MOSS LANDING, Calif. — New agencies report a massive fire is destroying the Vistra
Energy battery storage plant in Moss Landing, one of the biggest such
facilities in the world. The blaze, which reportedly broke out late on Thursday
afternoon, has sent clouds of hazardous black smoke and toxic gases into the atmosphee,
prompting evacuations, road closures, and a significant emergency
response effort.
Moss Landing battery storage plant, Calif. on fire (picture Reuters)
The plant is a cornerstone of California’s clean energy strategy, its huge capacity to store energy from intermittent 'renewable' sources is a key component in the whacko state’s transition rush to net zero. This is not the first fire at the Moss Landing site facility which was was expanded in 2023 to hold 750 megawatts of electricity, enough to power thousands of homes.
Lithium battery fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish due not only to the high temperatures the materials burn at and toxic gases they emit, which pose risks to respiratory health, skin, and eyes, but also to the chemical nature of the reaction which does not respond to conventional fire fighting methods.
All staff at Moss Landing were safely evacuated, and emergency teams are working to contain the blaze within the plant’s concrete structure. Officials have stated that while the fire is extensive, it is “contained” to the building.
. Previous incidents in 2021 and 2022 were attributed to sprinkler malfunctions and system flaws, causing heightened scrutiny of battery storage safety. These incidents prompted California Governor Gavin Newsom to require battery plants to develop emergency response plans with local fire departments.
As authorities investigate this latest incident, concerns are rising over the safety of such facilities and their proximity to populated areas. This is a developing story, with updates expected as more information becomes available.
What we know so far is he fire is located in the northern part of the sate some 300 miles (500 km) north of the wildfires in Los Angeles. The plant contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries, which can be extremely difficult to put out if they go up in flames.
“There’s no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster, is what it is,” Monterey County supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV. But the fire is not expected to spread beyond the concrete building it is enclosed in, he added. Highway 1, located nearby, has been shut down by authorities.
The plant is around 100 miles (160 km) south of San Francisco, and
the blaze is unrelated to the ongoing wildfires in the southern
Californian city of Los Angeles, which started around 10 days ago.
This news is oce more likely to raise qustions about the safety of lithium battery technology. There are several ways in which lithium fires can pose more risk to people and property than other types of building or vehicle fires.
Thermal runaway is the most common issue with fires started by spontaneously combusting lithium-ion batteries. This is where the internal temperature of the battery quickly rises, usually because a damaged cell has overheated, generating more and more heat which in turn damages adjacent cells, createing a self-sustaining cycle.
It’s a rapid process and comes with such high temperatures that it can be difficult to tackle in the same way as a normal fire — water is especially dangerous to use for this fire type due to the creation of flammable hydrogen gas when it reacts with lithium.
Some lithium batteries can also release oxygen as they burn, adding more supply to the fire and intensifying the situation, even when there is little oxygen outside of the battery itself. This makes it hard to starve the fire of oxygen, a common tactic for other fire types.
The speed at which a lithium battery can overheat also risks explosions, something seen in waste management facilities when people have improperly disposed of their devices in regular waste collections.
Volatile and unpredictable, it’s easy to see why lithium-ion battery fires have earned a distinct reputation within the fire safety community.
The proponents of green energy “wind/solar plus storage” systems do not seem to like specifying storage capacity properly in Watt-Hour units. This leads to uniformed folks assuming there is far more energy than there really is. Reports say this facility provides energy stored during the day for use overnight which might lead some to conclude that it can provide 750 MW for 12 hours or more (I.e. 9,000 MWH). However, it has been more common for these systems to be rated based on 4 hours of delivery. We learn from the facility owner's website the plant can provide backup of 750 MW and 3000 MWh So it follows that its rating is based on 4 hours of duration. Not much backup for 'thousands of homes' (or one Big Tech AI data centre,) considering periods of dunkelflaute in Europe this winter have lasted for over a week in some areas.
The Moss landing facility is, in fact, rated at 3,000 MWH. But many systems are only designed to provide frequency stability support to balance wind/solar short term fluctuation and may only have enough capacity to provide a few minutes of rated output.
NET ZERO ARCHIVE:
The True Cost Of The Green Energy Boom Is Now Being Realized
For four decades we have been fed a constant stream of propaganda assuring us that green energy was the only way forward if we wanted to secure supplies of the energy essential to a modern society while preventing the environmental catastrophes that would be the inevitable consequence of climate change caused by the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emitted by human industrial, commercial and social activity. ... Continue reading >>>
Electricity cuts and power crisis predicted for Britain’s New Year Holiday
Shapps carefully omits to mention that the government’s only contingency plan for providing the power needed to meet peaks of demand (a sudden cold snap for example) is to spark up the thousands of diesel generators the earth loving politicians have concealed in goods containers on compounds sited around the country. Yes you read that right, diesel generators ...
Now Even ‘Hockey Stick’ Mann Admits The ‘Pause’ In Global Warming Is Real
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims,” the paper in Nature Climate Change says.
German Scientist Confims Climate Change Ia A Politically Motivated Scam
Even as the inbred idiot Prince Charles was babbling to a hand picked audience about the skid marks in his underpants being caused by Climate Change, a somewhat more scientifically literate person, Dr. Friedrich Karl Ewert, a retired geologist and data computation expert, has confirmed what those of us dubbed 'climate deniers' have been telling you for years ...
It Looks As If Carbon Credits Scam Has INCREASED CO2 Emissions
As the climate change scare becomes more and more exposed for the money making fraud it always was, they green weirdie beardie, rope sandal wearing tree huggers get more hysterical and stupid in their arguments that we must all return to medieval lifestyles, the billionaires like Al Gore who hope to profit from it keep flogging the dead horse and the angrier and more vicious the left wing hate mobs become in their witch hunts.
When Governments Play GOD: The TRUTH About GLOBAL GEOENGINEERING
After a personal admission that he 'went soft' on the elitist malfeasance, misinformation and power grabbing which poses a much greater threat to civilisation than any pandemic, climate event or political coup ever can, the auhor takes aim at the loonytoons plan to control climate change by blocking the sun's rays with chemical dust ... Continue reading >>>
The Truth About Coal And The Lies Of The Elite
So much for all the COP 26 banter late last year. Let me remind you. The elites all flew in on their private jets and promptly told us we’re all (royal we) getting off fossil fuels and killing coal.So how’s that turning out?
The usage of coal is now at record highs:
Electricity cuts and power crisis predicted for Britain’s New Year Holiday
Shapps carefully omits to mention that the government’s only contingency plan for providing the power needed to meet peaks of demand (a sudden cold snap for example) is to spark up the thousands of diesel generators the earth loving politicians have concealed in goods containers on compounds sited around the country. Yes you read that right, diesel generators ...
Volkswagen Emissions Scandal - Is It The Tip Of The Iceberg?
The real problem here is that, driven by the hysterical warnings of self interested pseudo-scientists, politicians have set unachievable targets for reducing emissions while demanding that national economies keep growing.
America and UK Lead the World in Climate Scepticism
Several times now it has looked as if the climate chance scare was over as the enthusiasm of climate scitentists for changing real world data to fit in with the predictions of their mathematical models has been exposed. But as the scare was never about the environment, but was a scam to redistribute wealth from rich to poor countries, the politicians are throwing their propaganda budgets behind it again.
p>Global Warming Is Not Causing Any Polar Ice Cap Meltdown Says NASA
Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth’s polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979. Since the end of 2012, moreover, total polar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average. The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.
The Truth About Coal And The Lies Of The Elite
So much for all the COP 26 banter late last year. Let me remind you. The elites all flew in on their private jets and promptly told us we’re all (royal we) getting off fossil fuels and killing coal.So how’s that turning out?
The usage of coal is now at record highs:
Britain is Breaking Down; The Economy Is Struggling, Living Standards Are Falling, Institutions Are Failing
Successive governments have brought Britain to its knees.This article will focus on Britain as representative of the general malaise that is afflicting almost all the developed world. Our current crop of politicians have discarded the resources that brought the country out of the post war decline ... In spite of being rich in energy resources Britain is now in an energy crisis, our leaders have sacrificed prosperity on the altar of Net Zero, committing the nation to our reducing our 1% contribution to harmful emissions still further ...
Official Advice - Prepare For Blackouts This Winter
The UK
government is putting plans together for days of organised blackouts this winter, in what they call
a "reasonable worst-case scenario" for energy shortages, according to reports in manstream media. Naturally they are blaming this on the embargo on importing gas from Russia but in reality Britain has never imported any more than a small amout of its gas from Russia. The real reason politicians and energy company CEOs are panicking is entirely due to their obession with obtaining all our energy from intermittent sources like wind and sunshine ...
"Revolution Has Begun": 75,000 Brits Plan To Stop Paying Power Bills In Protest At Energy Rip Off
Resistance is growing to spiralling domestic energy costs in Britain as more than 75,000 irritated people in the UK have pledged not to pay their electricity bill this fall when prices jump again.
If the government & energy companies refuse to act then
ordinary people will! Together we can enforce a fair price and affordable energy for all," tweeted "Don't Pay UK," an anonymous group spearheading the effort to have more than one million Brits boycott paying their power bill by Oct. 1.UK Energy Crisis Deepens as prices and demand skyrocket while supplies shrink to critical levels
It is ironic that in the week world leaders and flat faced Swedeish trolls are gathering in Glasgow for an orgy of virtue signalling that will inevitably drive millions of people in the developed world into fuel poverty and result in more industrial jobs being exported from the west to the world’s major produceres of Carbon Dioxide emissions, China and India, the energy crunch that is affecting the whole of Europe is about to hit the United Kingdom extremely hard.
... Continue reading >>>Shale Gas Salvation? Frack Off ....
A few months ago, before the June oil prices crash, the US oil industry was ebullient. "It is too late for OPEC to stop the shale revolution", industry pundits squawked, "OPEC can’t stop the shale industry" – screamed banner headlines in the usually restrained financial press. But if a week is a lon=g time in politics, three months is eternity in the oil business.House battery to store energy will 'change entire infrastructure of the world' - or maybe not
Another costly new product hailed as a breakthough in technology, this time a clutching-at-straws exercise from the failing electric car company Tesla, completely fails to live up to the hype under scrutiny. Hailed as a super battery, a mjor advance in battery technology that will change the world to store power for a household, it turns out to be nothing more than a streamined car battery. It will run the average home for about 2 hours.Researchers Discover How to Use Living Plants to Generate Electricity.
Most of the hyped green energy solutions to generate electricity from wind or sunshine are so obviously flawed the only thing that makes them economically viable is that governments offer huge subsidies to generators. This in turn makes the sustainables so expensive that consumers cannot afford the intermittent energy they produce.EXPLORE:
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Unfortunately for the green loons and the windmills and sunshine harvesters fan club these ‘battery farms’ are not a suitable solution for balancing the intermittency of renewables and most will be used to regulate the power supplied to the grid instead. Thus adding to the cost of renewables and doing nothing to power us on still cold nights.
Observant readers will have noted that it is dark for more than 12 hours each day in the UK winter. The scientists who have promoted solar power as one of the mainstays of our zero carbon electricity system seem blissfully unaware of this although most human being have been aware of the absence of sunlight during the hours of darkness since men first stood erect.
Likewise a report on wind power commissioned by conservation group the John Muir Trust (read full document here - .pdf ) reported that the technology was failing to deliver, with wind turbines only opersting at 21% efficiency over the coure of a full year. Wind industry sources queried this, claiming the true figure was 27%. Whichever is right it explaines why, on a daily basis, we have to fill around 20% of our energy needs by importing power via underwater interconnectors from France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Norway. And with France's nuclear power stations being by far the biggest contributor it explains why successive UK governments have not been willing to stem the flow of illegal immigrants across the Channel by intercepting the boats and lorries and sending the undocumented arrivals back.
The main conclusions of the report are that wind power is not producing the promised average levels of power and "cannot be relied upon" when electricity is most needed.
To power the UK just for 24 hours in winter would require tens of thousands of Tesla’s largest batteries. And they would be no use. Firstly because the wind/solar downtime could be several days. But even if it’s only the odd day, or night, they’d still be no use because, once discharged, there would not be enough ‘excess’ sun and wind to recharge them in time for the next still night.
The whole thing is a con. It cannot work.
Lithium Ion Electric Car batteries have proven problematic; they spontaneousky combust more easily than Spinal Tap drummers and once alight are exceptionally difficult to put out. If one of these mega stations does get damaged and catches fire will it effectively take out a whole site and surrounding buildings? Is this a low rise Grenfell on our doorstep? I don't know but I would like to see proper evidence of safety.How long would it be before they have to be demolished and replaced? How do you recycle them? How clean is the process to make them initially and their replacements. We are aware that solar panels are life of 25 years and they don't recycle well.
We know the batteries are not clean when manufactured and use rare earth materials not produced in a clean way. We know the wind turbines blades have limited life and cannot be recycled. This is not clean energy or very recyclable and without huge subsidies hidden or not would not be commercially viable. Smoke and mirrors and a pack of lies!
The usual poor journalism standards we have come to expect in stories related to science and technology multiply exponentially when applied to grid scale battery storage: the number of GW (always quoted) is irrelevant, the amount of stored energy in GWh they can release is what counts. 10.6GW of battery storage may minutes or hours of useful energy to power homes and businesses so if demand is a steady 2Gw per hour the supply will hold up for five hours.
Quoting GW is meaningless. We need to know how many GWh (gigawatt hours) of power they could provide. So if you could provide 50GW (i.e. peak demand) but only 5GWh, you can only cover that peak demand for 6 minutes and then the lights go out. Lithium ion battery storage is NOT the answer to stabilising a distribution grid supplied by intermittent sources like wind and solar.
The number of batteries required to supply the UK's electricity needs for a week would run to tens of thousands. And you do not even want to think about what happens when one of said batteries goes into thermal runaway when you have a field full of the things.
We do not have a suitable technology for storing sufficient power to render intermittent renewables a reliable source of energy. And lithium batteries are certainly not it.
MORE POSTS ON NET ZERO
How Many Billions of People Would Die Under Net Zero?
BBC wildlife documentary presenter Chris Packham has hit back at claims reported on Neil Oliver‘s GB News show that half the world’s population could die if Net Zero was implemented in full. This is a bit hypocritical of Packham, who has been claiming millions will die because of climate change caused by human activity for decades.
EU Technocrats Plan To Shut Down European Agricultural Industry
European farmers will gather in Brussels on Tuesday to demand guarantees from the EU Commission that changes to policy will be made to ensure the European agricultural sector remains viable. They will also demand a relaxation of the regulatory regime, and for Brussels to abandon free trade agreements with countries outside the EU, which are now being used to bring cheap into European markets
Globalists Say Climate Change Is A Threat To Democracy But The Real Threat Is Globalism
While most of the large economies in European are backing off their pledges on 'net zero', over in the USA, even as the public reject the scaremongering of climate alarmists, the increasingly crazy Biden administration are still trying to push this de-industrialisation agenda without without any apparent concern for public opinion or for the misery and impoverishment The Childsniffer's regime is inflicting on many Americans.
Tractors Are Heading For Central London As UK Farmers Protest
Scores of farm tractors from all over Britain were reported to be converging on Westminster as British farmers finally ran out of patience and pushed back against what they say is a lack of government support. Flying Union flags and displaying signs with slogan such as 'Save British farming' and 'No farming, no food, no future' they were gathering in London and plan to arrive in central London by early evening
Germany Running Out Of Money, Debt Levels Exploding - The Price Of War, Open Borders And Net Zero?
An urgent warning about the state of Germany's finances has been given by Finance Minister Christian Lindner. Lindner has bluntly told the government that state borrowing are growing out of hand, and the government urgently needs to reduce spending. The other coalition members, the Social Democrats, and The Greens are both spendthrift lefties so dispute over spending is only expected to escalate
UK Gov. Fossil Fuels U Turn Means Its All Over For Net Zero
The Announcement made by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak acknowledged at last that to keep the lights and heating on in our homes and the wheels of industry turning it will be necessary to start building new gas-fired power plants because the great science backed leap to transition energy productions to clean, green, pollution free, sustainable, renewable, blah blah blah sources has failed dismally.
Britain To Harvest Power From Sahara Solar Farms Using 700ft Ship? Another Green Dream
World’s biggest cable-laying vessel will link Moroccan renewables with Devon substationread a headline in a UK mainsteam news website recently. A project to feed power from the Sahara Desert to Britain moved a step closer to fruition as its financial backers prepare to commission the giant cable-laying ship.
Furious French Farmers Stage Shitfest Protest In Toulouse
Inspired perhaps by the protests of farming communities in Germany and Netherlands, angry French farmers gathered in the historic city of Toulouse, South - west France this week and dumped piles of farmyard manure on the steps of City Hall and in the streets and squares in fron of other public buildings. Such shitfest protests are a favourite tactic of French farmers when they want to let their government know its policies stink ...
Thousands Of Tractors Blocks Berlin Traffic Over Plan To End Diesel Subsidy
Thousands of German truck drivers, farmers, and agricultural workers parked in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin yesterday as another massive protest over the government's 'green' plans to end tax breaks on diesel fuel and subsidies to farmers prevented from getting the best out of their land by loonytoons EU 'rewilding' policies.
German Farmers target nation's vice chancellor in subsidies protest
German farmers angered by cost-saving plans impacting the country's agricultural sector blocked the EU state’s vice chancellor from disembarking a ferry on Thursday, in a protest that was criticized by both government and opposition figures. The farmer's ager was triggered by financial cutbacks imposed by EU policy on member state’s agricultural industries have.
Irish farmers protest plans to cull livestock to meet climate targets
Farmers in Ireland are protesting government proposals to cull livestock — including up to 200,000 cows — in an effort to meet national and European Union (EU) climate targets. According to Ireland’s Independent, up to 65,000 dairy cows and 10% of the livestock herd would have to be removed from the national herd every year for three years at a cost of €200m ($215.2 million) if the farming sector is to “meet its climate targets.”
Hottest Ever UK January Day - In One Small Village
Today’s high is not due to ‘climate change’ although Warmageddonists and climate alarmists have been quick to claim it is, but is a result of a rare phenomenon known as the Fohn (or Foehn) effect (literally ‘the hairdryer effect’) that sees isolated spots near mountains hit with a narrow blast of hot air.
Net Zero Is Dying Says The Manhattan Contrairian - But Is It Taking Western Civilisation With It?
We Boggart Bloggers have always been sceptical of the Climate Change scam. And as most of our readers will be aware, the scam had to be rebranded as 'Climate Change' because after a brief (and statistically insignificant,) warming trend in the 1980s and 90 the apparent warming stopped until 2016 when there was a brief blip because of an El Nino event on the Pacific region before global mean temperatures started flatlining again ...
Furious French Farmers Stage Shitfest Protest In Toulouse
sInspired perhaps by the protests of farming communities in Germany and Netherlands, angry French farmers gathered in the historic city of Toulouse, South - west France this week and dumped piles of farmyard manure on the steps of City Hall and in the streets and squares in fron of other public buildings. Such shitfest protests are a favourite tactic of French farmers when they want to let their government know its policies stink ...
German Farmers target nation's vice chancellor in subsidies protest
German farmers angered by cost-saving plans impacting the country's agricultural sector blocked the EU state’s vice chancellor from disembarking a ferry on Thursday, in a protest that was criticized by both government and opposition figures. The farmer's ager was triggered by financial cutbacks imposed by EU policy on member state’s agricultural industries have.
Germany Burns Net Zero Pledges And Fires Up Coal Generating Plants Ahead Of Winter Peak Electricity Season
On Wednesday this week Germany's coalition government approved putting coal power plants back online until the end of March 2024 to ensure energy security when natural gas supplies cannot meet demand. Though Germany has for at least a decade vied with Britain to claim leadership of Europe's ill - advised push for net zero, the Berlin government has been forced into this move
The Offshore Wind Fiasco Sets New Records For Government Incompetence
In an article on wind powered generators last week a science & technology writer showed himself in need of remedial education in basic literacy:"Meanwhile, 14GW of installed capacity puts us second in the world behind China," he burbled The problem here is inability to understand the meaning of 'installed capacity.' If it means a capability of generating 14GW of electricity, as it would if we were discussing gas, nuclear or coal that would be lovely ...
Millions Of Brits Told Not To Heat Homes At Night As Part Of 'Net Zero' Push
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Another Setback For UK's Net Zero Green Dreams As Cost Rise Faster Than China's CO2 Emissions
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How Germany's open door to migrants and mad dash to Net Zero Brought Down The Establishment
Friedrichstrasse in Berlin is one of Europe's most renowned shopping streets. Lined with glitzy stores, from Galeries Lafayette to Karl Lagerfeld it is on a par with Avenue des Champs-Élysées, London's Regent Street or Via Montenapoleone in Milan, teeming with shoppers eager to spend their hard earned or ill - gotten cash and flowing with cars, buses and taxis.
[ Net zero reality ] ... [ Green dreams ] ... [ Climate change scam ] ... [ Net zero disaster ] ... [ Wind turbine truth ] ... [ Ecocide science ]
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EXPLORE:
[Daily Stirrer] ... [ Our Page on on Substack ]... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Ian Thorpe at Quora ] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Greenteeth on Minds.com ] ... [ Here Come The Russians ] ... [ Latest Posts ] ... [ Blog Bulletin ]