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Comment by retrocryptid | Hacker News Reader

I was living in Albany when the Chevron plant went up in 2012. I had just moved their from the Millbrae hills a year prior (to get closer to bart, and my friends) - where I was down wind of San Bruno in 2010. So, I have bad luck.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold Tesla accountable, but the gently implied premise that somehow this is a battery-exclusive problem is distasteful me.

It's not the Chevron plant that was burning.

Missing the point.

Horrible, toxic fires are not exclusive to batteries. I have personally lived through two horrible gas-based fires, which is anecdotal. However, there are tons of examples.

This current fire is a disaster, yes. And it should be investigated rigorously. And we should learn from it, and if willful negligence was involved, prosecute accordingly.

I wonder if the hazards from chemical batteries tips the scales in favor of otherwise less economical flywheel energy storage.

Storing battery-tier volumes of energy in spinning flywheels sounds terrifying on scale - a cursory search indicates 1kWh ~ 1 KG of TNT.

I guess it depends on the risk of an exploding flywheel, but batteries seem likely to fail in a much less explosive manner as opposed to a failed flywheel.

Typical flywheel energy storage relies on enormous mass rather than high rotational speed. I don't think that flywheel storage is necessarily hazardous.

My thought was that a failed flywheel would be locally catastrophic but as long as you are not building homes right next to them, it would be safe for the surrounding community and not inconvenience or put civilians danger.

Thermal runaway is a contagious failure mode.

What’s “KG” in this context? As in, serious question because I can’t parse that sentence. Is it supposed to be “kg”?

Yes it’s a kilogram.

Sure. Other types of energy plants burn. This might be the only one for which Elon Musk has culpability, though.

This may not be Elon's fault. Maybe Li-Ion batteries for grid storage just aren't there yet. The facility next door to the PG&E/Tesla one had problems several months ago.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypw5x/largest-lithium-ion-b...

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