Fire conditions in California just got a lot worse.
While firefighters are still fighting to contain the Palisades and Eaton Fires in Los Angeles, a significant fire erupted at the largest lithium battery plant in the world, the Moss Landing Power Plant near Monterey, on Thursday. The fire was still burning as of Friday afternoon.
Between the intensity of the fire and the fumes, 1,500 residents from Moss Landing and the surrounding Elkhorn Slough areas were evacuated and a section of Highway 1 was closed.
The plant housed tens of thousands of lithium-ion batteries used for storing energy for the state’s highly sensitive electrical grid.
It is unclear what had started the fire, which began around 3 p.m. on Thursday and sent up clouds of black smoke. By 10 a.m. on Friday, the fire was down to less than 5 percent of its original size, said Fire Chief Joel Mendoza of the North County Fire Protection District.The blaze was unrelated to the wildfires that have broken out around Los Angeles, which is hundreds of miles to the south.On Thursday evening, the sheriff’s office in Monterey County issued evacuation orders for a roughly eight-square-mile area around the plant. Residents elsewhere in the region were urged to close their windows and doors, turn off ventilation systems and avoid outdoor exposure until further notice while officials monitored air quality.As of Friday morning, the evacuation order had not been lifted. Chief Mendoza said preliminary results suggested that the fire had not released certain hazardous gases known to be a danger to the public, but the authorities needed to conduct further tests and wanted to err on the side of caution before letting people return home.
Legal Insurrection readers should be well aware of all the challenges associated with these fires, as we have covered this topic on numerous occasions: In ships, those used in electric bikes, and water-drenched battery fires that occur after hurricanes and floods.
There are many challenges associated with fighting lithium/lithium-ion battery fires. Lithium is water reactive, yet water is often the only fire-fighting option in large enough quantities to fight the blaze. The materials burn at very high temperatures and is prone to re-ignition, which is why it once took the firefighters in Texas 30,000 gallons of water and four hours to extinguish a similar blaze.
We recently covered the saga of a San Diego warehouse where lithium batteries were stored. The building smoldered for weeks, making nearby residents nervous.
Returning to the incident in Monterey, the fire flared up again (as it did in the San Diego case), after initial firefighting efforts looked successful.
Monterey County officials held a second press conference Friday afternoon after the latest flare-up at around 1:45 p.m. produced another round of flames and black smoke shooting into the sky.Assemblymember Dawn Addis and Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church, who spoke at the earlier press conference, addressed the media after the flare-up and voicing safety concerns for their constituents.”There’s been three incidents here. There’s been the PG&E incident. It’s really time to put a stop to it and take a breath and make sure that we can assure the public they’re safe,” said Addis. “This incident does look and feel very different. It’s a different configuration, the fire is different.”
The large plant, which stores 750 megawatts of energy, is part of California’s ongoing efforts to go green and supply electricity from renewable sources.
Vistra sells the electricity stored there to the Pacific Gas and Electric utility company. PG&E also operates a separate 182-megawatt battery storage plant on site that has 256 Tesla “Megapack” battery packs — but that did not appear to be impacted by the fire.A megawatt is enough electricity to run 750 homes, according to the Mercury News.A Vistra spokesperson said all its personnel were evacuated safely.“The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but an investigation will begin once the fire is extinguished,” the company told KSBW-TV.
In her analysis of the impacts of this fire, Hot Air’s Beege Welborn notes that this plant was an important part of maintaining the state’s sensitive electrical grid. Before this disaster, plans were underway to significantly expand its storage capacity.
The plant had been approved for another expansion to 1.5GW, so basically, a doubling of where it burns…oh. Sorry. Stands size-wise right now.Wonder if the neighbors are rethinking voting for their local commissioners about any of this?
I think those plans have gone up in smoke.
I don’t think the destructive potential of lithium battery fires was mentioned by green energy enthusiasts when California’s senseless “Net Zero” plans were put in place.
Subsequently, this emergency has become another painful lesson of what can happen when debate involving important issues related to science and technology is stifled and suppressed.
Developments like this may also explain why California has scrapped its EV mandate for trucks.
It looks like a couple of more coins are going in this jar today:
Ladies and Gentlemen: I give you Net Zero Utopia:
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