Ugh, what violation of local law can't be excused by specious "national security" claims?
> resulting in a corresponding increase in three major air pollutants:
Sometimes I wonder how valuable it would be to go to vulnerable areas (ecologically or socio-economically) and record baseline pollution, noise, etc. readings, simply to give future residents some statistical ammunition against some New Thing ruins the old implicit standard of safety and comfort.
I guess the problem is you don't always know what to measure until it's nearly too late, such as if the problem is a new chemical that needs a particular test to measure, or noise that isn't about raw decibels but causes problems with particular frequencies and harmonics, etc.
>The company, which is now a division of SpaceX, is likely to buy more generators in the coming months or years. In SpaceX’s IPO filing, the company said that it will buy another $2.8 billion worth of gas turbines to power its AI data centers over the next three years. Of that, at least $2 billion are earmarked for “mobile gas turbines.”
Timnit Gebru was laughed out of town for overlooking research into making LLMs more energy efficient. By the logic used to drag her through the mud, Musk must be a total idiot to be buying so much fossil fuel capacity. Truly, nobody could see this coming. Must be 5d chess.
They will probably start a program in this direction, but don't expect it to convert to actual manufacturing before a few years. It's not exactly the kind of thing you can do in a month.
We are confused here too. Really could be any large enough group I suppose as long as it contains a lot of members living near the turbines.
I suspect because these data centers are usually placed in areas where land and labor are very cheap, which in some/many states are predominantly black(er) areas.
Really though, the USA has been chipping away at the ability for groups like these to show “standing” so its mildly impressive that this case got this far.
You need to have a "standing" to be even allowed to fight in court. The question was completely valid legal question - why they have the legal standing.
And watch them get charged with terrorism. Anti-nuke protestors who did no real harm were charged under 18 USC 1361 and faced up to 25 years in prison [1]. “Sabotage” here means over $1.000 in damage.
It's too bad that AI is only going to solve climate change and cure cancer, it would have been great if it could also cure asthma and solve rampant corruption.
Anyway, now that half of HN readers are SpaceX shareholder, directly or indirectly, how do we exercise the supreme power over the company, granted to us by capitalism, to ask the board to replace the turbines by another form of energy production in line with science ?
That half of HN readers will only have Class A stock which does not hold enough power to overcome Musk's Class B stock that he owns. But you don't need capitalism to ask the board to do something. You can ask Musk on X.
“Iranian schoolgirls are world famous for their feminist protests, hence this girl school is a high priority target to protect the world from wokeness”
> ORNL’s award-winning ultraclean condensing high-efficiency natural gas furnace features an affordable add-on technology that can remove more than 99.9% of acidic gases and other emissions. The technology can also be added to other natural gas-driven equipment.
Develop an AGR Acidic Gas Reduction add-on part for methane turbines?
Would (Solar Turbines,) consider selling an AGR emissions limiting product or add-on?
They don't care much about connecting it to the grid. They'll take whatever is available and cheaper. If gas turbine on trucks are somehow cheaper (reduced regulation, taxation, planning...) than grid, that'll stay as-is in the foreseeable future. Once you spent billions on turbines and gas contracts, you most likely won't connect to the grid overnight.
It IT there is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix.
That being said, why don’t utilities provide power when it is needed and make peopke wait for months or years on end? I don’t think it is cheaper to run on generators for months/years.
Its obviously a permanent fixture. And well, electricity by virtue of having been around for 100+ years as a mass market product has been utterly ossified, saddled with far too onerous regulations and taxes and is being driven by inflexible, uninterested practitioners.
Of course someone will go „its just energy“ and use almost free natural gas. In some places in the US a diesel generator with gas from the pump is likely cheaper too.
These self-made stories are total bs, most of them are nepo kids and their family's aristocratic, colonial-era wealth is repatriated to the US through startup investments.
Epstein files highlight that once you achieve intergenerational wealth there is a natural tendency to make your children legally immune so that your wealth can't be stolen. It's not only about achieving a diplomatic passport from some small nation as honorary consul in order to avoid a parking fee, but about placing your offspring in positions at five eyes intelligence agencies which makes them legally immune and gives them access to fake identities.
During cold war there was a national security need for extra-congressional operations in foreign countries and off-the-record budgets, which had to be managed by "someone" on a need-to-know basis.
My research indicates that many of the billionaires we see today are five eyes nepo kids. Their grandparents did great things for the country during WW2/cold war, many of them were researchers in national security context (Maxwell in electronics, Epstein in electronics/medicine/psychiatry, (van) Trump in radiology/agriculture/pathogens).
The work for five-eyes intelligence ties together the now-famous family names such as Maxwell, Epstein, (van) Trump, Thiel, Jarecki, Sweeney, Ellison, Lawrence, Graham, Fox, King, Richardson, and many others, as they pop up together in primary sources in the national security context since at least WW2.
There is a reason why they love middle names of "Baron", "Earl", and so on. They come from old-money aristocracy with the ability to change IDs at will.
As the article mentions under some circumstances trailer mounted generators are not considered stationary and that is the basis of the plaintiffs claim.
That is how mobile generators operate in 99% of situations. "Mobile" is referring to how the generator can be transported to different locations to be used where power is needed.
No, “mobile generators” are not constantly powered at one location.
Typically they are unused in storage and brought to location without power. It could be a warehouse with sensitive equipment (freezers etc), a hospital in need of extra power etc.
This is clearly a case of abuse and people should go to jail for wrecking the planet.
I work in the energy sector and I’ve done routine maintenance on backup generators, including work on the diesel engines.
The national security and defense arguments are fortunately the only things that protect any forward progress. Without DoD cover, every Starlink launch would be governed by the California Coastal Commission and friends. Frankly, living in the Bay Area, where people use anti-pollution laws to prevent student housing, I think I understand a little the law structure of the United States. It is perhaps analogous to the way Jewish people treat the halakha. The idea being that if you can find a way around the law, it is meant to be operated that way. So students are noise pollution, bike lanes need environmental impact reports while highways don't, solar power is polluting while gas isn't, endangered species genetically identical to common species are discovered when they would block dams, and 50 years of having a Nuclear Regulatory Commission means exactly one reactor approved by them built.
So there's outrage and all that, but this is the fundamental law of the USA: the law is the Word; and all bugs in it are features.
For the most part, I get why this helps the USA. But boy does it feel like there's going to be a reckoning one day.
Also the law is not static. Things can go back and forth. Out of phase with whatever trends in news cycles. Watch the Germans debating Nuclear phase out over 30 years.
The problem with large scale industry investments like nuclear power plants is that they don't follow easily whatever trends in news cycles. It takes years to build a nuclear power plant, but it takes just a single vote in the parliament to stop it. Or a referendum like in Austria.
So even through some German politicians are currently discussing nuclear phase-in, no investor will invest in nuclear power in Germany, because no investor could be sure that the next or over-next government with participation of German Greens would not again vote for nuclear phase-out.
As much I like some political ideas of German Greens, I understand that for the older generation of Greens, nuclear power is the prime evil which has to banished from face of the Earth and the reason for existence of the German Green party.
> resulting in a corresponding increase in three major air pollutants:
Sometimes I wonder how valuable it would be to go to vulnerable areas (ecologically or socio-economically) and record baseline pollution, noise, etc. readings, simply to give future residents some statistical ammunition against some New Thing ruins the old implicit standard of safety and comfort.
I guess the problem is you don't always know what to measure until it's nearly too late, such as if the problem is a new chemical that needs a particular test to measure, or noise that isn't about raw decibels but causes problems with particular frequencies and harmonics, etc.
SpaceX, the new Tesla... who saw that coming? :(
None. If this continues, the economy pivots to profits to the President.
Today they’ll be drinking monsters in their sweatpants, alone probably
I suspect because these data centers are usually placed in areas where land and labor are very cheap, which in some/many states are predominantly black(er) areas.
Really though, the USA has been chipping away at the ability for groups like these to show “standing” so its mildly impressive that this case got this far.
[1]: https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/11/20/...
Anyway, now that half of HN readers are SpaceX shareholder, directly or indirectly, how do we exercise the supreme power over the company, granted to us by capitalism, to ask the board to replace the turbines by another form of energy production in line with science ?
He'll only listen to you if you're a racist conspiracy theorist though.
That probably one of the reasons of such a glorious success there.
Shouldn't all methane-powered equipment have this AGR (or similar) new emission reduction technology?
From https://www.ornl.gov/news/add-device-makes-home-furnaces-cle... :
> ORNL’s award-winning ultraclean condensing high-efficiency natural gas furnace features an affordable add-on technology that can remove more than 99.9% of acidic gases and other emissions. The technology can also be added to other natural gas-driven equipment.
Develop an AGR Acidic Gas Reduction add-on part for methane turbines?
Would (Solar Turbines,) consider selling an AGR emissions limiting product or add-on?
ScholarlyArticle: "Nondestructive neutron imaging diagnosis of acidic gas reduction catalyst after 400-Hour operation in natural gas furnace" (2023) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13858...
FWIU basically no generators have a catalytic converter, because catalytic converters require computer-controlled fuel ignition.
There's also turquoise hydrogen; H Hydrogen from Methane CH4.
But then what do you do with the CO2?
Ironically, it looks like you have to add oxygen back to that to make it worth money:
Public link: Commercial Methane Pyrolysis Overview https://gemini.google.com/share/918e7883df8a :
> Because the economic model of pyrolysis requires selling the solid carbon byproduct, local carbon black prices dictate profitability
; per/kg:
> Carbon Black: $1.20 - $1.80
> o-CNTs: $150 - $300+
That being said, why don’t utilities provide power when it is needed and make peopke wait for months or years on end? I don’t think it is cheaper to run on generators for months/years.
Of course someone will go „its just energy“ and use almost free natural gas. In some places in the US a diesel generator with gas from the pump is likely cheaper too.
Epstein files highlight that once you achieve intergenerational wealth there is a natural tendency to make your children legally immune so that your wealth can't be stolen. It's not only about achieving a diplomatic passport from some small nation as honorary consul in order to avoid a parking fee, but about placing your offspring in positions at five eyes intelligence agencies which makes them legally immune and gives them access to fake identities.
During cold war there was a national security need for extra-congressional operations in foreign countries and off-the-record budgets, which had to be managed by "someone" on a need-to-know basis.
My research indicates that many of the billionaires we see today are five eyes nepo kids. Their grandparents did great things for the country during WW2/cold war, many of them were researchers in national security context (Maxwell in electronics, Epstein in electronics/medicine/psychiatry, (van) Trump in radiology/agriculture/pathogens).
The work for five-eyes intelligence ties together the now-famous family names such as Maxwell, Epstein, (van) Trump, Thiel, Jarecki, Sweeney, Ellison, Lawrence, Graham, Fox, King, Richardson, and many others, as they pop up together in primary sources in the national security context since at least WW2.
There is a reason why they love middle names of "Baron", "Earl", and so on. They come from old-money aristocracy with the ability to change IDs at will.
Typically they are unused in storage and brought to location without power. It could be a warehouse with sensitive equipment (freezers etc), a hospital in need of extra power etc.
This is clearly a case of abuse and people should go to jail for wrecking the planet.
I work in the energy sector and I’ve done routine maintenance on backup generators, including work on the diesel engines.
xAI temporarily has these generators at the location. It's not meant to be constantly be there.
They are normally used during power outages or during construction(days, not weeks).
So there's outrage and all that, but this is the fundamental law of the USA: the law is the Word; and all bugs in it are features.
For the most part, I get why this helps the USA. But boy does it feel like there's going to be a reckoning one day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
So even through some German politicians are currently discussing nuclear phase-in, no investor will invest in nuclear power in Germany, because no investor could be sure that the next or over-next government with participation of German Greens would not again vote for nuclear phase-out.
As much I like some political ideas of German Greens, I understand that for the older generation of Greens, nuclear power is the prime evil which has to banished from face of the Earth and the reason for existence of the German Green party.