Not to be a pedantic, nit-picking troglodyte, but I feel the need to point out that Mr. C. Michael Hogan, PhD’s Letter to the Editor in the 30 Jan-12-Feb ESBN is full of cetacean fecal material.
A five-minute Google search show up article after article (from some quite scientifical folks) about Ocean-Based Power Generation NOT causing whale deaths.
Here’s one: https://bit.ly/40XZIiJ.
Puhleeeze…wind farms dumping massive amounts of Bisphenol A into the ocean?
There may be a case here, but research shows that reformulated ocean structural coatings will minimize even the small amounts of Bisphenol A leached into the ocean.
https://bit.ly/4gqeIKZ. I’d like to suggest a Tinfoil Hat of the Month award to Mr. Hogan for his misleading, pearl-clutching essay.
Bess Meltdown
To be certain, this reader is 100% behind the shift to wind & solar energy generation, but the Moss Landing Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) meltdown should be a wakeup call to tell Vistra Energy to leave Morro Bay for good.
Vistra Energy had (3) previous BESS fires at the Moss Landing facility; in all the time since their first fire, the company never upgraded their fire suppression systems to use newer, effective lithium-ion fire suppression technology.
Per Vistra’s spokesperson, Brad Watson, “There was a mitigation system that was water based…”
That’s a statement of flat-out, willful, industrial negligence.
Vistra’s engineers had to have known better than to use a water-based fire suppression system in a Li-Ion environment!
Regular fire extinguishing systems usually cause more issues than they mitigate.
That’s why fire departments stand by and watch Li-Ion fires burn – they can’t be put out with normal methods.
There are scientifically developed products to knock down Li-Ion battery fires and keep them knocked down, but it seems Vistra ignored installing state-of-the-art fire suppression systems in their facility, even after several close calls in previous incidents.
One of the companies that provide Li-Ion fire suppression technology, Hazard Control Technology Corporation, shows how their product works: https://bit.ly/3EkniNP.
Here, they put out an EV battery fire that they purposely set into meltdown mode: https://bit.ly/4hlvlJ3.
Residents of Morro Bay and the politicians who represent them have had a textbook example in the Moss Landing BESS meltdown on how NOT to site & build a BESS installation: A.) Using an ineffective, downright dangerous fire suppression system and B.) Siting the BESS at sea-level, next to a body of salt water. (Think of what would happen to the world’s largest BESS if it were to be built in Morro Bay and the facility flooded from a tidal event or a tsunami event; the city would have its very own mini-Fukushima meltdown on its hands)
Using a state-of-the-art BESS built in the middle of the desert is a good idea, siting a BESS at sea level in the middle of a busy town is just plain arrogant and ignorant.
Stan Teliczan
Cambria