In a world of climate crisis, I have generally been an advocate of the development of clean energy—a way to foster economic development and innovation while at the same time lessening our carbon footprint and hopefully rolling back its destructive tide.
And yet, that pursuit comes with a cost—a cost that we are just beginning to understand. Two related stories help to frame this issue.
In mid-January, the Moss Landing Power Plant burned up in Monterey County on the central coast of California. The New York Times covered the aftermath and the environmental destruction wrought by the fire.
In the quest for a greener future, California has championed the development of renewable energy sources, with battery storage facilities playing a critical role in this transition. However, the recent fire at the Moss Landing battery-storage plant in Monterey County serves as a stark reminder that even green technology can have significant environmental and public health impacts if not properly managed.
The Moss Landing facility, celebrated as the largest of its kind in the world, went up in flames last month, displacing over a thousand residents and sending plumes of potentially toxic smoke into the air. The aftermath has left the community grappling with health concerns, environmental damage, and broader questions about the safety and regulation of energy storage technologies.
Residents reported a metallic odor and experienced symptoms consistent with heavy metal exposure, such as headaches and sore throats. Soil tests revealed elevated levels of cobalt, nickel, and other metals associated with lithium-ion batteries, raising concerns about contamination of the local agriculture that Monterey County relies on. The region’s famed strawberry fields are now under scrutiny, with fears that polluted soil could affect both the crops and the workers who harvest them.
This incident is not just a local crisis but a cautionary tale for the state and the nation. It highlights a critical gap in our regulatory framework: the lack of comprehensive safety standards for new energy technologies. While lithium-ion batteries are pivotal for energy storage, their potential hazards demand rigorous oversight and contingency planning.
The environmental implications of the fire at the lithium-ion battery plant in Moss Landing, California, are significant and eye-opening.
Among the concerns are soil contamination.
Tests conducted by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control revealed elevated levels of heavy metals, including cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese, in soil samples collected near the plant. These metals are commonly used in lithium-ion batteries and pose serious health risks, particularly in agricultural contexts.
The contamination raises concerns for local agriculture, especially given that Monterey County is known for its produce, including strawberries. Farmers and agricultural workers may face health risks from exposure to contaminated soil, potentially leading to crop failures or reduced yields.
The burning of lithium-ion batteries releases a variety of toxic substances into the air, including heavy metals and other harmful particulates. As indicated above, residents reported symptoms such as headaches, sore throats, and respiratory issues following the fire, raising concerns about the long-term effects of inhaling these pollutants.
Contaminants released into the environment can adversely affect local wildlife and their habitats.
The Moss Landing Marine Laboratories conducted studies that found increased levels of heavy metals in topsoil samples from the nearby Elkhorn Slough Reserve, indicating that the local ecosystem may be at risk due to this incident.
The fire has highlighted a significant gap in regulatory oversight of energy storage technology. As the demand for lithium-ion batteries rises with the shift toward renewable energy, it is critical for regulatory agencies to develop comprehensive safety and environmental standards.
As bad as this may be for Monterey’s environment, a few weeks later, I read Siddharth Kara’s book, “Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives.”
In our hyper-connected world, the devices we rely on—smartphones, laptops, electric vehicles—are symbols of modernity, progress, and a greener future. Yet, beneath their sleek exteriors lies a troubling reality: these technologies are powered by cobalt, a metal whose extraction is steeped in suffering and exploitation.
“Our daily lives are powered by a human and environmental catastrophe in the Congo,” Siddharth Kara writes.
Kara shines a harsh light on the grim realities of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a nation rich in resources but impoverished in human rights.
As of 2022, there is no such thing as a clean supply chain of cobalt from the Congo, Kara explains.
He adds, “All cobalt sourced from the DRC is tainted by various degrees of abuse, including slavery, child labor, forced labor, debt bondage, human trafficking, hazardous and toxic working conditions, pathetic wages, injury and death, and incalculable environmental harm.”
Kara’s exploration reveals a paradox that should trouble us all: the pursuit of sustainability through electric vehicles and renewable technologies is built on the backs of the most vulnerable.
The DRC holds more cobalt reserves than the rest of the world combined, and the demand for this metal is set to skyrocket. But the conditions under which cobalt is extracted are abysmal.
“Artisanal” miners, including children, toil in hazardous environments for meager wages. The absence of safety measures and the prevalence of child labor are not incidental—they are integral to the current model of extraction.
The statistics are staggering. Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) employs roughly 45 million people globally, contributing significantly to the world’s supply of various minerals, including up to 30% of cobalt.
Yet, this workforce is largely invisible, its contributions undervalued, and its members’ lives treated as expendable. Entire communities are exposed to toxic substances, leading to severe health consequences, especially among children.
“The harsh realities of cobalt mining in the Congo are an inconvenience to every stakeholder in the chain,” Kara explains. “No company wants to concede that the rechargeable batteries used to power smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles contain cobalt mined by peasants and children in hazardous conditions.”
Kara risks life and limb to go to the sites and bear witness to this human rights catastrophe.
As one person he talked to explained, “Please tell the people in your country, a child in the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones.”
Between the disaster at Monterey and the human rights catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it got me wondering exactly how much we don’t know about the devices that power our lives and the human misery they cover up for.
These two stories challenge us to rethink what progress looks like and to consider who pays the price for our advancements. The current model is unsustainable, not just environmentally, but morally. As we charge our devices and drive our electric cars, we must ask ourselves: at what cost, and whose lives are we willing to sacrifice for convenience? And we have the right to demand that of others.
You are learning, weedhopper
This is why I’m an environmentalist, always have been, and despise climate change politics. It is blinding to reality for far too many, and allows politicians to create ‘green appearing’ projects at great expense to taxpayers, that actually only line the pockets of their political contributors.
That’s why I am a fan of natural gas for stoves, heating, vehicles — at least for the next several decades.
“Electric” is this delusional misnomer for those blinded by climate change politics. So much of electric is dirty!!! For the environment, and, as you point out, for human rights. There are many other examples of the latter, such as lithium mining, or the dirty coal being inhaled by those in China, India, Congo and others — increasing each year, and the pollutants harming the atmosphere worldwide.
Our electricity is produced on a massive scale in the central valley by — natural gas!!! Thanks to Grey Davis, and the taxpayers are paying mightily for the tragically over-expensive contracts he signed. That energy then has line loses to delivery. Instead, that natural gas should be saved for transportation, heating and cooking — not burned en masse for electricity. Electricity isn’t going to be ‘clean’ for a long, long time. And that probably means nuclear — and that’s a whole ‘nuther debate — and technology advancement.
And even another example, I’ve been part of a group that’s been fighting for decades against mass desert solar along with others including native tribes, fighting other environmental groups with a more ‘woke’ climate-change-focused politic, the kind Obama liked to hand out billions for to his cronies. Some think the desert is a wasteland, but no, it’s beautiful and full of life — and unlike a forest which can heal in a few decades or centuries — desert destruction can leave scars that last centuries if not basically forever, as change is so much slower.
So they scrape the desert, move the desert tortoises, and — I had a housemate who worked at Ivanpah — and she said half the tortoises they moved died. And now, ten years later, they are shutting down 2/3 of the facility! Billions wasted, desert scraped, tortoises dead. And while running — they focus thousands of mirrors on a tower that boils water (pumped from the ground, lowering the fragile aquifer) and when birds fly into that area, they burn up. The workers there have come to call them ‘streamers’ as their feathers catch fire and smoke. Does this all sound green to you, to anyone? And yet that is how it was sold by politicians and green industry. And now, it’s being shut down. All those billions wasted, all those animal lives lost. All those pockets lined.
Much of the green industry is corrupt, morally, fiscally and environmentally. I am not a denier of climate change occurring, and I think it’s quite likely human emissions for the last 200 years is a big factor in that. But wake up people to the reality of billions of people on Earth, more and more countries coming into the modern age, and everyone wanting the latest cell phone. Look at the entire supply chain, accept that “electric” is no panacea, and know that we are always going to do great harm to the planet, the people, the animals. Then start to look at how to really make a difference, and don’t let the ‘green talking’ politicians brainwash you.
Unfortunately, this story is badly misinformed in one case and distorts that the true tradeoffs in the other. This is a case where a journalist steered too far out of their area of knowledge and should have explored the issues more deeply with those with more expertise on the subject. (Tom Elias made the same mistake in a column published on wildfire risk and housing density in the February 16 issue of the Enterprise.)
The fire at the Moss Landing energy storage facility is a one-off event at a facility build to obsolete safety standards in a risky configuration that will never be duplicated. The “regulatory gap” has already been closed–small scale batteries have always been built to higher safety standards, and since Moss Landing was built, large scale batteries now must meet those same standards. The fire risk of these systems is 0.005% globally so far (which includes places with less restrictive building standards than the U.S.) and likely decreasing: https://storagewiki.epri.com/index.php/BESS_Failure_Incident_Database
The focus on cobalt fails in two ways. First, the much bigger use of the mineral is in electronics that all of us use everyday, e.g., cell phones, computers, appliances, automobiles, etc. Energy systems is a tiny fraction of this use. Avoiding environmentally beneficial technologies will have little or no impact on this market. This is a case of overemphasizing the importance of a specific sector.
Second, this ignores the huge equity and environmental impacts from the alternative of continued fossil fuel production. The social damages wrought in the Niger River Delta, Thailand and Bolivia where oil is produced are well documented. Even in California, the damages in the wastelands of the San Ardo and south San Joaquin Valleys are highly visible And to Alan’s point, most natural gas is coproduced and create those same damages. In addition, in home natural gas use is poisoning us and CARB and local air districts are stepping to stop this travesty.
This narrative falls into the trap that the fossil fuel industry has set for journalists for decades. It cherry picks extraordinary or atypical events and encourages the media to run off with an misleading narrative. Please don’t be duped by their game.
Right – I’m “absolutely convinced” that technology will save the planet, since it’s done so well with that so far. Elon Musk tells me the same thing.
Then again, he’s building a rocketship to Mars, so maybe there’s an underlying reason for that.
Ron O
I didn’t say that technology would save the planet. It’s going to take stronger political will than we’ve shown and willingness to change our behaviors. But we need to be correctly informed about the technologies we have that we will need on the path to reducing our environmental impact. We need to use less of everything, but we have corporations including our utilities extoling the virtues of using more instead.
Sorry – I guess I got “confused” since you’ve previously/pretty much said that research on UCD farmland is the only thing that’s going to save the world.
Still not sure why you wouldn’t be advocating for the closure of other programs/facilities on campus (to free up space for that life-saving research).