Battery storage plants are vital to expanding renewable energy in California, but safety concerns are growing
A fire rages out of control at the Vistra battery storage plant, one of the world’s largest, in Moss Landing, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. raised questions Friday, and possible new hurdles, for California’s efforts to shift most of its electricity generation to renewable energy like solar and wind.
“This is really a Three Mile Island event for this industry,” Church said, referencing a high-profile accident at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. “If renewable energy is going to be the future it really needs to be safe energy.” “The plume was at least 1,000 feet high,” he said Friday. “We’re not expecting it to impact people on the ground. It looks like it has been pretty well dispersed. We’re not anticipating health impacts on people.
After Vistra proposed building a 600-megawatt battery storage plant on the waterfront at a former PG&E plant site in Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo County, opponents put a measure on the ballot to block it.“The situation playing out right now in Moss Landing has been the concern of our community for the past few years,” said Morro Bay Mayor Carla Wixom on Friday. “People are worried about a fire and the consequences of it.
“I don’t consider this a disaster. San Bruno was a disaster,” Jacobsen said, citing the explosion of a PG&E natural gas pipeline in 2010 that killed 8 people and destroyed 37 homes in a San Mateo County neighborhood. “Our company takes very seriously what happened last night and we are hurting today because we know primarily its impacted and disrupted the people who live around our site — our neighbors, our friends and businesses — and for that we’re sincerely sorry,” said Vistra spokesman Brad Watson.
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