On-site gas at AI campuses, checked from orbit and from plant records

At Colossus 2, the turbines are burning gas

Nitrogen dioxide over the Southaven turbine yard, net of the rural background, is about 4.4× last summer’s level. Gas booked on the pipeline implies roughly 760–1,030 MW of IT power draw (scheduled, not metered). And Mississippi’s environmental regulator (MDEQ) wrote in a July 2026 agreed order that the temporary turbines operate at the site.

Gas booked on the pipeline

Texas Gas Transmission's public postings show how much gas is booked each day for delivery to MZX Tech, the xAI company that runs the Southaven turbines. The record opens on July 23, 2026 at 180,000 dekatherms a day. Bookings averaged about 223,400 a day in September: enough gas for roughly 810–980 MW of turbine output, or about 600–820 MW of IT power draw once cooling and losses are taken out. Oct 1–13: xAI's operator booked zero gas on the pipeline for 13 straight days; that is in the pipeline's own daily postings, not missing data. Bookings restarted Oct 14 at a new meter. Satellite NO2 over the site did not drop in those days, so the turbines may have run on fuel from another source, or the NO2 came from other plants in the area (TVA's Southaven plant sits in the same box). The public records can't settle which. From Oct. 15 to Oct. 22 they averaged about 281,600 a day, or 760–1,030 MW of IT power draw, with a high of 307,709 on Oct. 22.

Since Oct. 14, bookings have been above MZX's firm pipeline contracts (193,200 a day as of Oct 1, 2026), so the extra rides on interruptible service or newer contracts; the postings do not say which. These are booked (scheduled) quantities, not metered flow: the pipeline does not publish what was actually burned. The conversion assumes a heat rate of 9,500–11,500 Btu per kWh and a PUE of 1.2–1.35.