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Days before President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office and took actions to stall the transition to clean energy, a disaster unfolded on the other side of the country that may have an outsize effect on the pace of the transition.

A fire broke out last Thursday at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California, one of the largest battery energy storage systems in the world. The fire raged through the weekend, forcing local officials to evacuate nearby homes and close roads.

Battery storage is an essential part of the transition away from fossil fuels. It works in tandem with solar and wind power to provide electricity during periods when the renewable resources aren’t available. But lithium-ion batteries, the most common technology used in storage systems, are flammable. And if they catch fire, it can be difficult to extinguish.

Last week’s fire is the latest and largest of several at the Moss Landing site in recent years, and I expect that it will become the main example opponents of carbon-free electricity use to try to stop battery development in other places.

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    3 days ago

    Of what I’ve read about French recent problematic projects, the high cost there was due to French bureaucracy, organizational mess and probably corruption, not due to anything about technology itself.

    One should factor that in always. Building roads in Russia is so expensive definitely not because of anything unclear with the technology or the climate.

    • DerGottesknecht@feddit.orgEnglish
      11·
      3 days ago

      But the technology requires this amount of bureaucracy, else you get big problems. I trust physics, but i don’t trust humans. Especially if they can get money by skimping on security. The risks with renawables (except dams) are way smaller.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        2 days ago

        No they are not. There is toxic waste, there are environmental risks, everything basically.

        Especially hydroelectric energy is a very small version of the Dyson sphere by its impact on the ecosystems involved. Renewable, but sure as hell not green.

        While nuclear energy uses, ahem, nuclear fuel, which is not very renewable, and nuclear waste needs some time to calm down, but it’s very green.

        Wind energy impacts birds.

        Tide energy, well, impacts everything that functions well when it’s not collected.

        Anyway, one can just integrate stats of losses from nuclear energy and from the rest and see that they are not.

        • DerGottesknecht@feddit.orgEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          Yeah, not gonna write a big reply to this.

          If your that strict, nothing is green. Its about minimizing the impact. And you forgot to mention the mining of uranium.

          Wind energy impacts birds.

          Please compare the impact to housecats, cars and agriculture.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            Hydroelectric energy is worse than burning coal. It’s not being strict, it’s being adequate.

            Housecats are a catastrophe, cars - not so much, agriculture - modern agriculture can have little impact for very good output.

            We started with nuclear energy which is greener than solar panels and wind turbines. It still is.

            • DerGottesknecht@feddit.orgEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              Hydroelectric energy is worse than burning coal. It’s not being strict, it’s being adequate

              [Citation required]

              Housecats are a catastrophe, cars - not so much, agriculture - modern agriculture can have little impact for very good output.

              All are way bigger than windturbines. And the biggest is habit loss, which is mainly driven by agriculture.

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                2 days ago

                If citations are required for my truisms, then citations are also required for your bullshit.

                So - you start first, cause I’m lazy.

                And the biggest is habit loss, which is mainly driven by agriculture.

                Modern intensive agriculture is better for this particular kind of damage than hydroelectric energy, wind turbines and solar panel farms.

                Not using facts, but using logic:

                Space where wind turbines work becomes dangerous (as in uninhabitable) for a lot of life, not just birds being killed or their migrations affected by disorientation, but also seeds carried by wind. Same with solar panels - plants need sunlight, animals need plants, soil needs plants. Same with hydroelectric energy - by changing whole watersheds it incurs such enormous damage to existing ecosystems that a Chernobyl or two every decade is better, and humans don’t bother much about creating and maintaining new ones.

                While with modern agriculture one may make a lot of things closed from the surrounding environment, occupying only space.