All posts tagged: air pollution

Musk’s xAI is running nearly 50 gas turbines unchecked at its Mississippi data center

Musk’s xAI is running nearly 50 gas turbines unchecked at its Mississippi data center

Published by skeptic

Elon Musk’s xAI is running nearly 50 natural gas turbines at its Mississippi data center, power plants that the state is currently not regulating thanks to a loophole. The power plants are considered “mobile” by the state of Mississippi because they are sitting on flatbed trailers, thus allowing them to dodge to air pollution regulations for one year. The NAACP, which has filed a lawsuit on behalf of residents in the area, says the unchecked emissions from the turbines is worsening air quality in an already polluted region. This week, it asked the court for an injunction against xAI. At issue is the “mobile” nature of the turbines. The Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the NAACP, says the turbines are being operated in violation of federal law, which says that power plants mounted on a trailer can still be considered stationary and subject to air pollution regulations. XAI has been granted permits for 15 of its turbines. A Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce press release previously said that “about …

Rivian rolls out ‘Hey Rivian’ AI assistant with full vehicle control

Rivian rolls out ‘Hey Rivian’ AI assistant with full vehicle control

Published by skeptic

Rivian is rolling out its new AI-powered voice assistant to all Gen 1 and Gen 2 R1 owners as part of its latest over-the-air software update. The feature, activated by saying “Hey Rivian” or holding the left steering wheel button, requires an active Connect+ subscription. The assistant is notable because it can actually control your vehicle’s core functions — something that Tesla’s competing Grok assistant still cannot do months after its own launch. Built on Rivian Unified Intelligence Rivian Assistant is built on what the company calls “Rivian Unified Intelligence,” a multi-modal AI framework that integrates custom large language models with an orchestration layer designed to understand both the vehicle’s systems and the driver’s personal context. The company first previewed the technology at its AI and Autonomy Day in December 2025, where it also revealed an in-house silicon chip and Level 4 self-driving ambitions. The assistant is now the first consumer-facing product of that AI push. Advertisement – scroll for more content Unlike phone-mirroring voice systems like Apple CarPlay’s Siri or Android Auto’s Google Assistant, …

Cancer-causing chemical found to be leaking from gas cookers

Cancer-causing chemical found to be leaking from gas cookers

Published by skeptic

Gas burners can leak pollutants into homes Maria Kray/Shutterstock Many people in Europe may be exposed to dangerous chemicals as a result of slow leaks from gas cookers or ovens. Nearly 10 per cent of homes tested in the UK, Netherlands and Italy had leaks large enough to exceed exposure limits for the cancer-causing chemical benzene. “It’s akin to living with a smoker,” says Drew Michanowicz at the research institute PSE Healthy Energy in Oakland, California. “Secondhand smoke creates a similar level of benzene indoors.” Besides methane, natural gas can contain many volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some are known to be harmful, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and hexane. Benzene is the main concern as it can trigger cancers, especially leukaemia, suppress the immune system and cause anaemia and excessive bleeding. Previous studies have found high levels of benzene in natural gas from the North Sea and the Netherlands, but it hasn’t been clear what levels people are exposed to. So Michanowicz’s team first collected samples of gas from cookers in 72 homes in the …

Why is black rain falling on Iran and how dangerous is it?

Why is black rain falling on Iran and how dangerous is it?

Published by skeptic

Black smoke rises after fires broke out following US-Israel attacks targeting oil storage facilities in Tehran, Iran, on 8 March Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images The skies in northern Iran were dark with smoke on 8 March as the US and Israeli bombing campaign against the country continued, and black rain even fell on the capital Tehran. The catastrophic scenes have raised concerns about threats to civilian health in Iran and other countries. What happened? Overnight on 7 and 8 March, US-Israeli strikes hit Iran’s oil facilities for the first time since the war started a little over a week ago, igniting large fires in four oil storage facilities and an oil transfer centre in Tehran and the nearby Alborz province. Flames loomed over Tehran in the night, and black smoke billowed over the city during the day. Soot covered the streets and cars and filled up people’s balconies. Most alarmingly, thick black raindrops fell onto roofs and streets in the capital, which until recently was experiencing a long drought. The authorities warned of acid …

Methane surge in 2020 was linked to lower pollution during lockdowns

Methane surge in 2020 was linked to lower pollution during lockdowns

Published by skeptic

Lockdowns in 2020 led to lower emissions of nitrogen oxides from transport Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images A drop in pollution during the covid lockdowns changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, driving a surge in methane levels that has concerning implications for future global warming. Methane lasts only about a decade in the atmosphere but heats Earth far more than CO2. Its concentrations have been increasing since the 1980s, initially due mostly to venting and leaks during fossil fuel production. In the past two decades, these emissions have been compounded by a rise in microbes decomposing organic material in wetlands, agriculture and landfills. In 2020-2022, the increase in atmospheric methane unexpectedly surged from about 20 million tonnes per year to about 40 million tonnes per year, before returning to about 20 million in 2023. New research suggests the main reason is that covid lockdowns reduced emissions from sectors like transportation, aviation and shipping, including emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx). These compounds catalyse reactions in the atmosphere that produce hydroxyl radicals (OH), which break down …

Forever chemical TFA has tripled due to ozone-preserving refrigerants

Forever chemical TFA has tripled due to ozone-preserving refrigerants

Published by skeptic

Trifluoroacetic acid can be found in surface water Silicon Quantum Computing Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a potentially toxic “forever chemical”, has more than tripled in the global environment in two decades due to refrigerants that are helping to close the hole in the ozone layer. The amount of TFA falling out of the atmosphere via wind and rain has risen from 6800 tonnes per year in 2000 to 21,800 tonnes in 2022. Although that is below known safe thresholds, TFA’s effects on human health haven’t been studied in detail and its accumulation in the environment is expected to accelerate. TFA caused eye deformities in most of the rabbit fetuses exposed to it in one trial. The European Union has classified it as harmful to aquatic life and is considering whether to deem it toxic to human reproduction. “It is shocking that we’re emitting large amounts of a chemical into the environment that we have a very poor understanding of its impacts, and it’s irreversible basically,” says Lucy Hart at Lancaster University, UK, who led the new …

Ants attack their nest-mates because pollution changes their smell

Ants attack their nest-mates because pollution changes their smell

Published by skeptic

Harvester ants attack nest-mates whose scent they don’t recognise JorgeOrtiz_1976/Shutters​tock Common air pollutants like ozone and nitric oxide can change the way ants smell, prompting their nest-mates to attack them as if they were intruders. Ants recognise their comrades by scent, and when they encounter an ant whose smell they don’t recognise, they respond aggressively, biting and sometimes killing the trespasser. But ozone, a greenhouse gas produced by cars and industrial activities, can break down the structure of alkenes, chemicals that make up part of the colony-specific scents. Markus Knaden at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and his colleagues knew from previous work that ozone-induced changes in alkenes can impair the way insects communicate with each other. They witnessed fruit flies mate with the wrong species and pollinators such as tobacco hawkmoths lose interest in flowers if their scent had been altered by ozone. To test the impact on ants, Knaden and his colleagues set up artificial colonies of six ant species. They removed one individual ant from each and …

The EPA turns its back on the Earth and on public health

The EPA turns its back on the Earth and on public health

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Every year on Tu Bishvat, Jewish communities celebrate a new year for the trees and rededicate themselves to the work of being caretakers for the planet that sustains us. The holiday, which we will mark this year from Feb. 1-2, is typically celebrated by hosting a Tu Bishvat seder, or festive meal, in which we enjoy various tree fruits and nuts. The holiday is also an opportunity to honor our relationship to the natural world — our place alongside the air, water, food and ecosystems that sustain all life, physically and spiritually.  This year, the Trump administration is threatening that relationship like never before. The Environmental Protection Agency, led by its first-ever Jewish administrator, Lee Zeldin, is planning to repeal a landmark determination that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. The Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, issued in 2009, has been upheld by every administration since and forms the legal basis for the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases.  The decision to repeal it has no scientific rationale. It is …

Air pollution linked to an increased risk of developing ALS, study finds

Air pollution linked to an increased risk of developing ALS, study finds

Published by Jenni Sidey

A recent large study conducted in Sweden has found that long-term exposure to elevated levels of air pollution may increase the risk for the development of motor neuron disease (MND), as well as potentially increasing the rate of progression after diagnosis of MND. This research was led by Karolinska Institutet scientists and published in the journal JAMA Neurology. The team of researchers at Karolinska Institutet included scientists from the Institute of Environmental Medicine, along with the Department of Clinical Neuroscience. The senior investigators on this project include Caroline Ingre, who serves as an adjunct professor in clinical neuroscience, and Jing Wu, who is a researcher in environmental medicine. To assess how day-to-day air pollution affects rare neurological diseases, they used a combination of national health records and national population-based studies. Jing Wu states, “There is a clear correlation between air pollution and MND, although Sweden has lower levels of air pollution than most countries.” This highlights the importance of providing cleaner air. Long-Term Exposure to Air Pollution and the Risk of Motor Neuron Disease. (CREDIT: …

Musk’s xAI is running nearly 50 gas turbines unchecked at its Mississippi data center

EPA rules that xAI’s natural gas generators were illegally used

Published by skeptic

Elon Musk’s xAI has been illegally operating dozens of natural gas turbines to power its Colossus data centers in Tennessee, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled Thursday. The AI company has argued that because the turbines were being used on a temporary basis, they were exempt from regulations. The EPA disagreed and issued its final rule on the matter, which has been in the works for over a year, declaring that xAI was in violation. The power plants drew the ire of local communities and legal organizations. The company was facing a lawsuit for contributing more ozone and particulate emissions in an already polluted region. The company was operating as many as 35 turbines, and only 15 were ultimately permitted. Today, xAI has 12 turbines providing power to its data centers there. Source link