Vistra Corp's 3000-megawatt Moss Landing energy storage facility went up in flames on Thursday, in a blaze that is expected to remain contained to the building. "There are no active fire suppression efforts going on, as the best approach, according to fire staff, is to allow the building and batteries to burn," according to a Monterey Sheriff official. Both Vistra and the county official said that all site personnel had been evacuated and no injuries were reported.

Yeah, I think massive chemical batteries for storing excess electricity to facilitate a contrived green energy market is a bad idea.

  • YggstyleEnglish
    9•6 hours ago

    I imagine you, like many, just don’t understand the insane engineering feat that is an electrical grid. Everything is realtime - Every time someone’s AC kicks on the grid must adapt and provide more power immediately. Power storage is a godsend to this process and in terms of relative age … is very new. With regard to power storage - there are very few ways to hold it that don’t run some risk of fire or other calamitous failure mode. That includes water - but I was being coy when making my statement implying it wouldn’t burn.

    To your comment: you could use salt/sea/undrinkable water for energy storage but it comes with regional requirements (elevation change typically) in addition to the water. It’s not one size fits all and definitely doesn’t work in many regions.

    Regarding your two options which you offered to create potable water (not to store energy:) Both are wildly inefficient and have one or more major drawbacks to them. Topically - one of these drawbacks is their massive energy requirement. So you provided a way to burn energy faster - not store it ;)

    • CrimeDadOPEnglish
      -3•5 hours ago

      If we build out our GHG-free power capacity beyond our electricity demand, efficiency isn’t an issue. We need fresh water. We need hydrogen and oxygen. I’m sure there are other convenient things to produce whenever electricity demand falls off. These energy storage and reselling schemes are just destroying value.

      • YggstyleEnglish
        1•5 hours ago

        We have sufficient generation. It’s a question of cleanliness, efficiency, and consistency. Consistency comes with storage and enables cleaner methods, while inconsistent, to be used.

        Using your example: what need do we have for food storage? We have grain right now - and we’re growing more! Who needs water storage - we have wells!

        Hydrogen and oxygen? Yeah we have that. What technology, currently available, are you suggesting we all switch over to, again? While I’m at it: last I checked stored hydrogen and oxygen have a tendency to uh… burn… and very “energetically.”

        You seem fond of the tin foil - you are apparently worried about “big lithium” or some such… wait until you hear about “big energy.”

        If you are genuinely posting and not acting in bad faith I imagine you need to broaden your view a bit.

        • CrimeDadOPEnglish
          0•3 hours ago

          I’m not sure what you mean. Natural fresh water supplies are stressed in many regions. We need hydrogen to fuel vehicles and for the production GHG-free steel and fertilizer. Oxygen of course is necessary for medical and industrial applications. Safely handling hydrogen and oxygen is a solved problem and these gases are not polluting if you have to vent to atmosphere. It only makes sense from a wasteful, financially extractive perspective to store extra electricity by environmentally questionable means instead of actually using that energy right away.

          • YggstyleEnglish
            1•2 hours ago

            We’ve been talking about energy and energy storage up till now. You’ve been mostly ‘on track’ with said responses up till this point - albeit overly generic and somewhat disconnected from reality… In the last couple responses you’ve jumped from water care to what I can only imagine was the first two Google results when looking up hydrogen / oxygen paired with energy.

            Is the other guy okay or did his shift end?

            Look. Here’s a sobering bottom line: if it were technologically feasible to “replace batteries” we would have already. Hydrogen powered x isn’t functionally acceptable because:

            a) It stores like shit.

            b) boom (pressure or rapid combustion - take your pick)

            c) It is shockingly (hah) hard to get oxygen and hydrogen to split efficiently. Very few sources of hydrogen are actually energy positive or more efficient than what we already have in more convenient, safer, higher density forms.

            I’m all for progress… but armchair warriors that claim the “moral high ground” by shitting on what works currently - while not being able to provide a single other suggestion beyond what they got drip fed from their feed and distilled by their echo group chamber need to sit the fuck down. Want to “stick it to big battery?” Go back to landlines. Put a crank back on your car. The list goes on.

            I digress. Back to energy storage: if you’ve got some brilliant solution - get to it. We’re waiting.