A Massive Clean Energy Environmental Disaster

Environmentalists told us that green energy was the only way to save the planet. They told us it was clean and that any workable alternative was dirty.

Now ‘clean energy’ has its own Three Mile Island. And that’s not even my headline.

Moss Landing battery fire: A ‘Three Mile Island’ for key renewable energy industry? – Mercury News

The difference is nothing actually happened on Three Mile Island. Not the case on Moss Landing.

The dramatic fire at the Vistra battery storage plant caused the evacuation of 1,200 people in Northern Monterey County, closed Highway 1 and sent large clouds of toxic black smoke billowing from one of the world’s largest battery storage plants.

Angry local officials said Friday that they had been misled by Vistra, a Texas-based energy giant that built the 750-megawatt plant in 2020, with one local official likening the blaze to a 1979 accident at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant that raised doubts about the safety of nuclear energy.

Lithium battery fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish. They burn at high temperatures and can emit toxic gases that can cause respiratory problems, skin burns and eye irritation.

Battery storage is key for enabling California’s expanded use of solar and wind energy.
Because the sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind doesn’t blow all the time, California has been increasingly relying on huge battery storage plants to capture electricity during the daytime and release it on the grid at night, reducing the risk of blackouts during hot summer months when demand is high.

Last summer, after two fires occurred at San Diego County battery storage facilities, San Diego County supervisors required county officials to draw up tighter rules that would restrict battery storage plants near homes, schools and other facilities.

There’s nothing actually clean or green about green energy.

With a lifespan of 25 years, the early generations of solar panels have begun to clutter up the state’s landfills. Ironically, only about 10% of the solar “green energy” solution are recycled and the rest represent a serious toxic waste hazard. Behind the illusion of clean energy is the grimy reality that solar panels break down and just turn into poisonous and dangerous trash.

Much as solar panels are filling up landfills, so are wind turbine blades. And those blades which “can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing” will first have to be cut up with a “diamond-encrusted industrial saw” and then hauled away on tractor trailers to massive landfills.

Fiberglass blades aren’t biodegradable and burning or crushing them releases toxic fibers that have been linked to everything from skin reactions to lung disease.

Inhaling fiberglass dust is potentially dangerous. Especially from something the size of a jet wing. That just leaves one option. The same option as for nuclear power. Bury them.

What we should be burying are the green energy mandates. Green energy is dirty as hell.