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DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

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Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#71

Post by thisisit »

Terr_ wrote: post #2

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 im…

It is no longer about making good faith claims in court. It is all about RW media dog and pony show. They can make provably false claims in the RW media with - "Do you want China to overtake US in this race?" and still garner support. And even if they lose they can paint the judge as leftist etc. so they have stopped bothering with even trying.

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#72

Post by [deleted] »

stymaar wrote: post #61
trhway wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd not be surprised if SpaceX/Elon will start manufacturing those turbines. They do have necessary engineering and manufacturing chops.

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.

[deleted]

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#73

Post by Gud »

charcircuit wrote: post #68
Gud wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how long is “temporary”? They are normally used during power outages or during construction(days, not weeks).

That is knowledge internal to xAI.

So you’re only guessing it’s temporary then.

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#74

Post by Terr_ »

b800h wrote: post #27

Sorry, Brit here, I'm confused. Why is the plaintiff here the NAACP?

IANAL, but:

1. It seems the plaintiff is the Southern Environmental Law Center, which makes a lot more sense when the issue is violations of environmental law. The NAACP is supporting, and I can imagine that there are some consistent overlaps between what the two groups are concerned with, given that where people pollute in the south correlates to where certain ethnicities can afford (or were allowed) to buy property and live.

2. Certain laws (in this case probably the Clean Air Act) creates a category of "citizen suits", or "private right of action". While that doesn't totally eliminate "I am harmed" standing, it does means you don't need to "the one whose laws were harmed." In other words, it means you can sue for a violation of federal law instead of being stuck waiting for the federal Department of Justice to care.

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#75

Post by metalman »

there is NO excess grid capacity or excess production capacity for alternative power generation that does not need permiting and enviromental studies.The one company that makes fuel cells that can power data centers is 100% booked, and debating if the long expensive process of doubling production will find a market in 3~5 years. Solar and batteries needs multiple review and perming processes, but for "temporary" power needs the process is almost guaranteed, and with the fix in from DOJ ,they can give a shoot to kill order to protect the countrys vital assets. Personaly I beleive that AI/big data will do nothing but blow hot air anyway,and it sucks for people who have these things close by, but all they can do is move, which might suck even more. The only things that would provide significant noise reduction would be earth berms a lot higher than the turbines that could block and reflect the sound upwards, the berms would have to be continious with no breaks, and possibly "helmholtz resonators/tuned resinators" built from modified shipping cans embeded in the berms to reduce SPL at the worst frequencies. Courts could order remediation efforts to sound proof affected resedents with tripple glazed windows, and other full acoustical sealing methods , and perhaps subsidised air conditioning for the heat, as it's not like they dont have 1.5 trillion dollars laying around.

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#76

Post by ffsm8 »

thisisit wrote: post #71
Terr_ wrote: post #2

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 im…

It is no longer about making good faith claims in court. It is all about RW media dog and pony show. They can make provably false claims in the RW media with - "Do you want China to overtake US in this race?" and still garner support. And even if they lose they can paint the judge as leftist etc. so they have stopped bothering with even trying.

Your focus on "RW" is misguided. The "LW" constantly lie and gaslight too.

You probably just don't take offense there because it more closely aligns with your personal world view - or you dismiss it as the ramblings of a madman, without realizing that you aren't doing the same for "RW".

It's a sad reality we live in. And it's the same in my country (not American), albeit not as extreme as it is in the US right now.

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#77

Post by finnthehuman »

bob1029 wrote: post #70

I can assure HN that they want to be on the grid as quickly as possible. Burning half a million dollars per day in single cycle turbines will eventually cause trouble for accounting. Running on exactly one kind of fuel is also a bit risky for a few reasons. The grid offers a significantly more diverse fuel mix. It might occasionally be more expensive, but it is also much more reliable. The grid also offers significan…

>I can assure HN that they want to be on the grid as quickly as possible.

In a conversation about negative externalities, I don't see the purpose of such a statement. If everything else were equal, nobody would choose negative externalizes just for the fun of it.

Furthermore, a company 'wanting' something is only loosely correlated with the internal political will and resource allocation to achieving it. And says nothing about whether that internal effort is appropriately scaled to the external complexity of the task.

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#78

Post by bcraven »

charcircuit wrote: post #60
Gud wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, in…

>No, “mobile generators” are not constantly powered at one location. xAI temporarily has these generators at the location. It's not meant to be constantly be there.

That have been there since Sep 2024

https://naturalgasintel.com/news/data-centers-going-off-grid...

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#79

Post by agnosticmantis »

bob1029 wrote: post #70

I can assure HN that they want to be on the grid as quickly as possible. Burning half a million dollars per day in single cycle turbines will eventually cause trouble for accounting. Running on exactly one kind of fuel is also a bit risky for a few reasons. The grid offers a significantly more diverse fuel mix. It might occasionally be more expensive, but it is also much more reliable. The grid also offers significan…

> ... will eventually cause trouble for accounting.

Accounting has never been a concern in a Musk company or to his shareholders, as is evident from SpaceX IPO. People invest in him because he can make "number go up" regardless of profit and loss.

He's not running conventional profitable businesses, but ponzi-esque growth stories that keep ballooning to no ends without ever reaching a climax.

Nobody cares today what he promised 5 years ago (e.g. Tesla owners making $35k/yr passive income from their cars robotaxi'ing) because they're looking at what he's promising for the next 5 years (probably humanoid robots on Mars with an infinite TAM).

Re: DOJ claims xAI's gas turbines are a matter of 'national and energy security'

#80

Post by phtrivier »

stymaar wrote: post #64
charcircuit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You can ask Musk on X. He'll only listen to you if you're a racist conspiracy theorist though.

The first person who builds a successful meme around "fossil fuels are woke and for weak men, only solar-nuclear-punk is for real american machos" will have a vastly positive contribution to the world.
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