Came here to also question this. “To the naked eye the pollution is not visible.” Is that because we’re just looking at heat in an IR camera? I know everybody hates Elon Musk but we also hate misinformation and love truth, right? I mean, cuz we’re the good guys… riiiight?
Comment on xAI Data Center Emits Plumes of Pollution, New Video Shows
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
The linked video is a bit unclear to me. The don’t explain the modes well. Mostly it seems to just show heat. According to the description it’s a Teledyne FLIR G620, which should be able to detect Methane and other VOCs. But it’s not clear to me how we are supposed to distinguish hot rising CO2 and H2O from any potentially leaking Methane, in those pictures.
Video in question www.youtube.com/watch?v=4prazMVylRs
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 5 days ago
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Yea ngl that was my first question. This really does seem like it’s either grouping them together, or purely heat.
MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
That’s what I’m wondering as well, how do we differentiate cooling towers and the heat from those vs actual exhaust emissions…
bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 5 days ago
It really does just look like heat dissipation from rooftop heat exchangers, not gasses out of an exhaust. I’m sure that building uses (and wastes) an ungodly amount of power, but I’d imagine it’s grid-tied, and therefore any noxious gases are being generated elsewhere (with the exception of on-site backup generators).
I’m all for telling AI to fuck off, but let’s at least have the facts straight.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 5 days ago
They do actually burn gas locally, I wasn’t trying to dispute that part. It has become a political discussion in Memphis. Apparently they wanted to start operations on turbines before the grid access was ready.
WanderingCat@lemm.ee 5 days ago
I don’t know if they got the substation built, but last year they weren’t able to get enough power from the grid, so installed 7kw worth of generators to cover their needs
datacenterdynamics.com/…/elon-musks-xai-data-cent…