Lithium Batteries Reignited Tuesday at the Moss Landing Power Plant Fire Site

Remember that battery plant fire last month in Moss Landing, California? Tuesday night local firefighters "determined that a group of lithium batteries in an area that had previously burned during the January 16 fire had smoldered and reignited," reports SFGate.

Fire Chief Joel Mendoza said the flames burned at varying intensities throughout Tuesday night before the fire burned itself out at about 8 a.m. on Wednesday. Additional flare-ups at the site are expected due to weather exposure and damage to the remaining batteries. "Rekindling is very, very likely — almost a certainty," said EPA onsite coordinator Eric Sandusky, adding that rain and humidity can interact with the damaged batteries, leading to short circuits and reignition. To further reduce fire risk, Sandusky said the EPA is working with Vistra to begin "de-linking the batteries," a process that disconnects them to lower the risk of propagation and prevent a large-scale fire...
"Vistra said that since the January 16 fire, they have brought in a private fire crew that is on-site at all times to monitor the Moss 300 building," according to a local news site.

Fire Chief Joel Mendoza shared more details with the digital newspaper Lookout Santa Cruz. "We've been saying all along that batteries exposed to heat that didn't burn can ignite. We were hoping that it wouldn't happen, but it did."

Re:

[thegarbz]

Delinking here just removes the escalation and propagation of the fire, it has nothing to do with preventing it from restarting. For that you need to remove all charge from the batteries.

Re:

[rahmrh]

The incompetence was using Lithium NMC batteries in the first place for a stationary application.

Companies in the US and Japan developed NMC batteries because they had higher power to weight. And power to weight makes sense in vehicles to boost range, but in stationary applications that power to weight really does not matter. Because they focused on the NMC batteries, they did not develop the safer (but lower density) LiFePO4 batteries (but Chinese companies did). Because the US/Japan only has good NMC

Re: The fire is out? De-link the damn batteries!

[dj245]

This facility is one of the first large sites built in the US. It was built before the lithium phosphate chemistry became widely used in battery sites. The section with the fire was also built within the old turbine hall at the existing site. It seemed like a good idea back then but we now know that is a very bad idea. When it was designed we didn't know what we know now. Construction work was well underway by the time the McMicken fire occurred, and the major lessons from that were on firefighting respon

Job safe for now

[Waffle Iron]

"Rekindling is very, very likely — almost a certainty," said EPA onsite coordinator Eric Sandusky, adding that rain and humidity can interact with the damaged batteries, leading to short circuits and reignition. To further reduce fire risk, Sandusky said the EPA is working with Vistra to begin "de-linking the batteries," a process that disconnects them to lower the risk of propagation and prevent a large-scale fire...

Well, at least this guy probably won't have a hard time composing his "Justify what I did last week or else I'm fired" email by tomorrow night's deadline.

(BTW, is there any business school outside of the 8th ring of hell that teaches this particular management tactic?)

Making the rounds on Reddit

[Anonymous Coward]

Fulfilled the statutory mandates set forth in 5 U.S.C. 301 and related provisions, I diligently executed duties essential to the operational integrity of the agency.
Under the framework of executive directives and regulatory guidance, a series of critical tasks were undertaken to ensure compliance with federal mandates.
Coordinated with interagency partners in accordance with the principles of 31 U,S.C. 1341, efforts were made to optimize resource allocation while maintaining strict adherence to fiscal respon

Re: Making the rounds on Reddit

[flyingfsck]

It will be rather obvious if all gov employees submit the same answer DOGE.

Re:

[phantomfive]

"Justify what I did last week or else I'm fired" email by tomorrow night's deadline. (BTW, is there any business school outside of the 8th ring of hell that teaches this particular management tactic?)

That's nothing. Wait until six months from now, when they ask "What have you been doing for the last six months? I have no idea" because they haven't been reading your weekly reports and forgot that they asked you to send them. (true story)

Lithium is Nirvana's only good song.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you using it for batteries?

Re:

[v1]

It's a chemistry/physics thing, probably not appropriate to go into that level of detail here. Go watch any of a dozen educational videos on YT.

The tl:dr of it just comes down to thousands of hours of testing done by hundreds of scientists over decades and this is the best compromise in performance/cost/risk that humans have been able to discover thus far. Like why were we using dangerous steam locomotives in the 1800s? Because it was by far the best option at the time.

(and if you don't like where we are

Re:

[Mal-2]

Sodium might be a better option for fixed installations. It's heavier, but it's also super cheap and no region has a monopoly on the market.

ixnay on the odium-say

[Provocateur]

But my blood pressure goes through the roof!

Re: Lithium is Nirvana's only good song.

[dj245]

It almost got there when lithium prices were high but when you look at the whole BESS package lithium still makes more economic sense. Some people in the industry consider sodium batteries to be a hedge against uneconomic lithium prices. Insurance companies are now very familiar with lithium phosphate and newer spacing requirements mean that the statistical fires don't spread as much as they used to. This risk is baked in to the total lifecycle cost. Sodium is less known in the insurance business and a th

Lithium isn't the problem, troll

[drinkypoo]

The problem isn't the lithium, it's everything else about the plant.

Vistra used rackable batteries assembled from LG NMC cells and installed with insufficient compartmentalization.

They should have used batteries made from LFP cells, and also had more firewalls, although if they were using LFP this almost certainly would never have happened.

But if it did happen anyway, then it would have been a lot less toxic, not least because LFP batteries don't contain cobalt.

Only uneducated chuds act like all lithium bat

Anti-Battery trolls with modpoints

[drinkypoo]

Trying to bury the fact that all lithium batteries don't have these problems by downmodding comments on slashdot won't work. Why waste the time? The person I replied to was obviously pushing an agenda based on falsehood. Defending them is defending disinformation.

Re: Lithium is Nirvana's only good song.

[zawarski]

Ah, come on. Heart Shaped Box fucking rocks.