A provision tucked inside an EPA regulation finalized last week could complicate Elon Musk’s efforts to rapidly expand his artificial intelligence company.
The tech billionaire’s company, xAI, has been under fire from environmental advocates since last year for relying on methane gas turbines to power its Memphis, Tennessee-area data centers. Until this spring, the company behind chatbot Grok had no Clean Air Act permits for dozens of turbines at its facility in South Memphis. Officials at xAI argued that they didn’t need the permits unless the generators were on site for more than a year. That argument was supported by local health officials tasked with air permitting decisions.
Now, EPA has weighed in with a provision inside its final rule posted online last week regarding Clean Air Act rules for natural-gas-fired power plants. The regulation weakens restrictions on nitrogen oxides, harmful gases from burning fossil fuels that form smog and cause health problems like asthma. But the rule also seems to address xAI’s arguments by siding with environmental groups that have pushed for pollution controls at the Memphis facility.
The rule specifically mentions arguments about “temporary” turbines not being subject to air pollution standards, and concludes, “Historically, however, the EPA has not regulated combustion turbines, even those that may be portable, as nonfood engines, but rather as stationary sources.”
