xAI’s Grok chatbot is powered by unpermitted gas turbines at a Mississippi power plant. Here's how we know.
09.03.2026 21:02
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xAI’s Grok chatbot is powered by unpermitted gas turbines at a Mississippi power plant. Here's how we know.
Please join us in welcoming Deneen Wiske, who joins Floodlight today as our first deputy executive director!
Since everyone's discussing oil prices tonight, did you know half of US crude oil exports pass through a single town of 614 people in South Texas?
I spent three years documenting the tragedy of Ingleside on the Bay for @thexylom.com @floodlightnews.org @drilledmedia.bsky.social @deceleration.news:
Along the Gulf Coast, shrimpers are losing their catch, wetlands are vanishing, and communities are choking on pollution as Trump’s second term supercharges the LNG boom. “For us, it’s about continuing to exist.”
Unpermitted gas turbines are running at a Mississippi power plant built to supply electricity to the data center behind xAI’s Grok chatbot.
In our new mini-documentary, thermal drone imagery captures the turbines in operation:
Corn covers 90 million acres in the U.S. and ends up in everything from livestock feed to gasoline.
But the way we grow it is warming the planet and contaminating drinking water.
In a first-of-its-kind investigation, Floodlight used a thermal drone to prove that Elon Musk's AI company is flouting EPA rules. Reporter Evan Simon explains how it took shape — from getting his drone piloting license to how a bad storm nearly ruined our plans.
Louisiana is racing to become a hub for “blue ammonia,” sold as a climate solution. But in Cancer Alley — already one of the most polluted regions in the U.S. — permit documents show the projects would still release thousands of tons of air pollution each year, raising alarms for nearby communities.
You may have read Evan's groundbreaking investigation into Elon Musk's AI power plant last month. Now we've released a 12-minute mini-doc that dives deep into how the plant is affecting local residents — and what happened in Southaven following our initial report.
Wondering how exactly we used a thermal drone to investigate xAI’s power plant? Reporter Evan Simon explains how this first-of-its-kind investigation came together:
Floodlight is thrilled to announce that Deneen Wiske will serve as our deputy executive director! 🎉
Wiske joins the leadership team as a senior strategic partner, where she will guide the organization’s growth and strengthen the systems that sustain Floodlight’s investigative reporting.
xAI’s Grok chatbot is powered by unpermitted gas turbines at a Mississippi power plant. Here's how we know.
Video: We caught Elon Musk's AI company flouting EPA rules using a thermal drone
🗞️ floodlightnews.org/video-we-cau...
Inside the reporting: Using a thermal drone to investigate xAI’s power plant
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“I never expected that relocation was going to happen in my lifetime. Now that it has happened, it’s not a celebration.”
After a federally funded move inland, Indigenous residents of Isle de Jean Charles say their new homes are already falling apart.
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Along Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, residents say new ammonia and fertilizer projects could add pollution to communities already facing some of the highest industrial health risks in the U.S.
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is using unpermitted gas turbines to power the data center behind Grok. Thermal drone footage captured by Floodlight shows the turbines running at a custom-built power plant in Southaven, Mississippi:
Food waste is responsible for as much as 10% of global emissions — about five times the pollution from the entire aviation industry.
In the United States alone, roughly a third of all food produced is thrown away each year.
Along Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, residents say new ammonia and fertilizer projects could add pollution to communities already facing some of the highest industrial health risks in the U.S.
Thermal images captured by Floodlight and analyzed by multiple experts show more than a dozen unpermitted gas turbines operating at a power plant supplying Elon Musk’s AI operations — nearly two weeks after the EPA issued a ruling requiring the equipment to shut down.
If the cement industry were a country, it would be the world’s fifth-largest carbon polluter — emitting more CO₂ than most nations.
We rented a thermal drone to look at Musk’s AI power plant. Here's what we found.
The Alaskan village of Kipnuk sits on melting permafrost. When the EPA awarded $20M to protect it from erosion, residents breathed a sigh of relief.
But then the grant was canceled, and now the village’s future is in doubt.
‘A different set of rules’: thermal drone footage shows Musk’s AI power plant flouting clean air regulations www.theguardian.com/environment/...
#environment #pollution #climate #datacenters
Clean energy promises lower bills and more reliable power. But what happens when solar panels won’t fit on crumbling roofs? Or when old wiring can’t support new heat pumps?
That’s the reality in many formerly redlined communities, Floodlight found:
In one rural Arizona county, the ground has sunk four feet.
The reason?
Saudi-owned farms and investors are draining groundwater to grow cattle feed — and the state still has no limits on how much they can pump.
