Despite the protests, Elon Musk has secured Xai’s Air Force permit

Local health The Memphis division grants Elon Musk’s Xai data center an air permit to continue operating the gas turbine that powers the company’s Grok chatbot. The permit comes amid widespread opposition from the community and an upcoming lawsuit that the company alleges it violates the Clean Air Act.

The Shelby County Health Department released it Air permit On the Xai project on Wednesday after receiving hundreds of public comments. That’s what the news was First reported By daily Memphian.

June, Memphis Chamber of Commerce announcement That Xai chose the Memphis site to build a new supercomputer. Company website pride It was possible to build the supercomputer Colossus in just 122 days. That speed was partly due to mobile gas turbines. Installation has started On campus, it is the location of a former manufacturing facility.

Colossus allowed Xai to quickly catch up with Openai, Google and humanity when building cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Built using 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, it has become the world’s largest supercomputer.

Xai’s Memphi Campus is located in a largely black community known as Boxtown, where pollution-causing industrial projects have historically been put under strain. Gas turbines like those used by Xai in Memphis can be a critical source of harmful emissions, such as nitrogen oxides. Create a smog. Memphis already has it Some of the highest rates of child asthma in Tennessee. Since Xai began operating the turbine, residents have met repeatedly to oppose the project.

“I’m scared, but I’m not surprised,” says Keshaun Pearson, a Memphis community leader in the pollution. “With Xai burning illegal methan turbines, the disregard for Cleaning Air Act and our human rights is stamped as permitted by the Shelby County Health Department.

Under the Clean Air Act, “major” emission sources, such as clusters of gas turbines, require a permit known as the prevention of significant degradation (PSD). Allow. However, Shelby County Health Department officials I said This is a group of local reporters who say this is not necessary for Xai because the turbines are not designed to be permanent. Zai finally applied for permits to the Shelby County Health Department in January, months after he began operating the turbine in January amidst winning local opposition.

Last month, NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) announcement That they were planning to sue Xai for violating the Clean Air Act.

“Xai’s decision to install and operate dozens of contaminated gas turbines without permits or public supervision is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act,” SELC lawyer Patrick Anderson said in a press release. “Last year, these turbines promoted pollution that threatened the health of Memphis families. This notification paves the way for a lawsuit that could allow Xai to be held liable for an illegal refusal to obtain permission from gas turbines.”