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
    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.