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Morro Bay City Council votes to ban battery storage facilities

February 26, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

The Morro Bay City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to extend an urgency ordinance banning battery storage facilities in the city.

Vistra, a Texas-based energy company, has plans to construct and operate a 600 megawatt battery storage facility on approximately 24 acres of a roughly 70-acre site. However, residents, concerned the facility will endanger the public while negatively impacting tourism and the fishing industry, have battled against the proposed project for several years.

On Jan. 28, the City Council voted for an urgency ordinance to temporarily halt a potential battery energy storage project. The urgency ordinance was set to expire on March 14.

In an attempt to protect the community while working on a permanent solution, the City Council voted Tuesday to extend the urgency ordinance through Jan. 28, 2027.

The extension will provide time for city staff to research and develop permanent regulations to address the impacts of battery storage facilities. In two to three months, city staff is slated to bring ideas regarding a permanent ordinance to the City Council.

 


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I am Angry, and I hope Vistra is SUED untill Death over the the Moss Landing for the poisoning of the People, the Wildlife, the bay, the land where our Salad grows! They have NO idea what they were doing. For how many years will that 50 mile radius be poisoned? Unacceptable! I have friends up there that are suffering! And the Land is now covered in heavy metals!

I am frustrated about the battery storage they are now putting in Nipomo! Right next to neighborhoods and the freeway where thousands will be exposed as they drive by? Its all so careless! They have No idea yet how to properly store batteries without it causing a disaster! How is it California is allowing this? How is this “Green” energy??


There is a youtube channel called StatusCoup that talks about some of the damages happening around Moss Landing.


I think MB needs to do more that just an ordinance, Vistra has deep pockets, and could care less about us and our Kids at the high school being within yards of their unstable storage!

MB needs to find something else to put there NOW! Fill in the space Immediately so it’s no longer available! Work on that!


6

You gotta break some eggs to make an omelette.


-3

So in the meantime, you are willing to eat that Artichoke Laced with Heavy metals? Not to mention, breathe in all those hot toxins until your chest hurts? Or, how about having your face turn bright red and the burning feeling, while your nose is bleeding?

These are real symptoms from being in the area. How is this better?


2

Batteries are more than fires. They are more than the mining for the materials that make them up. They are precursors to off shore wind machines being pushed by politicians and monied interests. Batteries are needed for wind turbines when the wind does not blow. Batteries are very costly to consumers for 4 hours of storage. We all know that low yielding, ocean eating ie. thousands of acres taken, marine mammal confusing, bird chopping, visual polluting, unreliable high consumer cost wind and battery energy makes no sense. No to batteries. Thank you for the no vote . No to industrializing our central coast for high consumer cost energy. Personally, I like the three stacks from an historical stand point and as an Morro Bay marker. The rest of the area can be used in a more people friendly, small ocean town way.


14

Vistra was aware of EPA Scope 3 standards years ago. Lithium BESS Life cycle carbon footprint makes it a bad choice. When planning the Moss Landing plant Vistra ignored informing the public and stakeholders of the true emissions by not assessing them through the rigor outlined in this CO2 Scoping PDF document created by the EPA:  https://ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/standards/Corporate-Value-Chain-Accounting-Reporing-Standard_041613_2.pdf 


Even a cursory evaluation of several forms of energy storage in grams CO2/KWH cost derived through artificial Intelligence using LLM technology, point out the glaring fact Li BESS is a dead end technology. Running this original question through both GROK AI and chatGBT shows Li BESS to be the poorest technology even when given their nameplate turnaround efficiency. Because of the short life cycle of Li BESS plants and the continuous degradation of the turn around efficiency Li BESS is a failed choice. Pollutant dangers are far more than other storage systems. For Lithium BESS the lifetime cycle carbon footprint is 450-600 grams CO2 / kilowatt hour. For dual reservoir turbine electrical storage Life cycle CO2 cost 10-20 grams CO2 / KWH! here’s the proven tech: https://www.ryedevelopment.com/projects.html


6

Don’t squeeze and force this into a small town with prime ocean property right next to a bay and estuary… its crazy… Vistra will be sorry if they keep pushing this on us…. its only going to drain their bank account…

Build the damn thing in the middle of nowhere or out in the desert….

Sometimes I wonder about so called educated people when they come up with ridiculous things like this…. only money can make people do dumb things like this…


17

I just hope the council has a plan to procure the millions of dollars it will take to tear down those smoke stacks before they come down on their heads.


-25

3 million


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