South Memphis has become the place where the costs of the nation’s AI data center boom are being imposed on a community already disproportionately burdened by environmental pollution.
Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI Colossus data centers aren’t simply conventional data centers. Their first–Colossus 1–which sits 3 miles from the front door of my wife and me is a colossal AI-computing operation that now requires over 300 Megawatts of power to operate and millions of gallons of fresh drinking water to cool. Add the power required to operate Space XAI’s three additional data centers MACROHARD, MACROHARDER, and MINIHARD and that number rises to 2 gigawatts of power—enough to power 1 million homes. The adverse environmental impacts are compounded by the use of additional gas
turbines operating in violation of the Clean Air Act.
The Southern Environmental Law Center estimates that the nearby SpaceXAI Southaven, Mississippi power plant alone could emit over 1,700 tons of nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, and dangerous fine particulate matter into the air. These pollutants are also associated with increased cases of asthma, respiratory illnesses, heart problems, and cancer.
According to the National Institutes of Health, Memphis already has an unusually high burden of childhood respiratory illness. I have too many constituents developing asthma, have asthma attacks, or are taking children to the Emergency Room to not continue to fight for their lives over the profit of industry.
SpaceXAI is adding major new sources of pollution to communities that are already overburdened. South Memphis residents are being asked to bear the toxic effects of an industry whose economic benefits accrue elsewhere. It needs to stop. We need a moratorium on developing new AI data centers in industrial and non-industrial areas of Memphis until regulations exist to protect our health, environment, and workforce.
I support our Memphis City Council’s efforts to pause any new construction on AI data centers until the effects of current and proposed facilities and possible safeguards can be studied.
This proposed moratoriumisn’t without precedent. Other communities in Tennessee are already protecting their constituents. The city of McMinnville and Coffee, Warren and Knox counties are similarly passing or proposing moratoria on data centers after listening to their constituents. Memphis should do the same.
The Memphis Mayor is proposing a new Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) rate class for energy-sucking AI data centers to protect ordinary ratepayers from subsidizing them. While this would be necessary if the data centers were allowed in, it assumes that our community voices and the democratic process can’t stop them from coming first.
Let me be clear: We can stop them. A moratorium is imperative for the health of our families and communities. Memphis residents get to decide what kind of economic development we will accept. We will be the ones to bear the costs or reap the benefits, so we should decide which innovations will benefit and protect us.
Don’t believe those who say our choice is between accepting the harm from AI data centers and doing nothing. A moratorium doesn’t reject economic development. It simply gives us time and a voice to decide what that economic development’s costs, benefits, and regulations must look like for us.
I encourage everyone who cares about clean air, clean water and protecting our health and future to attend the Memphis City Council meeting Tuesday, August 18th at 3 p.m. to let our city leaders know that we want to pause data center development immediately until we know more and can pass regulations to protect our families.
Justin J. Pearson is a Tennessee state representative in District 58 who is the Democratic nominee running for the District 9 congressional seat.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: State Rep. Pearson: We need a data center moratorium now | Opinion
