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.

  • CrimeDadOPAEnglish
    -2•7 hours ago

    There’s no IRL data for the specific model I’ve described, but I’m not sure what you mean by “feelings based”. Using otherwise excess energy instead of storing it is a considered, rational strategy.

    • YggstyleEnglish
      1•40 minutes ago

      The document linked doesn’t go into detail for good reason. It’s a bunch of half cooked ideas distilled to make a good read… but misses a lot of key points. Most notably: it hand waves through storage.

      The electrical grid is a lot like a pressure system in a sense: we have a lot of equipment that is designed to work at a very specific pressure. Outside of those ranges things break. The article mentions feeding back into the grid which is fine and well… but fails to mention how that needs to be managed so as to not blow the whole thing up. Also that solar system you have isn’t going to be feeding shit back into the grid without a buffer… which is storage… for the same reason that you likely will struggle to have a solar home without batteries. The sun is variable and your “stuff” needs a very specific range of power. Too much? zap. Too little? brownout. Either way: rip electronics.

      The very things you are suggesting as solutions to power storage literally require it to work.