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35 Gas Turbines, One Data-Processing Code: Inside SpaceX's Filing for a Power Plant at the Port of Brownsville

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A state air permit registration describes roughly 750 megawatts of natural gas generation along Boca Chica Blvd, with emissions capped just under the federal major-source threshold. Here is what the documents show and what it could mean for the Rio Grande Valley.


NOTE: Every image in this article comes from the SpaceX/Trinity Consultants registration filed with TCEQ on Sept. 8, 2026. Image markers name the exact page, figure or table to capture.


Satellite map of SpaceX Boca Chica Facility in Cameron County, with red outlined site near a canal, roads, and Trinity Consultants text.

On Sept. 8, 2026, a Corpus Christi environmental consulting firm filed paperwork with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on behalf of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. The cover letter is one page, and the fee was $900.


What it asks the state to authorize is anything but small.


The registration, which The 956 Report obtained, describes 35 natural gas-fired turbines at what SpaceX calls its "Boca Chica Facility." Added together, their rated output comes to about 748 megawatts. That is power-plant scale, and the plant would sit beside the Port of Brownsville's industrial corridor, not at the Starbase launch site.


The filing also lists the site's primary industry code as SIC 7374, the federal classification for computer processing and data preparation services.


SpaceX has not publicly said what the plant will power.


Trinity Consultants letterhead on a formal letter to TCEQ about a SpaceX air quality permit, dated Sept. 8, 2026.

WHAT THE FILING DESCRIBES


The registration was prepared by Trinity Consultants and lists Nicholas Engebretson, a SpaceX senior engineer, as the company official. It seeks authorization under TCEQ's Air Quality Standard Permit for Electric Generating Units, a streamlined, pre-written permit rather than a case-by-case review.


The filing describes two phases.


The first is an "initial configuration" of 35 turbines that the filing calls temporary:

- 6 GE Vernova TM2500 (Plus) Gen 6 units, rated at 25.4 MW each

- 2 GE Vernova TM2500 (+G4) Gen 8 units, rated at 27.4 MW each

- 9 Mitsubishi FT8 units, rated at 27.1 MW each

- 18 Solar SMT-130 units, rated at 16.48 MW each


The second is a "final configuration" of eight GE Vernova 7E turbines, rated at 88.56 MW each, or about 708 MW combined.


According to the filing, the temporary units "will operate at the site on a temporary basis pending installation of permanent units," which will begin running "as the initial units are removed from the site." It gives no timeline. The projected start of construction and start of operation are both listed as "TBD."


Document page titled 1. INTRODUCTION with blue section headings and black text about SpaceX’s Brownsville power facility permit.
Project description

Process flow diagram of a gas turbine: electric generator, compressor, combustor, 35 turbines, exhaust treatment, and logos.
Process flow diagram of a gas turbine

NOT AT STARBASE


Despite the name, the "Boca Chica Facility" is not at Boca Chica Beach.


The filing places the site on a parcel north of Highway 4, with access less than a quarter mile southwest of the intersection of Yolanda Del Rio Road and Highway 4, in Brownsville. The coordinates it lists, 25.957265 N and -97.369633 W, sit along Boca Chica Blvd near the Brownsville Ship Channel, roughly 13 miles west of the Starship launch pad.


The applicant's area map outlines a long tract running from Boca Chica Blvd to the edge of the Port of Brownsville, where petroleum tank farms line the ship channel. The Rio Grande and the U.S.-Mexico border appear in the same frame.

Satellite plot plan of SpaceX Boca Chica facility with red property line and labeled turbines 1-35 near the coast.


A DATA-PROCESSING CODE ON A POWER PLANT


On TCEQ's Core Data Form, SpaceX lists the site's primary SIC code as 7374 (computer processing and data preparation services) and its primary NAICS code as 22111, electric power generation. Under "primary business," it writes "Power Generation."


The filing does not mention a data center. But the code arrives during a year of change for the company. In February 2026, SpaceX acquired Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI, a merger the companies tied to plans for data centers in space. Job postings for SpaceX's Starbase operations, reported by regional outlets, have included data center and power plant roles, including a power plant engineer position seeking experience integrating power generation with co-located data center loads.


Whether the Boca Chica Facility will power computing, rocket manufacturing, port operations or something else is a question SpaceX has not answered publicly.



THE MEMPHIS PARALLEL


The turbine count is familiar.


At xAI's Colossus supercomputer site in Memphis, aerial imagery in April 2025 showed 35 gas turbines totaling about 422 MW, including Solar SMT-130 units. The Southern Environmental Law Center alleged that xAI operated at least 35 turbines there without required permits. Shelby County later permitted 15 turbines at the site.


The Brownsville filing lists the same number of turbines, includes the same Solar SMT-130 model, also frames them as temporary, and adds up to nearly twice the capacity.


The Memphis allegations concern a different company site and a different set of facts. Nothing in the Brownsville filing indicates SpaceX has operated equipment without authorization here. The filing acknowledges that construction and operation may not begin before TCEQ gives written approval.



1.14 TONS UNDER THE LINE


Federal Clean Air Act rules require a full Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) review for new "major" sources. That review includes air quality modeling and the strictest pollution controls. For this type of plant, the line is 250 tons per year of any regulated pollutant.


Because the turbines will run in simple cycle mode only, without a steam turbine, the filing places the plant outside the category of steam electric plants that face a lower 100-ton threshold. That makes 250 tons the applicable line.


SpaceX's proposed annual caps for the initial configuration:

- Nitrogen oxides (NOx): 248.86 tons

- Particulate matter (PM/PM10/PM2.5): 242.11 tons

- Sulfur dioxide: 205.62 tons

- Carbon monoxide: 204.77 tons

- Volatile organic compounds: 105.54 tons

- Ammonia: 499.76 tons

- Formaldehyde: 8.07 tons


The NOx cap sits 1.14 tons under the federal threshold.


Emissions summary table for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., listing turbine units, pollutants, and totals in a green spreadsheet-style layout.
SpaceX's emissions summary shows a NOx cap of 248.86 tons per year against a 250-ton federal threshold

Environmental permit table from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality listing Space Exploration Technologies Corp. emissions data and rates.
Document table titled Air Contaminant Data for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., listing pollutant emission rates for engines and MSS.
Document table titled Emission Point Summary from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, listing GE Vernova 7E emissions.
Emission summary table from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., listing pollutant rates for CTG-33 to E-2.
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality table listing CTG-28 to CTG-32 emission rates for Solar SMT-130.
Table titled Emission Point Summary from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, listing CTG-18 to CTG-22 air contaminant rates in a grid.
Table 1(a) Emission Point Summary from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, listing CTG-23 to CTG-27 air contaminant rates.
Emission summary table from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., listing CTG units and pollutant rates.
Air Contaminant Data table from Texas Commission, listing CTG-1 to CTG-3, emission rates for VOC, NOx, CO, SO2, PM, NH3, CH2O.
Emission summary table for Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, listing CTG-4 to CTG-8 and air pollutant rates for Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
Air emissions summary table from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., listing CTG-9 to CTG-13 rates.

The low number depends on pollution controls holding NOx between 1.75 and 1.9 parts per million. Using the standard permit's own NOx limit of 0.14 pounds per megawatt-hour across all 35 turbines at full output, a 956 Report calculation puts potential NOx at roughly 458 tons a year, nearly double the threshold.


The filing builds in a backstop. If NOx runs higher than represented, it says, "the maximum capacity factor will be adjusted proportionately." In plain terms, the plant would run less.


The caps are also calculated from routine operation only. Startups and shutdowns, when NOx can run about 13 times higher per hour, are not used to set the caps. The filing says the caps "accommodate" those emissions because the turbines are not expected to run at full load every hour of the year. The registration allows 50 startup or shutdown events per turbine per year, about 1,750 in total.


Each turbine is allowed 50 startups or shutdowns a year. Those emissions are not used to set the caps.
Each turbine is allowed 50 startups or shutdowns a year. Those emissions are not used to set the caps.

UNDER ONE THRESHOLD, OVER ANOTHER


While the plant stays under the federal PSD line, its own tables show it would exceed a different one.


Title V of the Clean Air Act requires a federal operating permit for sources with the potential to emit 100 tons a year of a regulated pollutant. In SpaceX's Table 1-1, the row "Emissions Under Title V Threshold?" is marked "No" for NOx, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds in the initial configuration. In the final configuration, Table 1-2 marks NOx, CO, SO2 and particulate matter "No."


That means a federal operating permit will be required, and that process typically includes public notice and a comment period. The standard permit registration itself does not appear to. Its public notice section is blank, and training materials from Public Citizen and the Save Our Springs Alliance list standard permits for gas turbines among authorizations with no public notice.


USED TURBINES, NO MANUFACTURER GUARANTEES


The filing is frank about the equipment.


"The units are used and/or refurbished existing units rather than freshly manufactured units," it states. "Manufacturer performance guarantees are generally not available," it adds, noting that SpaceX "has not purchased any of the units directly from the manufacturer." Maximum firing rates, it says, are based on "process engineering knowledge."


It also states that its representations about pollutant concentrations and run time are "for emissions estimation purposes only and not intended to be considered enforceable." What is enforceable, according to the filing, are the sitewide emission caps.


WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE VALLEY


Air. Cameron County currently meets federal air quality standards. A plant permitted for nearly 250 tons of NOx, about 242 tons of particulate matter and roughly 500 tons of ammonia a year would rank among the larger permitted sources in the county. NOx contributes to ground-level ozone, and both NOx and ammonia help form fine particulate matter, the PM2.5 that community monitors in the Valley already track. The filing contains no modeling of how those emissions would spread toward Brownsville neighborhoods, the port, or communities across the river in Matamoros.


Gas. Based on the heat input figures in the filing, a 956 Report calculation estimates the 35 turbines would burn roughly 197 million cubic feet of natural gas per day at full load. That raises questions about pipeline capacity serving the site. The 956 Report is seeking records on any new pipeline construction tied to the project.


Climate. The filing references federal greenhouse gas standards for power plants but does not estimate carbon dioxide emissions. A 956 Report estimate, based on standard EPA emission factors for natural gas, puts potential CO2 at roughly 4.3 million tons a year at full load.


Water. The filing does not address water use. Any co-located computing facility would likely need cooling, and Brownsville and the wider Valley face persistent drought and depend on the Rio Grande.


Public input. Brownsville commissioners are weighing a moratorium on new data center development. But a state air authorization like this one is decided by TCEQ, not the city, and the standard permit route offers residents little formal opportunity to weigh in before approval.


SOURCES:

- TCEQ EGU Standard Permit registration, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Boca Chica Facility, filed Sept. 8, 2026 (primary document)

- Colossus (supercomputer), Memphis turbine count: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer)

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