I read the Manhattan Contrarian regularly. That blog is listed in our blogroll. I have never thought to plug his work, as it has never occurred to me that he is in need of help from a lesser blog. But today I want to offer him some kudos.
The post I am referring to is The Energy Storage Fiasco: How Soon Will It Be Abandoned?, dated January 17, 2025. The photo above, is of the Moss Landing battery storage facility, located in Monterey County, California. It is the largest battery storage facility in the world. Lithium ion batteries have a tendency to spontaneously combust, and this fire broke out on January 16, or two days ago from this writing. No one is yet revealing the amount of damage done by the fire, so I can only observe by the photo that it is substantial.
On more than one occasion I have commented in mixed company that wind and solar energy cannot exist without being backed up by gas, oil, nuclear and hydroelectric power, only to be told that they are making great strides in battery storage. People are not wrong to make that conclusion, as that is what they are led to believe by climate alarmists, and news reporting on the subject is bankrupt. So Manhattan Contrarian gives us a few chilling facts about the current progress in battery storage, fires aside:
Over in California, their average electricity demand is around 30,000 MW, meaning that the range of 500 to 1000 hours of battery storage they would need to back up their dream of a wind/solar system would require 15,000 GWh to 30,000 GWh of batteries. Here from the State of California is an Energy Storage System survey from October 2024. The amount of energy storage built so far is stated as 13,391 MW. Of course, they use the wrong units. These people are completely innumerate. However, we know that they are talking about 4-hour lithium-ion batteries, so multiply by 4 and divide by 1000 to get 53.564 GWh of storage built so far. That would be between about 0.18% and 0.36% of the amount of energy storage they would need to back up a predominantly wind/solar system.
“.36%” can be translated as follows: In terms of arriving at adequate battery backup, California is currently 1/278th of the way there. That’s not atypical. In my mind, battery backup of wind and solar is not one, but several hundreds bridges too far. Notice that the State of California cannot even state the battery capacity in the correct units, using MW (megawatts) instead of gigawatts per hour (GWh). I love the word MC used, a new one for me even as I encounter the arithmetic ignorance phenomenon daily: “… these people are completely innumerate.”
For the Moss Landing battery storage fire, 12 square miles had to be evacuated, where live 1500-1700 people. That number of evacuations is relatively small.
Back here in New York, my friend and co-author Richard Ellenbogen sends me an email pointing out that we have a large grid-scale battery storage facility moving toward construction on the East bank of the East River right across from Midtown Manhattan. I don’t find whether construction has actually begun, but this project has been in the works for years, and has gotten multiple regulatory approvals. Here is a piece from the New York City Economic Development Corporation indicating that the financing for the project was closed in May 2024. My friend Ellenbogen points out that the technology is the same as the Moss Landing facility in California, and a 12 square mile evacuation zone around this facility would include a big chunk of Midtown Manhattan and another big chunk of densely-populated Western Queens — hundreds of thousands of people, instead of the paltry 1200-1500 just evacuated out in California.
The problem people had with nuclear energy was largely created and exacerbated by Jane Fonda and friends, including a Hollywood movie or two, like the China Syndrome. (Fonda, who once posed for photo ops on a staged gun turret said to be in Hanoi, is so obviously an agent provocateur. She is, of course, all over climate change alarmism. ) Here, with lithium ion batteries we are looking at a real danger posed, a real human tragedy.
The climate alarmist movement is insulated, that is, there is no objective news reporting about them, and they are never held to predictions or called out on something so basic as deliberately misleading arithmetic, as confusing MW with GWh above. I’ve been reading a very complex book on the subject, which I will report on later, by Javier Vinós, who I was introduced to me by Dr. John Robson of Climate Discussion Nexus. Vinós, who speaks with an Hispanic accent, is hard to follow, but that is not a problem for me, as I speak only the one language, while he speaks at least two. Nonetheless, I decided that I needed to read the book before I drew any conclusions, and that is a work in progress. Then I will watch the interview again, with a better grasp of his assertions.
Vinós, as I read the book, is slowly but effectively undermining the whole of AGW. One conclusion he advances, which I find astounding to be not well understood by scientists, is that the Sun plays a large role in our climate.
Piece of Mindful 
Wind and solar and the relative storage devices are NOT the final solution. They are but a step in another direction to… the final solution.
Just like the model-t was a step away from the horse and buggy and the airplane overtook durigible/balloon.
Oil and gas won’t go away over night no matter what comes next.
Petroleum (oil and gas products), is it time (again) to worry about plastic straws? Cause that went over like a leaded balloon.
But don’t listen to me – I work for a company that produces fracking chemicals.
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“first we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin” – “Everybody NOSE that the good guys lost”
231123
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Mark, thanks for the heavy work. Why am I not surprised the climate changers have zero grasp on the most basic part of science: how to convert units.
I have pretty much given up on researching anything not relevant to survival at this point. I.e. I just autohoax everything. Nothing new under the sun.
The past year I focused on personal health research, along with my work in spectroscopy. What I can say is I exercise every day, walks in the morning, and preferably swimming afternoons (Walden pond). Or when on vacation beach all morning, with swimming. Eating lots of raw seafood. mostly meat, eggs, and some vegetables. No prescription drugs, or over the counter drugs at all. And i feel great. Signing off.
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Kudos! I would supply my own life details, but that would steal your thunder. I share your joy at feeling good and the anticipation of each new day. Walden Pond? Really?
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Yes Walden Pond for real. It is almost underrated, if something associated with Thoreau can be underrated. Very clean, cool water, spring fed, and a whole bunch of older men and women who swear by the healing powers of the waters.
The whole period of Transcendentalism fascinated me when I was younger – like Brook Farm, Emerson, etc.
A friend of mine posted on F-ck book that he was very upset much of the Theosophical society museum burned down in the Palisades fire!. Maybe time to destroy the evidence? Like I remember the day of Boston Marathon Firecracker explosions there was a fire at the JFK library in South Boston – that they claim destroyed a bunch of material on the JFK assassination? I am not making this stuff up.
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In case you thought I was joking:
Fire at JFK Library Under Investigation | Firehouse
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I remember that … and then forgot it. Must look into it, as it was likely a real fire done either to destroy evidence or to hide that there is no evidence.
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Mark, I thought about that little piece of conspiracy candy, the JFK library “fire”. My assessment – probably no fire, just a hoax, used as signature that the hoaxers were there. Like Operation Phoenix – they supposedly left the Ace of Spades in dead mens hands to show who did the handiwork.
The Boston Marathon hoax was remarkable in that they carried it out in the middle of a large, international sporting event. Which was previously unprecedented. So I think the JFK library fire hoax was wink and a nod to the greatest hoax of the 20th century – the non-assassination of JFK – in a public place broad daylight under national press converge. It’s fitting the JFK assassination was a hoax, because his presidency had probably the greatest number of hoaxes of any president, excluding World Wars – Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Space (Apollo) speech – and the Mercury program, the fakers Shephard and Glenn in fully glory.
And it’s a small world – guy I worked with, and a friend, is good friends with the coroner who did the autopsy on Tamerlan. Or who says he did the autopsy. I don’t trust no-body.
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Also the massive leak of information (and pictures) showing it was hoax, by people like Dave McGowan, was just a blatant insult to the intelligence of anyone who believed this retarded story – 3 dead and 300 or 400 injured (those numbers are so blatantly fake). Propaganda 101, psyops are designed to humiliate, as Petra has talked about.
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A former neurosurgeon explains why he quit after 9 years plus all the training. Nothing too surprising if you’re familiar with critiques of modern medicine, but thoughtful and reflective. Good background audio for a 45 minute drive or chores etc
Aaaand I guess it’s not letting me post a link to YouTube, so search “former MIT neurosurgeon talks about quitting” maybe
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if you deaden the link and post it, maybe we can make it work.
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Everyone was focused in on the LA and beach front property fires that was nonstop on mainstream news stations. This event must be real since it didn’t get any airplay.
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Yes, when i said I autohoax everything I did not quite mean everything – I mean I just try to use personal connections to get information and rely on media for nothing. I’m not sure I would trust the “nutwork” to tell me the correct time of day.
So you are correct, it’s likely the Monterey fire was real. The fires by electrical cars are way under-reported. I mentioned to my dad why i would never buy an electrical car and he said a friend rented one, it broke down in Philadelphia, started burning, and they basically needed to evacuate, and the fire department could not put the car fire out. Which I’m not sure we have discussed here – Lithium fires are almost impossible to put out. It is the most electropositive element, and everything strips electons from it – water reacts with it instantaneously to form hydrogen and oxygen, which explode with the slightest spark. I have personally had hood fires working with methyl lithium in organic synthesis – lithium is coupled to an alkyl chain to make an incredibly reactive compound, that can form very hard to make carbon – carbon bonds.
Long story short – Lithium is an incredibly dangerous material, and only suffocating foams can stop it when it ignites. And in an electric car, if you submerge it, particularly in salt water, the lithium practically explodes in flame. The only way they can put those fires out is to tow the car into a dumpster and flood it with foam to block all water vapor from reacting with the lithium.
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/watch?v=25LUF8GmbFU
Okay, there’s the neurosurgeon video – if you append https://m.youtube dot com to the beginning.
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