel). Fancy gas turbines sounds very "extra" because the reason that deisle generators are used is that they can turn on and hold the load of the building quickly (and the building should have a battery bank to hold that for exactly what ever that time is)
To me, one of two things is wrong, either the camera is just imaging thermals and thats a normal steam plume and they are being sensationalist. OR (and more likely answer). Musk is building some bespoke data center in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere without the local infrastructure to support it and is doing all sorts of expensive additions to make it do what it would be able to if it was clustered with other data centers that share utilitites.
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Direct quote from the article:
Having difficulty securing enough grid power to fuel the energy-hungry data center, xAI brought in 35 portable gas turbines, and assembled them without environmental permits or pollution controls.
Looks like it's not just cooling that they're doing there. The link in the quote leads to an article describing the data centre's new turbines, specifically referring to them as methane gas turbines.
I skimmed that article briefly and I don't think it points out the mechanism by which these turbines work - if it does, I must've missed it. I did however see a line that said the turbines also release formaldehyde during operation.
Methane in this case seems to me to either be a byproduct of power generation or unused fuel somehow leaking from the system. I have no clue how gas turbines work, so I'm talking out of my ass here. In any case this seems to be the source of the methane emissions.
Methane is what the majority of natural gas is made up of, and if your generator isn't made to be very efficient (like a real power station is), you'll lose some of your fuel unburnt into the atmosphere.
Kinda like unburnt wood smoke vapour, which could have been burned in a higher quality wood burner, but just goes up the chimney in an open fire.
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This article and what they are doing feels fishy, for a few reasons.
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Data centers usually have steam plumes, but only with older cooling systems, newer designs dont vent off nearly as much water vapor and even newer designs have liquid-to-chip, and im not sure how those vent the heat, but its definitly not venting their treated coolant+water. (Because that would be dumb and expensive, but that seems to be the flavor of the day, so lets roll with that)
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If the building was not designed by a monkey, then this is likely just a generator test. I want to put the emphasis on "TEST" because a data center only runs its very inefficent generators when utility power fails. (They will generate exaust, but usually its diesle generators or something with cheap fuel). Fancy gas turbines sounds very "extra" because the reason that deisle generators are used is that they can turn on and hold the load of the building quickly (and the building should have a battery bank to hold that for exactly what ever that time is)
To me, one of two things is wrong, either the camera is just imaging thermals and thats a normal steam plume and they are being sensationalist. OR (and more likely answer). Musk is building some bespoke data center in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere without the local infrastructure to support it and is doing all sorts of expensive additions to make it do what it would be able to if it was clustered with other data centers that share utilitites.
We dont have to guess, it is literally powered by these generators because the local infrastructure cannot support it.
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This article and what they are doing feels fishy, for a few reasons.
-
Data centers usually have steam plumes, but only with older cooling systems, newer designs dont vent off nearly as much water vapor and even newer designs have liquid-to-chip, and im not sure how those vent the heat, but its definitly not venting their treated coolant+water. (Because that would be dumb and expensive, but that seems to be the flavor of the day, so lets roll with that)
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If the building was not designed by a monkey, then this is likely just a generator test. I want to put the emphasis on "TEST" because a data center only runs its very inefficent generators when utility power fails. (They will generate exaust, but usually its diesle generators or something with cheap fuel). Fancy gas turbines sounds very "extra" because the reason that deisle generators are used is that they can turn on and hold the load of the building quickly (and the building should have a battery bank to hold that for exactly what ever that time is)
To me, one of two things is wrong, either the camera is just imaging thermals and thats a normal steam plume and they are being sensationalist. OR (and more likely answer). Musk is building some bespoke data center in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere without the local infrastructure to support it and is doing all sorts of expensive additions to make it do what it would be able to if it was clustered with other data centers that share utilitites.
You'e considering Memphis the middle of nowhere?
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This article and what they are doing feels fishy, for a few reasons.
-
Data centers usually have steam plumes, but only with older cooling systems, newer designs dont vent off nearly as much water vapor and even newer designs have liquid-to-chip, and im not sure how those vent the heat, but its definitly not venting their treated coolant+water. (Because that would be dumb and expensive, but that seems to be the flavor of the day, so lets roll with that)
-
If the building was not designed by a monkey, then this is likely just a generator test. I want to put the emphasis on "TEST" because a data center only runs its very inefficent generators when utility power fails. (They will generate exaust, but usually its diesle generators or something with cheap fuel). Fancy gas turbines sounds very "extra" because the reason that deisle generators are used is that they can turn on and hold the load of the building quickly (and the building should have a battery bank to hold that for exactly what ever that time is)
To me, one of two things is wrong, either the camera is just imaging thermals and thats a normal steam plume and they are being sensationalist. OR (and more likely answer). Musk is building some bespoke data center in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere without the local infrastructure to support it and is doing all sorts of expensive additions to make it do what it would be able to if it was clustered with other data centers that share utilitites.
The article is not fishy, you are just uninformed. They are powering the datacenter with turbines fueled by natural gas. You are right about the datacenter though, it's beyond fishy, into crime territory. To top it all off, they have approval to run only a handful of turbines (after not even seeking approval in the first place, i.e. running them illegally), but they are running a ton of them.
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Polluting the sky in order to pollute the internet
Its apparent that the health of the internet has a direct impact on the health of society.
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A massive data center at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to footage recorded by an environmental watchdog group.
The linked video is a bit unclear to me. The don't explain the modes well. Mostly it seems to just show heat. According to the description it's a Teledyne FLIR G620, which should be able to detect Methane and other VOCs. But it's not clear to me how we are supposed to distinguish hot rising CO2 and H2O from any potentially leaking Methane, in those pictures.
Video in question https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4prazMVylRs
