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At this point I wonder if the environmental impact from a lithium battery fire would eclipse the impact from a worst case scenario at a modern nuclear power pla

At this point I wonder if the environmental impact from a lithium battery fire would eclipse the impact from a worst case scenario at a modern nuclear power plant. There is far far more in terms of containment in the nuke plant, but, the stuff inside is much more dangerous and longer lasting.

epistasis 1y ago
We will find out soon about the environmental impact from soil testing. Results are supposed to be on the county website [1] at the end of May [2], and that's a few days away. This is pretty much a worst-case scenario for battery fire size and spreading. It is a very early large-scale battery deployment with what appears to be completely insufficient fire suppression, and very little thought for fire isolation. It was a tightly packed indoor multi-story facility, very unlike the more typical outdoor shipping-container style facility. [1] https://www.readymontereycounty.org/emergency/2025-moss-landing-vistra-power-plant-fire/soil https://www.readymontereycounty.org/emergency/2025-moss-land... [2] https://santacruzlocal.org/2025/05/15/new-soil-tests-start-after-moss-landing-battery-fire/ https://santacruzlocal.org/2025/05/15/new-soil-tests-start-a...
- jeffbee 1y ago
  Yeah it was pretty bad, but the siting is excellent. If an organization simply must use these unstable batteries, they can build them below grade at this site and fight fires with the simplest possible means: pushing a pre-placed heap of beach sand into the pit.
  - epistasis 1y ago
    I'm not even sure if the fire was bad. It was visible, surely, and people are scared of the unknown. But the preliminary results are that there's nothing unusual on the soil: https://www.countyofmonterey.gov/home/showdocument?id=139505 https://www.countyofmonterey.gov/home/showdocument?id=139505 Metallic taste in the air was the worst symptom that people reported, and people here were complaining of metallic taste in the air, 40 miles away, upwind from the site, for months. So unless something really shocking comes up in the report this month I think battery fires are mostly a concern for insurance companies and fire code to protect fire fighters and other structures. IMHO building below grade and dumping dirt seems to be massive overkill; just separate containers and don't stack them so that a lower fire spreads to multiple upper containers, and things are probably fine.
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      The Santa Cruz area is obviously primed for a chemtrails-like freakout. Oddly I've never heard anyone complaining about the fact that there's a combustion generator right next to it that's been spewing who-knows-what into the atmosphere for decades.

epistasis 1y ago

We will find out soon about the environmental impact from soil testing. Results are supposed to be on the county website [1] at the end of May [2], and that's a few days away. This is pretty much a worst-case scenario for battery fire size and spreading. It is a very early large-scale battery deployment with what appears to be completely insufficient fire suppression, and very little thought for fire isolation. It was a tightly packed indoor multi-story facility, very unlike the more typical outdoor shipping-container style facility. [1] https://www.readymontereycounty.org/emergency/2025-moss-landing-vistra-power-plant-fire/soil https://www.readymontereycounty.org/emergency/2025-moss-land... [2] https://santacruzlocal.org/2025/05/15/new-soil-tests-start-after-moss-landing-battery-fire/ https://santacruzlocal.org/2025/05/15/new-soil-tests-start-a...

jeffbee 1y ago
Yeah it was pretty bad, but the siting is excellent. If an organization simply must use these unstable batteries, they can build them below grade at this site and fight fires with the simplest possible means: pushing a pre-placed heap of beach sand into the pit.
- epistasis 1y ago
  I'm not even sure if the fire was bad. It was visible, surely, and people are scared of the unknown. But the preliminary results are that there's nothing unusual on the soil: https://www.countyofmonterey.gov/home/showdocument?id=139505 https://www.countyofmonterey.gov/home/showdocument?id=139505 Metallic taste in the air was the worst symptom that people reported, and people here were complaining of metallic taste in the air, 40 miles away, upwind from the site, for months. So unless something really shocking comes up in the report this month I think battery fires are mostly a concern for insurance companies and fire code to protect fire fighters and other structures. IMHO building below grade and dumping dirt seems to be massive overkill; just separate containers and don't stack them so that a lower fire spreads to multiple upper containers, and things are probably fine.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    The Santa Cruz area is obviously primed for a chemtrails-like freakout. Oddly I've never heard anyone complaining about the fact that there's a combustion generator right next to it that's been spewing who-knows-what into the atmosphere for decades.