In a hurry to get Colossus up and running, Musk’s AI company relies on the same environmentally friendly, natural gas-powered turbines used to recover power in natural disasters.
By Forbes staff member Cyrus Fariver
When Memphis, a Tennessee grid, failed to provide all the power needed to power Xai’s new Colossus data center, the Elon Musk LED Artificial Intelligence Company turned to a rapid, dirty solution: a mobile natural gas turbine.
These power plants on the wheels are usually a last resort in emergencies and not a permanent solution. For example, they were important in restoring Puerto Rico’s electricity after Hurricane Maria left the island in abandoned. However, data centers across the country are beginning to use them as StopGap solutions. There are at least four of the Xai sites, and perhaps more of them stirring up not only electricity but also contaminants such as nitrous oxide and formaldehyde.
However, shortly after the data center became operational, it became clear to local journalists along with environmental activists that they were not actually allowed to use the mobile gas turbines powered by it.
Patrick Anderson, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center, wrote in August 2024 to the Shelby County Health Department that “confirm that Xai is operating these turbines without the required air permit and implement appropriate enforcement measures to prevent the permit from being obtained.”
Xai did not respond to a request from Forbes due to comments.
Xai’s sister company CTC Property LLC has finally submitted a formal permit application to the Shelby County Department of Health, not only to refrain from approval of the four mobile gas turbines already in operation, but also to add another 11 more. This gives the site 150 mW of power. This is above the 150 MW that the local grid already offers. It’s all, it’s enough power to power nearly 100,000 homes. (The document was first obtained and reported in January by a Memphis newspaper, a commercial appeal.)
Mobile turbines are cheaper and easier to deploy than traditional natural gas-based fixed power plants, but can take years to build, but are rather less energy efficient, sometimes as low as 50%. Additionally, each energy unit produced releases largely more pollutants, mainly nitrous oxide and formaldehyde.
“It’s a very quick and dirty approach, very wasteful, financially and environmental,” Daniel Cohan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, told Forbes.
“It’s much more expensive to run your own gas generator than to buy electricity from the grid.”
But for AI companies in the growth stages of transformational industries, mobile gas turbines are a simple stoppage for energy companies and stationary gas turbine makers to add the extra energy needed by new data centers that grow. Tech companies don’t even have to buy them. Companies such as Solaris Energy Infrastructure and APR Energy have borrowed them for many years.
“Anyone with assets is lucky to have them right now,” APR Energy CEO Chuck Ferry told Forbes. Those that aren’t are rushing to make more. In January, Scott Strazik, CEO of Ge Vernerva, the world’s largest turbine manufacturer (market capitalization: $88 billion), said he plans to build a large-scale “70-80” fixed gas turbines in 2026.
It may be easy for them to grow and run, but with enough numbers, mobile gas turbines are subject to strict emission standards, especially in areas that are already environmentally stressful, such as areas where Xai data centers are nested. Nevertheless, the Shelby County Health Department told Forbes that “there is no set timeline for approval” for the Xai site’s mobile turbine.
According to the application, Xai’s sister company CTC Properties claims that the proposed 15 mobile gas turbines emit 9.79 or just under 10 tons of formaldehyde per year. This is a serious limitation. If any site exceeds 10 tons a year, the EPA designates it as the “major source” of contamination under the Clean Air Act, causing more regulation and surveillance as formaldehyde is known to cause cancer. (Currently, CTC applications say that the site is a “minor source.”)
“This is the scale of new energy demand that is hard to compare with anything else we really saw. It’s unprecedented,” lawyer Anderson told Forbes.
In fact, Xai built a second site in Memphis’ Whitehaven area and recently purchased a $72.9 million lot. But does Xai use mobile gas turbines here too? That seems likely.
Around the same time, APR Energy announced that it had deployed four new mobile gas turbines. That was not for anyone anywhere. However, in an interview with Forbes, CEO Chuck Ferry revealed the location: Memphis.
When asked whether the new Memphis Mobile Gas Turbine Array was located in White Haven or if he had signed with Xai, he refused to tell Forbes that an unnamed client asked him to keep it quiet. He refused to answer follow-up questions.
Joan Kerr, a spokesman for the Shelby County Health Department, told Forbes that no permit applications have been filed at the Whitehaven location.
More mobile gas turbines in White Haven only worsen the rough environmental situation in Southern Memphis. The area hosts former medical device sterilization companies that the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that decades of different types of industrial pollution presented “increasing cancer risk.” Just five miles away is a functional oil refinery that produces particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
Twelve miles east is the former military waste disposal site, designated as a super fund site. If deployed, 15 mobile generators pumping nitrous oxide and formaldehyde only make things worse.
The sub-for-permission-later approach with Xai clothing is not typical. Anderson, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center, told Forbes.
“It’s very unusual and very strange,” he said. “I’ve been working in this field for eight years and have never heard of this. It’s purely absurd and ignored the people of Memphis.”
More from Forbes
