Batteries (Not) Included
A Community Near Toxic Blaze At Northern California Lithium Battery Plant Has Concerns.
While all eyes have been on Southern California’s devastating wildfires, a different kind of fire created concerns at the world’s largest battery storage plant located in Northern California. Last week, a structural fire at the Vistra Energy plant in Moss Landing sent plumes of toxic smoke into the atmosphere and led to a highway closure and the evacuation of almost 1,500 people.
Demand for electricity as an energy source is increasing throughout country, which now includes the emergence of facilities for “battery energy storage systems,” often referred to as BESS.
My inbox started to stack up this weekend with at least a hundred emails from local residents, reporting health issues like sore throats, headaches, eye irritations, and more. They felt confused and scared. They wanted to understand the impact of the smoke on their air quality, water quality, and nearby food crops. These are valid concerns in the wake of this toxic event.
Vistra is a market-leader in battery energy storage with an enormous lithium-ion battery system co-located on the site of the existing Moss Landing Power Plant in Monterey County—a site that’s been providing electricity to Californians since 1950 and sits about 100 miles south of San Francisco.
Lithium-ion batteries fuel our daily lives from our cell phones to electric vehicles to large scale electrical energy.
But a lithium-ion battery fire generates intense heat, considerable amounts of gas and smoke, and can emit toxic substances such as hydrogen fluoride.
“This is really a lot more than a fire, it’s a wake-up call for this industry,” said Glenn Church, a member of Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors at a press conference. “If we’re going to be moving forward with sustainable energy, we need a safe battery system in place.”
While reports say there are no injuries associated with the fire, and air monitor systems did not detect hydrogen fluoride, those findings are preliminary. The smoke plumes from the fire are likely to have contained heavy metals and PFAS chemicals, Dustin Mulvaney at San Jose State University in California told New Scientist.
The building that caught fire had a water-based suppression system, and it is unclear why it failed, Vistra Energy officials said during a press conference. They are still investigating the root cause of the fire.
The Monterey County Board of Supervisors is calling for an independent investigation as this marks the fourth fire at the facility since 2019.
In response to the fire, Vistra established a website to share operational updates and to make additional information available to the public at www.mosslandingresponse.com. The company has pledged to continue monitoring the situation and provide updates as response efforts progress.
Meanwhile this community is in action! What strikes me over and over again is that it’s up to businesses to be a good neighbor, but when these kinds of disasters occur, communities have to band together for their own health and safety.
On Monday night, the Moss Landing Battery Plant Environmental Disaster Community Group met in person to discuss the situation and steps for moving forward.
The meeting focused on being proactive by breaking into smaller groups to discuss everything from health and medical issues to drinking water and agricultural land impacts. The groups reported back to the larger group. One of the main concerns raised was about data collection and what regulations can be put in place to prevent this kind of incident from happening in the future.
The Board of Supervisors also held a special meeting on Tuesday. You can watch a recording of the meeting below.
At this meeting, Church emphasized that while battery storage is essential to the future, it cannot put that above safety. He believes this technology is ahead of government’s ability to regulate it, and industry’s ability to control it. This process of “learn as we go” just doesn’t work.
“I believe that we have to take a step back, look skeptically at this technology, impose new safety regulations, and put a pause on new construction until the industry provides appropriate safeguards,” he shared.
Another Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo also spoke at the special meeting.
“I think our public here in Monterey County and everywhere else in California that is dealing with this, they deserve to have an open, honest conversation and answers as well,” he said. He posted more of his comments here.
The Board ratified a proclamation declaring the fire a local emergency.
A few lessons learned from this incident that need follow-up:
Enhanced Safety Protocols: The Moss Landing facility has experienced previous incidents, indicating a pattern of vulnerabilities. These recurring events suggest the need for comprehensive safety audits and the implementation of robust fire suppression systems tailored to the specific risks of battery storage facilities.
Advanced Monitoring Systems: Implementing real-time monitoring technologies can aid in early detection of anomalies within battery systems, allowing for prompt intervention before issues escalate into full-scale fires. The failure of detection and heat suppression systems was a contributing factor in the Moss Landing incident.
Regulatory Oversight: The frequency of fires at battery storage facilities calls for stricter regulatory standards and regular inspections to ensure compliance with safety protocols. This incident serves as a "wake-up call" for the industry to reevaluate current practices.
Community Preparedness: The evacuation of residents highlights the importance of having clear emergency response plans in place. Communities near such facilities should be educated on potential risks and the appropriate actions to take during emergencies.
And the biggest question that continues to plague communities is: Who holds these companies accountable after disaster?
One of the most powerful tools I’ve developed over the years is called RAM, which stands for Realization, Assessment, and Motivation. It’s a process I teach to help individuals and communities to get empowered, check their instincts, and take action.
R: Realization is the epiphany and the response.
The moment of realization comes when you decide to get honest and take responsibility. Admitting there’s a problem is the first step, and it’s shocking how many people are unwilling to begin. When it comes to communities, it may look like hosting a press conference, town hall, or creating a task force to study a problem.
Don’t wait for your health and well- being and even your survival to be on the line. Begin now. Open your eyes and take an honest look at the issue(s) impacting your community.
Again, I’m happy to see on Facebook the Moss Landing Battery Plant Environmental Disaster Community Group.
A: Assessment is taking stock and being accountable to yourself.
Assess your skills, your attitudes, your beliefs, and if you don’t like what you see, don’t be afraid to remodel. Tear things down and start over if you need to. Give yourself an appraisal and allow yourself to see who you are— and then trust who you are.
To apply this principle to a city, officials might need to seek outside consultants or call on experts to find out the source of the problems. We need more systems in place to evaluate safety plans and contamination levels, and to stay on top of the issues at hand. Once a system has been assessed, you’re ready to move to the next step.
M: Motivation and mindfulness are what keep you going.
You can probably think of at least one or two people in your life who have plenty of talent but aren’t successful. And vice versa: you probably know plenty of people who aren’t all that talented but are exceptionally successful. In this case, success is defined by being able to fix the problem and create something better.
The key to finding success is to find your motivation. Your motivation is the fuel that will keep you going. Most public utilities should be motivated by the sheer fact that their job is to deliver safe, clean drinking water to the residents of the area. But as you can see in many places, this motivation has not been effective. That’s where you come in.
You need to make sure that those in charge can see your faces, hear your problems, and know that you care. We’ve forgotten how much power we really have. It’s time to use it. We also need to take time away from our screens to stop and reconnect with the planet. There’s so much chatter these days that it becomes hard to hear your own voice and even harder to tune in to what’s happening around you.
Don’t let anyone distract you from your senses. Document what you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.
How has the air or water quality shifted? What does it smell like? What are your health symptoms? Keep a journal with dates. Are your symptoms getting better or worse?
Keep observing the world around you and be mindful of the details, and particularly when conditions change. You are your own best ally.
Are you familiar with BESS? Wonder if you have a facility near you? Keep the conversation going in the comments below.
All 3 white male owners of Vistra (all pale-faced and dressed in black, no less) are former employees of Space X/Starlink. We all know that Musk, and this likely his fanboy minions as well, are attacking California for trying to stand up to the fascist ‘Elonald Agenda’.
I want to know what all the capabilities of Starlink are! I’m sure this is deemed ‘classified information for national security reasons’, though. Musk and Theil are the new Sith (Military) Lords of the Cyberterritory - a territory in which we are all unfortunately residents at this point.
Seems like our national security agency is our greatest danger not our greatest protector.
i’m not usually a big conspiracy theorist, but I’m very concerned that Starlink has the capability to activate these fires through smart batteries. I have a hunch that that is how the LA fire started and how this Moss landing Vista plant caught on fire as well. The earlier 3 fires were probably just tests?
When will the cause of this fire be determined and disclosed?
If you look at the fire damage in LA, it is suspicious that the houses burned from the inside out. I’ve heard that the smart meters are connected to wire coppers that go into the house. Once activated to heat-up, the thermal runaway heating runs along the copper wires and causes combustion inside the walls of the house, or the Lithium-ion Vistra plant.
I honestly do not trust Elon Musk in any size shape or form to do anything good for this planet. I think he is a hellacious evil dark being that absolutely wants to wipe out almost all of us.
While there is not a facility near me, these companies are sending their batteries to Piqua, Ohio, to be burned and tested on right next to the drinking water supply. Surface water at that. This sits along the Great Miami River which flows into the Ohio and so on. Companies including but not limited to Tesla, Amazon, Aston Martin and even foreign maritime defense agencies.
A recent lawsuit awarded community members a settlement for the constitutional rights broken by the city administration in attempts to cover this atrocity up.
What are the citizens to do when those who are supposed to have community safety in mind is causing the harm inflicted?