Silicon Valley’s dangerous game of “Go Fast and Break Things” comes to South Memphis.

In South Memphis, the air tells a story. It’s a story of extraction, exploitation, and environmental harm—a story that’s been told generation after generation, written not by the people who live there, but by the powerful who benefit while they suffer. Pollution from fossil energy has plagued South Memphis for decades: the coal-fired Allen steam plant, the Valero oil refinery, the Allen gas plants, and the Southaven gas plant—different names, same story: pollution from fossil energy without accountability.

Now, under the shadow of an unaccountable monopoly, billionaire moguls and trillion-dollar ambitions, the local communities are expected to bear yet more new burdens – a new polluting methane gas plant project, proposed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) at the Allen gas plant and a high-tech, high energy consumption data center owned by Elon Musk’s xAI. But there’s something even more alarming: xAI is being given a pass on important environmental health safeguards to power its servers with inefficient, polluting portable methane gas turbines – amounting to what could be the largest source of dangerous nitrogen oxides pollution in the entire county, even ahead of the Memphis airport – while regulatory agencies look the other way and community health hangs in the balance.

The Allen Plant and xAI’s Pidgeon Industrial Park facility are located near each other in the industrial zone of Southwest Memphis. The communities adjacent to the old Allen Fossil Plant have lived with the consequences of industrial pollution for decades. From coal ash contamination to toxic air, these neighborhoods have become sacrifice zones – places where the health and lives of predominantly Black and Brown residents are treated as expendable by those in power.

How the hell did they get a waiver?

That’s the question every Memphian should be asking. Most companies couldn’t operate a facility without power infrastructure in place and an approved site plan. But somehow, a billionaire’s go-fast vanity project is being allowed to do just that.

According to public reports, xAI’s Colossus supercomputer already operates 200,000 Graphic Processing Units (GPUs), with plans to scale up to over one million, making it one of the most powerful and energy-intensive systems in the world. That kind of computing scale demands massive energy and water use. Serving this large of an electrical load takes infrastructure, some of which, like power substations, has yet to be built. 

In Memphis and Shelby County, commercial and industrial facilities are generally required to obtain a Certificate of Use and Occupancy before beginning operations. This certificate ensures that a building complies with zoning, building, fire, and health codes. Operating a new business facility without it would raise serious legal and regulatory concerns.

Records show that CTC Property LLC, an affiliate of xAI, filed for a certificate of occupancy at the Riverport site (3231 Paul R. Lowry Road) in July 2024. At that time, a portion of xAI’s power needs were available at the facility, but a majority was not. So instead, xAI decided that the solution to not having enough power available to run their operation at the desired scale was to bring in dirty, inefficient, pollution-spewing portable turbines, while additional electrical infrastructure could be built. Why wait for the infrastructure when you can pollute now and apologize never? 

Despite the potential health and environmental risks, xAI was given an air quality permit waiver for their first year of operation, allowing them to run polluting methane gas-burning turbines, unpermitted and unregulated, in a residential-adjacent area that has already endured decades of environmental harm. The project timeline only deepens the concerns, some of which we at SACE have raised before, about xAI’s bait-and-switch tactics that leave communities voiceless and exposed before the permit process even plays out.

xAI brags in their own materials that their construction process for the facility goes “further, faster” and at an “unprecedented scale.” “We were told it would take 24 months to build. So we took the project into our own hands, questioned everything, removed whatever was unnecessary, and accomplished our goal in four months […] We doubled our compute at an unprecedented rate, […] and no one has come close to building at this magnitude and speed.”

What they’re not saying is that questioning “everything” and removing whatever was “unnecessary” meant cutting corners and exploiting loopholes to advance Elon Musk’s own personal pet project. It meant connecting horribly polluting and inefficient power sources rather than getting grid power infrastructure in place properly like any other business would be required to do, and taking advantage of their temporary waiver to become perhaps the biggest nitrogen oxide polluter in the county.

The clock is running out on xAI’s one-year permit exemption, and instead of winding down, they’re asking Shelby County to greenlight long-term methane gas burning in a community that’s already borne the brunt of industrial pollution. It’s corporate privilege at its dirtiest, and Memphis shouldn’t pay the price. 

Not Temporary. Not Small. Possibly Illegal.

It turns out the situation is even worse than we thought. According to a recent letter from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and Memphis-based community groups, xAI isn’t just operating a few portable turbines while they wait for infrastructure—they’ve installed 35 of them, adding up to a power capacity of 421 megawatts—enough to rival a TVA power plant—all without proper permits. Many of the turbines currently on site are designed for temporary use in off-grid or natural disaster situations, clearly not how xAI is operating them.

The groups’ analysis shows that the turbines at xAI’s facility are collectively capable of emitting an estimated 1,200 to 2,100 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) every year—more than any other industrial source in Shelby County by a long shot. These pollutants aren’t just numbers on a chart. NOx contributes to smog, which triggers asthma attacks and other respiratory problems, especially dangerous in a city that already ranks high as an asthma capital.

It doesn’t stop there. xAI may also be exceeding the legal threshold for formaldehyde, a hazardous air pollutant that’s carcinogenic even in small amounts. They’re doing this with no oversight of their pollution, no apparent emissions monitoring, and no transparency. Just 35 turbines quietly installed, hidden from public view, in a community that’s already carried more than its fair share of pollution.

These are not minor violations. These appear to be blatant violations of the Clean Air Act and basic principles of environmental justice.

submit your comment

attend public hearing

Let’s be clear: this isn’t some “bureaucratic oversight.” xAI is operating what SELC calls “likely the largest source of industrial air pollution in Memphis” — with no enforceable permit, no oversight of their pollution, and no accountability. That’s not just reckless. That appears to be illegal. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been silent, and the Shelby County Health Department is considering granting them permission to keep going.

We’ve seen this before: billion-dollar corporations descending on under-resourced communities with promises of progress and jobs, sometimes lured by multimillion-dollar tax incentives, only to leave behind contamination, poor health outcomes, and stolen futures. And when times change, the subsidies dry up or the profits slow, they often pack up and leave, abandoning communities to deal with the toxic aftermath and economic fallout alone. 

xAI, founded by a man who once claimed he could save the world with solar, is now polluting the local community by burning methane gas while disregarding public health and community voices. This isn’t as much about the new frontier of technological advancement or AI as it is about power – who has it, who profits from it, and who gets poisoned for it.

This fight isn’t just about a methane gas plant or xAI. It’s about people. It’s about legacy. It’s about the right to breathe clean air, to drink clean water, and to live with dignity. It’s about ending the cycle that has allowed Memphis, especially Southwest Memphis, to become a dumping ground for projects no wealthy suburb would ever allow.

We know fighting billionaires and oligarchs is hard. They have money, lawyers, and media machines. But we have something they don’t: truth, community, and righteous rage. And we’re not alone.

Memphis is pushing back. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy stands in solidarity with grassroots organizations like Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP), Young Gifted and Green, Protect Our Aquifer, and Sowing Justice who are on the front lines—organizing, educating, and mobilizing to hold polluters accountable, defend frontline communities, and protect Memphis’s most vital resources. From air to water, they’ve been ringing the alarm, knocking on doors, speaking truth at city and county meetings, and refusing to be silenced.

What You Can Do

Public Hearing – Friday, April 25, 2025

Time: 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Location: Fairley High School Auditorium, 4950 Fairley Road, Memphis, TN 38109

Hosted by the Shelby County Health Department’s Pollution Control Branch, this hearing will address xAI (a.k.a. CTC Property LLC)’s air pollution permit application for long-term operation of methane gas turbines at 3231 Paul R. Lowry Road. This is your chance to demand accountability. Ask the County to deny xAI’s air pollution permits and ask why unpermitted and possibly illegal turbines have been allowed to be installed and operate over the course of the last year. Ask why proper infrastructure wasn’t required before occupancy. Ask why billionaires get a free pass while Memphians pay the price.

Submit Written Comments by April 30

Can’t make it in person? You can still speak out. Submit your written comment to the Shelby County Health Department before the close of the comment period on April 30. (Submit Comments Here)

TVA Public Comment Period – Closes April 28

TVA is still accepting comments on its plan to install six additional methane gas turbines at the Allen Plant. These aren’t low-impact machines – they’re aeroderivative turbines, modeled after jet engines, and they will add more air pollution, noise, and stress to an already overburdened community. Tell TVA to stop greenwashing fossil fuel expansion and start investing in clean, community-centered alternatives like solar, battery storage, and energy efficiency, which would reduce emissions, protect health, and save Memphians money in the long run.

Instead of choosing a future-forward solution, TVA is dragging Memphis deeper into fossil fuel dependence, without transparency or meaningful community input. That’s not just shortsighted. It’s harmful.

submit your comment

We need every neighbor, advocate, and ally to show up. Ask questions. Demand better. Stand with Southwest Memphis.

Write your comment. Attend the public hearing. Speak your truth. Because environmental justice isn’t a slogan—it’s a lifeline.

Stopping the new methane gas turbines at the Allen Plant won’t erase decades of injustice, and neither will stopping xAI’s polluting shortcut to power. But they’re a step toward change—real, lasting, people-centered change.

Show up. Speak out. Stand firm. Memphis deserves better.