"Researchers from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories measured more than 100 locations at Elkhorn Slough, an expanse of sensitive marshes just north of the plant, and found high levels of nickel, cobalt and manganese on the top of the soil all metals contained in the thousands of lithium-ion batteries that burned and which were spread in microscopic pieces through the billowing smoke that poured from the fire."
"'It was like a dust,' said Ivano Aiello, a marine geology professor at Moss Landing Marine Labs who led the soils testing. 'That's what it was. A metal dust. It was like sugar dusting on a cake.' Metals came from the fire, Aiello said. There's no doubt about that. They traveled. They are tiny. The smoke can travel really far. They can go everywhere, including your lungs. People who were breathing that air were breathing the air with metals."
A major January fire at a 750-megawatt battery storage plant in Moss Landing burned for two days and released large quantities of metals. Researchers measured over 100 locations at nearby Elkhorn Slough and found elevated nickel, cobalt and manganese concentrated in the topsoil. The study estimates about 55,000 pounds of toxic metals spread within a mile of the plant and indicates microscopic metal dust traveled through smoke. The blaze forced evacuation of 1,200 residents and closed Highway 1. The plant is owned by Vistra Energy. The incident raises safety concerns as California expands battery storage to support renewable energy.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]