It was truly shocking to watch entire cities in California burn to the ground through a combination of predictable Santa Ana winds, incompetence and misguided environmental policies. Then, to compound the chaos, a fire broke out at the Moss Landing power plant south of San Francisco, where a lithium battery storage facility ignited unexpectedly. Because of the extreme temperatures involved, the best practice is to let this type of fire burn itself out, which took one week. But don’t worry Northern California residents, the EPA says the air is totally safe. I’m sure the people pushing these solar power storage facilities on the public have good reasons to say that. However, the local authorities didn’t do the actual testing to find out if there was environmental damage, because it would be “expensive.” Or maybe they just don’t want us to know.
The reason I bring this up is because there is currently a massive solar farm being proposed for Santa Fe County. Since the sun only shines during the day, the solar farm is useless at night. The solution to this problem is to build a battery storage facility to store power all day, so you can run your lights off the batteries overnight. Unfortunately, according to a Monterey County Supervisor quoted in USA Today, “this technology is ahead of the government’s ability to regulate it. And the industry’s ability to control it.”
For the country’s premier 300-megawatt lithium storage facility to literally go up in smoke should make everyone in Santa Fe County think twice about the supposed environmental benefits of solar. Previously, I had considered the battle over the Rancho Viejo solar project a popcorn-worthy food fight between NIMBY property owners and powerful green energy interests. But this is a seriously dangerous technology that should not be anywhere near populated areas like Santa Fe, and probably not anywhere else in the state either. AES Energy is proposing up to 700 megawatts of projects throughout the State of New Mexico. Without the batteries, these solar projects are much less practical, so the panels and the batteries go hand-in-hand. We’ve already seen large parts of New Mexico overrun with windmills, and while they are ugly, there is not a risk of toxic fires burning for days on end. The Moss Landing fire is a huge wakeup call for all New Mexicans.
It is not often that I see citizens from across the political spectrum all uniting in their efforts, but that is what is happening as opposition coalesces against the Rancho Viejo solar farm. It is time for the environmental lobbyists who frankly run New Mexico to admit that closing, and then leveling, the Four Corners power plant and pursuing a de-industrialization agenda has been a huge mistake. Solar and wind energy are not going to replace oil and gas and they have their own negative environmental impacts. I do not want my county to be part of someone’s science experiment. I say no to solar battery farms in New Mexico. If you want to find out more, please attend the hearing at the Santa Fe Convention Center on February 3rd at 1:30pm.
Robert Witsenhausen is a Santa Fe based sound engineer and electrical contractor with an interest in politics and current events.
