Local watchdog group releases report on Moss Landing Battery plant fire [BESS insanity]

[Caribbeans]

A Net-Zero Chernobyl: the Vistra Moss Landing Battery Fire

Local watchdog group releases report on Moss Landing Battery plant fire

Monterey Herald | Kyarra Harris | July 15, 2025

PRUNEDALE — Never Again Moss Landing, a local watchdog group, released a report claiming a lack of oversight and several key failures contributed to the Jan. 16 fire at Vistra’s Moss Landing battery storage facility.

The group claims the battery storage facility stored more than 50,000 lithium-ion batteries in a tightly packed, double-stack layout with less than 6 feet of space in between rows, which they say contributed to the severity of the fire when the suppression systems failed.

“Vistra installed and operated a high-risk, densely packed indoor storage layout that was prone to completely burn up all the batteries on the floor,” said Ed Mitchell, a volunteer with Never Again Moss Landing.


Ed Mitchell presents findings from a new report from Never Again Moss Landing, detailing shortcomings of Vistra and state regulators to ensure safety at the Moss Landing Battery Storage facility. (Photo by Kyarra Harris/Monterey Herald)

During the presentation, Mitchell alleged Vistra and state regulators failed to ensure adequate safety measures, citing design flaws and insufficient regulation of the storage facility.

Never Again Moss Landing also criticized the California Public Utilities Commission for prioritizing technological development over public safety, calling for stricter regulations, including mandatory plans for worst-case scenarios. The report recommends building firewalls inside battery storage facilities to slow fires and give operators more time to respond...more
https://www.montereyherald.com/2025/07/15/local-watchdog-group-releases-report-on-moss-landing-battery-plant-fire/

BESS Failure Incident Database - Hundreds of these BESS Fires you haven't heard about- because MONEY

The BESS Failure Incident Database was initiated in 2021 as part of a wider suite of BESS safety research after the concentration of lithium ion BESS fires in South Korea and the Surprise, AZ, incident in the US. The database was created to inform energy storage industry stakeholders and the public on BESS failures.
https://storagewiki.epri.com/index.php/

BESS has already been selected to store energy in every state across the USA. No votes are permitted - A BESS Site has been ordered to be installed about 15 miles away and locals didn't want it so close. These locals went to some kind of PR event by the makers of these batteries and those who will build them and were told that "it didn't matter whether the locals wanted it or not - the decision has been made". That's what happens when decisions like this are made by those invested in the tech in question. What a disgrace.

And if you are unlucky enough to be near one of these toxic fires the official advice to you and your family: Close the Windows! They were going to say "Let them Eat Cake" but someone must have realized that would look kind of bad.

Fire reignites at Moss Landing Power Plant, world's largest battery storage plant

Hundreds of Energy Department Officials Hold Stocks Related to Agency’s Work Despite Warnings
https://archive.ph/iVPpZ

BESS may not even be the best way to store excess energy, but that doesn't matter. The Decision has been made- by those who now control the United States of Peons and Suckers.

[SheltieLover]

1. Kick

[NNadir]

2. Um, sorry, but storing fossil fuel energy as hydrogen is equally as stupid, wasteful and dirty.

We do have hydrogen plants blow up already, and compared to batteries hydrogen is a trivial storage medium. Happily the hydrogen scam, which is now half a century old, will go nowhere.

All forms of energy storage, even the far better form of thermal storage, waste energy. This is a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics which the fossil fuel salespeople who come here to rebrand fossil fuels as "hydrogen" ignore in their contempt for science.

The big lie behind all of this, batteries, and even worse, hydrogen, is that the world is awash in vast excesses of so called "renewable energy." It isn't even close. So called "renewable energy" is a trivial and unsustainable form of energy that merely serves as a distraction from the dire realities of fossil fuels, sold here with hydrogen greenwashing.