Yesterday, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Permit Board (MDEQ) unanimously granted xAI a permit for an expanded power plant in Southaven, Mississippi. The plant will be powered by 41 natural gas turbines.
Some of those turbines are already in place, with questions surrounding their legality now finalized.
The way in which MDEQ went about this process has left many local — and national — critics of xAI unhappy, as Kailynn Johnson writes for The Memphis Flyer:
The board’s decision to hold the meeting on Election Day, and five days after the hearing was announced, has been condemned by local and national groups.
The Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and the national NAACP sent an open letter to MDEQ to immediately reschedule the public hearing for the following week, and requested a response by Monday.
The organization criticized MDEQ’s decision to issue their responses to public comments on Saturday, March 7, as well as for holding the hearing “nearly three driving hours from the site of the facility.”
Lora Kolodny, CNBC:
The MDEQ denied the request on Monday, writing in a response to the NAACP that its permit board “regularly meets on the second Tuesday of each month, which has been the standard practice for decades,” and that the regulator, “considers matters on a statewide basis.” A copy of the letter was shared with CNBC.
[…]
Following the MDEQ’s response on Monday, the NAACP said in a statement that by having the hearing the morning of Election Day, three hours away from the community, “their actions speak volumes.”
“They’re trying to sneak xAI’s data center into the community’s backyard and they don’t care about the people living there,” the letter said.
Despite the MDEQ’s insistence about the meeting itself, the results of that meeting are what really impact people living in south Memphis and north Mississippi.
Samuel Hardiman, The Daily Memphian:
The approval of xAI’s long-term plans for a power plant means a substantial amount of smog-causing chemicals could be added to the Memphis metropolitan area’s air.
According to the draft permit, xAI could emit 423 tons of nitrogen oxides, a smog-causing chemical, each year. That’s about the same as the two area Tennessee Valley Authority natural gas plants — Allen Combined Cycle and Southaven — combined.
