[HN Gopher] California has got good at building giant batteries
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California has got good at building giant batteries
Author : chiffre01
Score : 66 points
Date : 2025-05-29 19:48 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Californian batteries set new output record_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119878 - May 2025
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://archive.today/j6O1N
| standardUser wrote:
| > Additionally, a recent fire at a battery facility in Moss
| Landing, on California's coast, has spooked communities. One
| Monterey County supervisor called it "a Three Mile Island event".
|
| Careful, you wouldn't want to injure yourself bending over
| backwards to represent both sides of an argument where one side
| is the continued proven operational success of battery technology
| on a massive scale an the other side is some guy yelling "fire"
| in a crowded theater.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > some guy yelling "fire" in a crowded theater
|
| to be fair, there really was a fire, and it was a bad one. You
| can't just lose 80% of the capacity at one of the largest
| battery storage facilities in the US in a multi-day fire and
| hand-wave it away as some kind of conspiracy theory.
| ImaCake wrote:
| It's also just bad optics, unfortunately. A coal power plant
| kills people living nearby slowly over the course of decades,
| a battery fire might injure a few people but it does so in a
| way that makes headlines. No one cares about boring lawsuits
| over a power plant being turned off next year anyway, and
| that is part of what makes these kinds of stories so
| frustrating!
| epistasis wrote:
| I live close to this and the event is proving the horseshoe
| political theory very very correct.
|
| You get the lefty RFK Jr. anti-science types becoming very
| anti-batteries, collaborating with the extreme-right-wing
| coalition of mountain hermits, rednecks, and extremely wealthy
| Monterey peninsula types.
|
| We are a community that is easily spooked, but the batteries
| have really brought out the crazies.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| > mountain hermits, rednecks
|
| These guys love their off-grid and solar and batteries tbh.
| epistasis wrote:
| Well, _some_ of them. Some of them love propane and
| generators. Maybe solar, but not always.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| In fairness a good number of them seem to live in Alaska
| or other places where solar is effectively pointless and
| totally useless for months of the year.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| At this point I wonder if the environmental impact from a
| lithium battery fire would eclipse the impact from a worst case
| scenario at a modern nuclear power plant.
|
| There is far far more in terms of containment in the nuke
| plant, but, the stuff inside is much more dangerous and longer
| lasting.
| epistasis wrote:
| We will find out soon about the environmental impact from
| soil testing. Results are supposed to be on the county
| website [1] at the end of May [2], and that's a few days
| away.
|
| This is pretty much a worst-case scenario for battery fire
| size and spreading. It is a very early large-scale battery
| deployment with what appears to be completely insufficient
| fire suppression, and very little thought for fire isolation.
| It was a tightly packed indoor multi-story facility, very
| unlike the more typical outdoor shipping-container style
| facility.
|
| [1] https://www.readymontereycounty.org/emergency/2025-moss-
| land...
|
| [2] https://santacruzlocal.org/2025/05/15/new-soil-tests-
| start-a...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yeah it was pretty bad, but the siting is excellent. If an
| organization simply must use these unstable batteries, they
| can build them below grade at this site and fight fires
| with the simplest possible means: pushing a pre-placed heap
| of beach sand into the pit.
| slg wrote:
| I honestly have no idea whether you are right or whether that
| county supervisor has merit to what they said. That is why we
| need journalists to actually be people who want to seek truth
| and inform their audience of that truth rather than just being
| a public stenographer. A good journalist should have skepticism
| towards what they are told by public figures and needs to
| consider whether what they are told is accurate before
| repeating it without any qualification.
|
| But then again, there doesn't even appear to be a byline on
| this article, so who knows who actually wrote it. If no one is
| willing to stand behind these words, maybe it wasn't even a
| human who wrote them. Maybe that quote from some unnamed person
| is a complete hallucination of some AI. I guess it's up to the
| reader to do their own research, which makes you wonder what
| role the journalist is even serving in this instance.
| outside1234 wrote:
| This event demonstrated that battery systems need to be
| designed, like any engineering system, such that any failure is
| not catastrophic. They failed on this battery plant, and
| regulations were put in place to prevent that for future
| plants.
| sciencesama wrote:
| Tesla marketing plot !!
| amazingamazing wrote:
| Just in time for datacenters spiking AI usage to eat all of that
| peak time excess. Luckily the super scalers are some of the folks
| driving investment into this stuff.
| jeffbee wrote:
| There are, relatively speaking, not significant data centers in
| California.
| vondur wrote:
| We also have some of the highest energy prices in the United
| States.
| justinzollars wrote:
| Yes. My energy costs have exploded over the last decade.
| epistasis wrote:
| If the "we" means California, that that also includes me, and
| it's pretty clear that we don't have high costs because of the
| generation side, but because CPUC keeps on approving massive
| rate increases for grid costs.
|
| It costs ~$0.13/kWh to generate the electricity (which includes
| any battery costs), but $0.25-$0.50/kWh to deliver the energy
| across the grid.
|
| The utilities get guaranteed profits from rate-basing all the
| grid stuff, but the generation side is a more competitive
| market.
|
| Batteries could be used to greatly reduce grid costs by
| flattening peaks and decreasing grid congestion. If CPUC
| mandated that utilities took those cost-saving measures...
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Yeah, compare the Sacramento municipal rate[1] is compared to
| what SCE or PG&E prices things, and it's crazy. Average in
| California is $0.32[2]; I pay about $0.28, but I have a TOU
| plan and charge my car during super-off-peak so that brings
| my average down.
|
| 1: https://www.smud.org/Rate-Information/Residential-
| rates#Pric...
|
| 2: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.
| ph...
| secabeen wrote:
| Sacramento municipal has a lot of customers in a small
| space. Running a grid in and around a major city is
| significantly different than covering an entire state with
| lots of mountains and forests from Oregon to San Luis
| Obispo.
| secabeen wrote:
| > Batteries could be used to greatly reduce grid costs by
| flattening peaks and decreasing grid congestion. If CPUC
| mandated that utilities took those cost-saving measures...
|
| Can you math this out somewhat? I certainly can see some grid
| cost reductions from batteries, but we still need a pretty
| extensive grid to support baseline load and maintenance of
| rural lines. How would shaving the load peak from 100% over
| baseline down to a lower number help?
|
| Given that we are nearing the normal lifespan of much of our
| rural electric infrastructure that was installed in the
| mid-20th century, it's not surprising that we have a lot of
| spend to do. Private utilities love to defer maintenance,
| especially when it takes 80 years to notice.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I just love paying higher rates to cover the fines for all the
| fires that have been started.
| rconti wrote:
| But at least the dollars we pay for electricity aren't the
| dollars they spend to advertise to us constantly about how
| safe they are. /s
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Someone's gotta pay to make sure people who build $2M houses
| in firezones don't have to pay ridiculous insurance
| premiums...
| timewizard wrote:
| Someone's gotta repair and replace 100 year old crumbling
| infrastructure that they operate for profit in a fire zone
| during a wind storm.
|
| Naw. Let's blame the tax payers for existing instead.
| cobbzilla wrote:
| But if we can figure out how people can live inside batteries,
| the housing problem is solved!
| Animats wrote:
| Somebody needs to make large lithium-iron phosphate batteries in
| the US. A123 does, but they are China-owned.
|
| Anyone know if this American Battery Factory company is going to
| deliver?[1] They have the same street address as Lion Energy,
| which seems to be an importer of battery packs and inverters.
| Street View shows a small startup space.
|
| Back in 2022, they announced they would have a new factory on
| line in two years. Three years later, no factory.
|
| [1] https://americanbatteryfactory.com/
|
| [2] https://www.energy-storage.news/us-gigafactory-startup-
| abf-c...
| philipkglass wrote:
| One Next Energy does:
|
| _ONE said yesterday (15 May) it was launching US-manufactured
| 314Ah lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells, an 'Aries Grid
| Module', and a battery management system (BMS), all designed
| for the battery energy storage system (BESS) market._
|
| "ONE Launches U.S. Manufactured Grid Products: LFP Cells,
| Modules and Battery Management Systems"
|
| https://one.ai/one-launches-u-s-manufactured-grid-products-l...
|
| https://one.ai/manufacturing
|
| _In October 2023, the first LFP cells rolled off ONE's 10 MWh
| customer validation line at ONE Circle in Van Buren Township,
| Michigan. In April of 2023, we started producing Aries LFP
| modules at Piston Automotive, also in Michigan._
| andyferris wrote:
| Tesla Powerwall 3 is LFP - do they make that in the US? (I'm
| not sure if you call it large but Tesla also does large
| installations).
| Animats wrote:
| Oh, good. Big lithium ion batteries in wooden garages were
| never a good idea.
|
| How does pricing compare to BYD and CATL?
| anamexis wrote:
| I'd imagine by the time you have a lithium ion fire, it
| really doesn't matter what the structure is made of.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| CATL's sodium chemistry (Naxtra) is anticipated to be
| ~$50/kWh at scale. Faster charge/discharge capability, ~3x
| cell lifecycle longevity, reliable cold performance (@
| ~-30C), sodium abundance vs lithium, lower risk of thermal
| runaway; weight and density are non issues in this
| application.
|
| https://www.catl.com/en/news/6401.html
|
| https://electrek.co/2025/04/21/catl-unveils-ev-battery-
| charg...
|
| https://www.ess-news.com/2024/11/28/new-sodium-ion-
| developme...
| ortusdux wrote:
| I'd pour a slab and have a shed sized battery delivered
| if the $/kwh and cell longevity was favorable enough.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Keep your wallet close, that time is rapidly approaching.
| Global demand for energy storage at this price and scale
| is voracious.
|
| https://about.bnef.com/blog/china-already-makes-as-many-
| batt...
|
| https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-battery-industry-
| has-en...
|
| https://www.energy-storage.news/global-bess-deployments-
| soar...
|
| https://rhomotion.com/news/global-bess-deployments-
| surpass-e...
| brianwawok wrote:
| Worse idea than pipes full of explosive gas or water?
| conradev wrote:
| It's a great idea if you use well-designed batteries!
|
| I imagine it is pretty hard to get a BYD Blade to ignite,
| for example:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Blade_battery#Safety
| conradev wrote:
| They assemble them in the US, but they import the cells from
| China.
|
| Panasonic does make Lithium-ion cells in the Gigafactory, but
| only ones with Nickel chemistry. Tesla does not make its own
| cells, but they've collaborated closely with Panasonic to do
| things like create a new cell size (2170).
| yalogin wrote:
| I think one of the Tesla execs also started a battery recycling
| company there as well.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
| epistasis wrote:
| Texas, Arizona, and even Idaho (!!) are putting up fairly good
| numbers too, according to this map:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64586
|
| Pretty much all new grid assets are solar, batteries, and wind,
| with a bit of natural gas. And that natural gas will likely be a
| stranded capital asset that won't be able to compete on price
| within a decade.
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| Isn't natgas basically a waste product? As in no one is setting
| out to produce it, it just shows up when you produce other
| hydrocarbons?
|
| So either it's going to get released, flared off, or something
| useful will get done with it even if it goes to $0.
| detaro wrote:
| Yes and no. It is a by-product of oil wells, but there are
| also pure gas fields only harvesting it.
| epistasis wrote:
| You still have to move it to the generation turbines, store
| it, and maintain the turbines. Even if the price of
| extracting natural gas is zero or negative, it may not be
| economical to use it for electricity generation in the
| future.
|
| Solar, wind, and storage are a major disruption of our energy
| technology. They do not follow the same cost curves, and
| fuel-based generation is already a very mature technology. We
| are either at early ages or teenager years for solar and
| storage, we don't know where they will end up when mature,
| but it's going to be so much cheaper than it is now.
| njarboe wrote:
| In the eastern US much of the fracking done is to extract
| natural gas. Not a waste product there.
| detourdog wrote:
| In some cases it is a waste product but not in the USA we
| also have fracking which is a toxic waste producer.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| In Argentina there is a very large operation to get natural
| gas from fracking, and export it to other countries besides
| local usage.
| pfdietz wrote:
| There's quite a lot of "dry" (non-byproduct) natural gas
| being produced.
| ImaCake wrote:
| I am no expert on this, but my understanding was natural gas is
| useful for its flexibility and efficency to handle gaps in
| supply. The big batteries are amazing but they can't (yet)
| cover longer gaps the same way natural gas can.
| pfdietz wrote:
| That's right. When natural gas becomes unavailable or banned,
| green hydrogen could be used for that instead.
| scop wrote:
| > has got really good
|
| For whatever reason that turn of phrase seems very amateur/lazy
| coming from the Economist.
| johnea wrote:
| I have to agree.
|
| I was going to say, just plain grammatically incorrect.
|
| At first I though this had to be a truncation for the purpose
| of the HN subject line, but no, it's the actual title of the
| article.
|
| Could this be a difference between English and American?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| It's incompetence.
|
| Or
|
| it's purposeful ("think different") to get attention
|
| Or
|
| It's a shout out to a common slang where past participles
| (gotten) get used in place of simple past tense ("I seen this
| before" which should be "I saw this before") but her is the
| other swap.
| antognini wrote:
| It's a British vs. American difference. Americans prefer
| "gotten": "California has gotten good at building batteries."
| The British view "gotten" as ungrammatical.
| riknos314 wrote:
| I came here to say exactly this. I feel like I learned the
| proper way to write this before first grade, and that was in
| rural Iowa. How are the editors of a historically respected
| publication allowing this through?
| riknos314 wrote:
| Upon reading further found this: "would be a double whammy)."
| with no opening parenthesis to be found. Seems like sloppy
| writing and editing throughout.
| antognini wrote:
| You learned proper American English. "Gotten" is generally
| discouraged in British English.
| 20wenty wrote:
| Thank you, thought I was going crazy. Maybe this is the new
| thing, adding grammatical errors so people won't think the
| content was written by AI.
| transcriptase wrote:
| California has got good at incentivizing companies to purchase
| hundreds of millions worth of giant batteries from Tesla just
| doesn't have the same ring to it.
|
| Plus that would mean hinting at credit to the bad mars man, and
| no journalist wants to risk that!
| epistasis wrote:
| The free-market is proving your conspiracy theory wrong. Texas
| is also deploying absolutely massive amounts of batteries, and
| it's private investors doing it because it lets them deliver
| cheaper energy and profit.
|
| Batteries are a cost-saving grid asset. Journalists are under-
| reporting this fact, not over-reporting.
| trhway wrote:
| Napkin. Batteries are $100 per KWH (say prismatic, 5000
| cycles). So at $0.1 per KWH - say diff between high demand
| rate and the low demand - it takes only 3 years (1000 cycles)
| to break even. Practically a gold rush just a bit worse than
| crypto :)
|
| It becomes even better if you add vertical integration
| optimization - i.e. your own solar farm in addition to your
| own battery farm.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Why would Musk get any credit for this?
| mullingitover wrote:
| I knew someone who worked for ESS Tech[1], which makes giant iron
| flow batteries in 40 foot shipping containers. Sadly they're on
| the verge of bankruptcy[2].
|
| [1] https://essinc.com/
|
| [2]
| https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2025/05/28/wilsoln...
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Oh wow, now the utilities can go pat themselves on the back and
| raise raises another $.20kWh. Even the middle management could
| use porsches!
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