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.

  • @scratchee@feddit.ukEnglish
    0•6 months ago

    We can all agree on that, Clearly li-ion is a bad choice for static use cases.

    But right now it’s the cheapest option, and it looks likely that will stay true for quite a while unfortunately.

    • Boomkop3English
      3•6 months ago

      It’s the densest option. The cheapest is probably salt/water or iron/water using scrap

      • @humanspiral@lemmy.caEnglish
        2•6 months ago

        LIthium Iron Phosphate is cheapest relatively dense battery type. Sodium ion will be if lithium get expensive.

        • Boomkop3English
          1•6 months ago

          You can draw an arbitrary line of density you find good enough. But with how much space us wasted in some countries, that line should vary a bit place to place

          • @humanspiral@lemmy.caEnglish
            1•6 months ago

            With 40 foot containers providing utility or smaller scale storage solutions of 2.9mwh per container with LFP batteries, that is about 170mwh per acre. Before stacking. I don’t believe a lack of density matters anywhere in the world. Spare space inside buildings is usually sufficient for building needs.

            • Boomkop3English
              1•6 months ago

              A lack of density definitely matters in some places. I’ve been to a bunch of countries now, some have plenty of space, some really don’t

      • @scratchee@feddit.ukEnglish
        1•6 months ago

        Weirdly it’s not, except maybe gravity batteries where nice reservoirs happen to exist already. It should be but it’s not right now.

        Li-ion has economy of scale right now. I do think molten metal etc will overtake eventually, but they’re currently playing catchup and li-ion has dropped in price so much over time that it’s surprisingly cheap even where it should make no sense.

        • Boomkop3English
          1•6 months ago

          I didn’t say molten metal, what? No just a standard chemical battery

          • @scratchee@feddit.ukEnglish
            1•6 months ago

            I know, I just threw out one of the many contenders for grid power.

            Iron water does look promising too.

          • @scratchee@feddit.ukEnglish
            1•6 months ago

            Dams are a normally a power supply rather than a battery. I was more thinking pumped storage hydro. Which is usually done where theres 2 lakes next to each other at very different heights, so you can “store” power by pumping water up and release by pumping back down.