Plant at Moss Landing on fire!….again.

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slaphappygamer

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This 3000 megawatt facility is on fire. Just letting it burn. It’s so large, there doesn’t seem like a safer option. This happened a couple of years ago too. Pretty destructive. Here is the latest article about it. I’m pretty far north of it, so I don’t think schools will be closed.

Here is more about the facility.
 
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I wonder how large the downwind evacuation zone is? I know I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that fire.

Also, isn't this the 'largest' and thus highest profile battery storage facility? Not such good pr for the industry if it keeps experiencing 'expansion past the limit of ventilation' 😂

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962476_52420.png

looks like it covers quite a lot of residential.
source -> Evacuations ordered in Monterey County after fire at battery power plant in Moss Landing
 
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That's the first of the 4 storage projects on the site, so the oldest (online ~12/2020), but not old. Luckily the site is on the coast, with hills to the east and mainly farmland to the north and south, until you get to Santa Cruz or Monterey. I think that's why the evacuation was only 1500 people. I used to ride by there when going to watch races at Laguna Seca, and also had gone on a site visit to the fossil plant a long long time ago.
 
The fire can be smelled on the west side of Santa Cruz and in Aptos. I think the fog is containing the smoke in the air. Pretty yucky.

Some are worried that the smoke could contaminate the produce that grows in those farmlands.
 
I always thought it might be premature to take today's chemistry, which is randomly fire prone, and build a giga scale battery out of it.

Considering that they catch fire so often, i wonder if it's actually a net win for the environment or a net loss.

Batteries that have massively improved safety ( sodium ion? solid state? ) will be game changers here.
 
That's a dumb reason for a battery to catch fire!
 
neptronix said:
I always thought it might be premature to take today's chemistry, which is randomly fire prone, and build a giga scale battery out of it.

Considering that they catch fire so often, i wonder if it's actually a net win for the environment or a net loss.

Batteries that have massively improved safety ( sodium ion? solid state? ) will be game changers here.
Click to expand...
When under development (~2018), there were no agencies that had a clue of how to deal with a large scale installation. OSHA had nothing as far as safeguards for workers, and even in the industry, there were no experts, or anything regarding specific safety requirements. It's been all learn as you go. Same with the shipping industry, shipping those big batteries. They had a few big fires, that impacted importing them for while, and since all of these projects are under a timeline, equipment delays places them under additional pressure. They figured out that the companies putting the batteries in, know the most about them for now, so they should be the ones training local government and their first responders. Sadly safety takes a backseat when folks are put in a position of racing to a "solution".
 
I hate when that happens...

You'd think they would figure out some way to put those out without using water. How about some of that CO2 they're trying to get rid of? An automatic fire suppression system of some sort.


61e84b8b381186cff1fa4f4f54a8e12b.jpg
 
Epic lipo fire!

Yeah we've known lithium batteries are dangerous since the mid 2000's.. why no mitigations?
 
neptronix said:
Epic lipo fire!

Yeah we've known lithium batteries are dangerous since the mid 2000's.. why no mitigations?
Click to expand...
There wasn't the demand for them back then, or a commercial need. They started developing this technology too late to be in synch with their environmental goals, due to dumb policy decisions. The need for storage when migrating to intermittent renewable energy is a no brainer, and doesn't take rocket science to figure out that going 100% renewable is impossible without it. But the legislation focused on killing the fossils through GHG mandates, while ramping up the renewables. Nothing for storage. They planned on replacing the energy, but didn't address intermittence or system reliability. Now they have to scramble. They even extended the licensing of the nuke plant to try to make up for the mess since the fossils are going away quickly as their fuel and emissions costs keep rising. Before this mess, they were hell bent on shutting it down the nukes, even though it's clean energy (except there's no place in the world to dispose of the waste, just like for the lithium batteries). Nobody is looking at the whole picture or the whole lifecycle when it comes to politics and legislation side of the green stuff.

It's a common practice or requirement in other countries to build (or require building) an energy storage facility on the same site as a renewable energy facility. Seems simple, and incorporates both components. A simple way to address both issues and arrive at the final goal without a bunch of drama. We tend to get too fancy. There were a few projects like that, that failed due to the technology hurdles. Solar thermal generation, with molten salt storage underground. Or proposals stand alone storage proposals like using electric motors powered by the grid to pull rail cars uphill to store the energy, and basically regenning back to the grid when rolling back down. You can come up with all kinds of stuff if there's govt grant money to be had lol.
 
Water intrusion has long been a hazard for battery fires, especially salt water into nuclear submarine lead acid emergency backup and propulsion batteries. All kinds of terrible consequences with that, like phosgene gas in an enclosed environment. There is some speculation that this may have caused or been a factor in the sinking of one or two of ours, and probably some of theirs.

neptronix said:
That's a dumb reason for a battery to catch fire!
Click to expand...
 
neptronix said:
Epic lipo fire!

Yeah we've known lithium batteries are dangerous since the mid 2000's.. why no mitigations?
Click to expand...

Considering they have put to put EV's in those large boxes they can fill with water and shut off oxygen, I wonder how much cooling from a water stream you would need to cool it down enough. Probably much better with some kind of foam which also blocks additional oxygen from reaching the fire.
 
fechter said:
I hate when that happens...

You'd think they would figure out some way to put those out without using water. How about some of that CO2 they're trying to get rid of?
Click to expand...
The ONLY thing that puts out a battery fire is water - specifically enough water to cool the cells beneath their thermal-runaway point.

CO2 doesn't put out fires. It just displaces oxygen. And since batteries generate their own oxygen when they decompose, CO2 wouldn't do anything.
 
That's insane... we need non flammable batteries soon otherwise... this kind of PR will haunt the idea of battery power stations for a while.

Maybe time to start thinking about Sodium Ion or something else that has a huge safety margin.
 
Cooling seems to be a weak link. They are pushing these batteries hard enough to generate a lot of heat, so any issues with cooling could lead to what happened. LG makes good batteries, but they still need cooling when they’re pushing megawatts to the grid, and then doing the opposite when charging.
 
Hmm you think they pushed them too hard?
I would think ambient air would be okay but it depends on how close they packed everything.
 
neptronix said:
Maybe time to start thinking about Sodium Ion or something else that has a huge safety margin.
Click to expand...
Edison nickel iron! Hopefully there's enough nickel in the world, and the Earth's crust can withstand the weight.
 
The Vistra batteries are stacked closely together so need cooling even more. New BESS systems have moved to LFP batteries. Less energy density, but safer. SDG&E was first to implement LFP. The last fire at Moss Landing, from water intrusion, were also lithium ion (Tesla mega packs). Takes more space for the same MWs for LFP, so you have to consciously choose safety over greed. I mean, they don’t need to lug around the packs like with an ebike, so who cares how heavy the are.

www.nbcbayarea.com

Moss Landing battery fire hit plant with older, vulnerable technology, expert says

The fire at the Vistra Energy lithium battery plant in Moss Landing sparked the conversation about the facility’s storage system.
www.nbcbayarea.com www.nbcbayarea.com
 
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