Smoke and fire at the Moss Landing battery plants raise serious questions.

Sara Rubin here, breathing a sigh of relief, and fresh air. I’m grateful that yesterday’s battery fire in Moss Landing did not lead to injuries, and that firefighters responded quickly. 

But today, I’m still scratching my head for answers and explanations about what happened. Representatives from PG&E and Tesla, the companies that built the Elkhorn battery plant and jointly maintain it (it’s owned by PG&E) have been silent. I called PG&E’s media line just after 9am yesterday with questions, and got into a queue for a callback. When I’d still heard nothing, I followed up around 5pm and received an email with bullet points that said little to nothing, at least zero new information. “The safety of our customers, employees, contractors and the communities we serve is PG&E’s top priority,” the first point read. 

When I followed up with more specific questions, the response I got was: “We have nothing to add beyond our statement at this time.” 

That Moss Landing is an industrial hum in the world of energy production is not new. But Moss Landing as a center of battery technology is new, and it’s proving to be a somewhat rocky journey. 

That’s perhaps to be expected of any new technology, and lithium-ion batteries are known to be fire prone. Yesterday’s fire was the third major fire alarm incident in one year (the two others were at the plant next door, owned by Vistra, which investigated and determined there was smoke, but no fire). 

But when a shelter-in-place advisory came for the Moss Landing and Castroville area and a major highway is shut down for 17 hours, people deserve answers. What, exactly, are the hazardous components they risk inhaling? In the absence of any response from Tesla representatives, I spent some time reading the company’s battery emergency response guide, which reports that the company’s testing determined there is nothing unusual, with smoke similar to a structure fire. 

I am enthusiastic about Moss Landing’s central place in the renewable energy storage industry. I think it’s a thrilling evolution for a coastal community recognizable for its towering smokestacks. No energy source is free of risk and free of consequences, and when compared to the alternatives—things like nuclear (which is carbon-free) and petroleum, cutting-edge battery technology is probably a good option. 

But it’s something the public deserves to understand better if it’s going to stay, and going to grow. We’ve relied on the companies behind these projects (Vistra, Tesla, PG&E) to assure us they’ll be safe, but surprisingly little detail is available. Both Vistra’s and Tesla/PG&E’s projects were approved by the county Planning Commission with a mitigated negative declaration, a limited environmental document based on the premise that impacts will not be major.

Compared to some alternatives, maybe they aren’t major. Moss Landing would look and feel very different if things had gone differently in the 1960s, when Humble Oil, now Exxon, proposed an oil refinery in Moss Landing. That story, told by Kathryn McKenzie and Glenn Church in their 2020 book, Humbled, was one of a public pushing back against a corporation that would promise anything to get its permits. Humble representatives said there would be no odor; company vice president J. Price Warner said, “An oil factory today is a much better neighbor than other types of industries.” 

Promises are one thing, reality is another. I asked Church, who is now running for county supervisor in North County, what he thinks about the battery industry in Moss Landing. “This is really alarming,” he says. “When you have three incidents like this, it raises so many questions—are they really fulfilling their promises? Their whole permit needs to be looked at really closely.” 

Supervisor candidate Regina Gage says it was Monday—the day before the fire—that volunteers were knocking on doors in Castroville and heard questions from voters about the battery plants. So she started getting up to speed. “From the basic research I’ve done, it seems like this is not that unusual, which is disconcerting,” she says. “We need to do our due diligence and pay close attention.”

I will be following up and learning more about lithium-ion batteries and how they work and what happens when they catch fire. In the meantime, please send your questions my way. 

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the following correction. A shelter-in-place advisory, not an order, was issued for the impacted area.

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Battery plant fires raise unanswered questions. Marcus Nance can style.