Don’t Have Permits to Run Your Data Center Generators? No Problem, Just Run Them Anyway

One of the largest single AI data center projects under construction on the East Coast has effectively been powering itself entirely illegally for months now, according to a new investigatory piece from nonprofit climate reporters at Floodlight and The Guardian. Thermal-sensing drone flights illustrated quite clearly that dozens of huge industrial gas generators were actively spewing heat and pollution skyward from the DataOne campus in Vineland, New Jersey, south of Philadelphia, despite the fact that the state’s Department of Environmental Protection confirmed to Floodlight that none of those generators had permits. Why let a little thing like that stop you from running a bunch of heavily polluting generators, though?

The DataOne facility in Vineland is intended to be the largest AI data center in New Jersey when it officially opens, but even during its construction and initial operations, it has already drawn constant controversy and criticism from locals, as well as occasional regulatory action from the state. When complete, it is meant to provide AI computing power to Microsoft, in a $17 billion deal with Dutch AI company Nebius. Neither Microsoft nor Nebius chose to comment on Floodlight‘s reporting.

NEW: Thermal drone footage shows the Microsoft-backed DataOne AI data center in Vineland, NJ is running dozens of gas generators.

None of them have permits.

A Floodlight visual investigation with @us.theguardian.com:

[image or embed]

— Floodlight (@floodlightnews.org) 12:37 PM · Aug 27, 2026

That’s perhaps not surprising, because nothing that has turned up here looks any good. DataOne originally proposed to provide on-site power for the data center with a group of 30 massive gas-burning engines, but this plan fell apart under inspection by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and the planned emissions that those engines would create. DataOne then pivoted to a plan to power the site via an entirely different fuel cell technology that doesn’t produce combustion pollution, although it does still produce drastic amounts of CO2. It seems that in the interim, however, the company simply moved a shit-ton of gas generators onto the site, and has instead been using those to power it during construction and expansion. It’s unclear if the site is already performing AI activity.

And when we say “generators,” we’re not talking about what a prepper might have in his garage. Each of these 62 generators is the size of a tractor-trailer or train car, and during a recent thermal flight, Floodlight observed that 45 of them were clearly hot and active, with plumes shooting into the sky. It doesn’t seem likely that NJDEP would have signed off on the operation of any of these, and indeed they told Floodlight that NJDEP “has issued no permits, nor are any permit applications under review for power generators at the DataOne facility in Vineland.” They noted that the agency had “noticed” the generators during a site inspection in late July (wow, sharp eyes!) but had not yet made “a full compliance determination.” Floodlight, meanwhile, says the gas generators may have been simply allowed to run here since October.

If you’re wondering if the national Environmental Protection Agency has an opinion on all these matters, by the way … well, then you haven’t been paying attention to anything the EPA has done in the last two years. It is entirely predictable that they waived all responsibility and said that “New Jersey’s regulators are responsible for air permitting over DataOne,” because the national EPA is being run by arguably the most purely fiendish and cynical man in the entire Trump administration, Lee Zeldin. We’re talking about a guy who personally led the charge to strip his own agency, the EPA, of the legal right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and has championed everything from reductions in regulations on mercury emissions from coal power plants, to increased emissions of carcinogenic ethylene oxide gas. The only thing the Trump 2.0 term EPA can be counted on to do in this situation is whatever outcome would pollute the most.

It’s simple: more exposure to ethylene oxide means more cases of cancer for workers and communities. Trump’s EPA is rolling back our protections against these toxic emissions—we can’t let the EPA put polluter profits over the health of our families.

[image or embed]

— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) 4:58 PM · Mar 13, 2026

The idea that data centers can be built to “provide their own power,” meanwhile, has become a popular selling point for those looking to build them because it seems to ameliorate one of the key sticking points in why communities hate having them around, which is their excessive consumption of electrical power. What these sales pitches to communities don’t typically mention is that building new power generation facilities and traditional power plants is a many-year process that is entirely unpalatable to a data center industry that is focused on getting this shit done as fast as humanly possible. The stopgap solution for most data centers under construction, meanwhile, has become heavy polluting gas turbines and generators (producing tons of heat and noise), because natural gas is the quickest, cheapest and easiest source of power to bring online. Dozens of huge data center projects of this nature are under construction nationwide, with Amazon, for instance, intending to bring online the single most polluting power plant in the United States to power a massive data center campus in remote West Texas. This, despite the same company having created The Climate Pledge in 2019 as a promise to become carbon neutral. PR professionals from companies like Amazon and Microsoft say they still intend to meet those pledges of carbon neutrality … but simultaneously can’t say how they would do it, while adding unprecedented new levels of emissions to sustain the power-guzzling AI apocalypse.

For Microsoft, pure lawlessness is standard operating procedure. Thermal drone footage shows the Microsoft-backed DataOne AI data center in Vineland, NJ is running dozens of gas generators. None of them have permits. floodlightnews.org/new-jersey-d…

[image or embed]

— Scott Horton (@robertscotthorton.bsky.social) 9:32 AM · Aug 28, 2026

In New Jersey, the DataOne center seemingly just keeps barreling ahead with its illegal power source, content to keep operating until the government actually gets around to formally ordering them to stop. A lawsuit has already been filed, meanwhile, on behalf of residents in the immediate area, who allege that constant noise that “never goes away” has also been emanating from the site, which we can’t say is a surprise. How can you feel anything but pity for the person living in the shadow of the megalithic data center, who understandably questions whether anyone in government cares enough to prioritize people over big business?

“If you don’t follow one rule, what makes us have any reason to believe that you would then follow others?” said a resident quoted by Floodlight. “It’s so upsetting.”