Crews with Vistra, the Texas-based company that operates the plant, spotted a new flare-up early Friday near a wall of the building that burned in the original January 2025 blaze. According to North County Fire Protection District Chief Jess Cortez, the likely cause was roughly 1,200 battery modules that had remained inaccessible since the first fire — still holding a charge — which spontaneously ignited.

“They’re in the smoldering stage right now,” Cortez told reporters Friday afternoon, noting there was no active flame at that point. “The incident is very dynamic. There could be possible flare-ups.”

County officials lifted the shelter-in-place order later that day. But the renewed activity at the site has reignited debate over the safety of battery storage systems even as California leans more heavily on them to support its power grid. The state now boasts the largest battery energy storage fleet in the nation, according to an August announcement from the California Energy Commission.

“If we had only known the worst-case scenarios of how not to build batteries, we wouldn’t have built Moss Landing,” said Dustin Mulvaney, a professor in San Jose State University’s school of planning, policy and environmental studies. “Because it keeps coming back to haunt us.”

The latest incident also highlights growing friction between Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to speed up permitting for energy projects and the concerns of communities living near them.

A recurring problem

In January 2025, thick plumes of smoke rose from Vistra’s 300-megawatt battery storage facility at the Moss Landing Power Plant, alarming residents across the region. It marked the fourth safety incident at the site since 2019 — the third involving Vistra’s operations — according to a letter from Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-San Luis Obispo, to state regulators. That fire burned for days before being brought under control, then flared up again briefly the following month.

Newsom called for a state investigation shortly after the blaze, and the California Public Utilities Commission opened its inquiry with a site visit that same month. Nearly two years later, that investigation remains unfinished. A root-cause analysis is still underway with input from Vistra and an independent consultant, according to commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper.

Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church said the delay has been frustrating.

“Why it takes a year and a half to come up with an answer when everything is just about near the end of being cleaned up, I don’t know,” he said, adding that regulators should understand what caused the fires before approving any new battery storage projects.

Outdated design, new rules too late

Unlike newer battery storage sites, the Moss Landing facility was built inside an older, enclosed building using outdated battery technology packed tightly together — a combination that allowed the original fire to spread rapidly, Mulvaney said.

Denise Grab, director of the Clean Energy Law and Leadership Project at UCLA’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, agreed that the facility predates many of today’s safety standards. Still, she noted that battery storage remains far less harmful overall than fossil fuel power plants, which are linked to serious health problems including asthma and heart disease.

In response to the 2025 fire, California lawmakers passed several new safety measures, including bills introduced by state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, focused on fire prevention and emergency planning for battery facilities. A 2022 law authored by then-Sen. Ben Hueso required the Public Utilities Commission to establish new safety standards and strengthen oversight of emergency response plans at these sites — but the commission didn’t finalize that proposal until after last year’s fire had already occurred.

“We should have never built Moss Landing the way we did,” Mulvaney said. “We were too late with coming up with the standards and certifications, which make batteries much safer today.”

Lingering health questions

Vistra maintains that the cause of the original fire remains undetermined. The company commissioned a study concluding that chemical levels in nearby soil and water posed no significant risk to human health or the environment, stating that “no further human health or ecological risk evaluation” was necessary.

Independent researchers and residents have pushed back on that conclusion. During the days-long blaze in January 2025, many residents reported symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, headaches and eye irritation. At a public symposium last month, a UC Santa Cruz researcher presented findings showing elevated levels of battery-related materials in residents’ hair samples.

Separately, scientists at San Jose State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories detected elevated concentrations of nickel, manganese and cobalt in soil surrounding the facility. Ivano Aiello, who led that research, said Vistra’s later report examined potential contamination months after the fire had already been contained — raising questions about the timing and completeness of the company’s findings.

The long-term health effects of any exposure remain unclear, and researchers say further study is needed.

Richard Stedman, air pollution control officer for the Monterey Bay Air Resources District, said monitors placed around the Vistra site — four at the fence line and two nearby — had not detected unhealthy particulate levels as of Friday’s briefing.

Still, for many nearby residents, the renewed fire has deepened distrust in the agencies and officials responsible for oversight.

“We’ve had 20 months to prepare for this,” said Brian Roeder, founder of the community group Never Again Moss Landing. “Here we are again, right back where we were before, knowing this could happen.”

Original source: CalMatters

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Two major refineries — Phillips 66 and Valero’s Benicia facility — have shut down in recent months, cutting the state’s refining capacity by roughly 17% and leaving just six major refineries to supply California’s entire market for gasoline and diesel.

That matters more here than almost anywhere else in the country. California requires a specially formulated fuel blend designed to cut air pollution and prevent the kind of smog that once choked Los Angeles and much of the Inland Empire. Because so few refineries outside the state make this blend, and because no pipelines carry outside gasoline into California, the state functions almost like an energy island. When supply tightens, prices have nowhere to go but up.

With fewer refineries competing for business, the ones still operating have had more room to raise their margins. State data show refinery profit margins ran about 50% higher in the two months following the outbreak of the Iran conflict than they had over the prior year. Refining companies have also been earning more on the retail side — branded gasoline, sold through stations tied directly to refiners, now costs about 30 cents more per gallon than unbranded fuel.

Refinery operators argue that California’s environmental regulations, higher taxes and its cap-and-invest carbon market are driving up costs and pushing them toward the exits. They’ve asked the state for more financial support to keep running. In May, the California Air Resources Board responded by approving close to $2 billion in free pollution allowances for refineries, intended to encourage them to reduce emissions rather than shut down.

Yet even with that assistance, there’s no real assurance those refineries will stay open for the long haul. Most are more than a century old, and demand for their primary product — gasoline — is already sliding as more Californians switch to electric vehicles. Roughly one in four new cars sold in the state today is an EV, and that share is expected to keep climbing.

Given these realities, some experts argue California should stop trying to prop up aging refineries and instead prepare for their eventual closure. That means making sure fuel remains affordable for the drivers who still rely on gasoline — particularly lower-income households — by expanding marine fuel imports and building more storage capacity to guard against sudden price swings.

Another option under discussion is a new pipeline that could import petroleum products from out of state. One such project has already been proposed, which would link Texas to Arizona and reverse the flow of an existing pipeline that currently sends California-refined fuel eastward. More competition from imported fuel could help keep local refining margins in check and cushion the state from further refinery shutdowns.

As California moves through this transition, officials say it’s essential to protect refinery workers who lose their jobs and the communities that depend on refinery tax revenue. Lawmakers are also pushing for greater transparency from refining companies about the environmental cleanup costs tied to shuttering old facilities, so that communities already burdened by decades of industrial pollution aren’t left to deal with contaminated sites once the refineries are gone.

Nobody is suggesting California abandon its refining industry immediately — these facilities still supply fuel that millions of residents depend on daily. But as the state moves toward a cleaner energy future, some refinery closures appear unavoidable. The challenge now is managing that shift in a way that keeps fuel affordable, protects public health, and supports the workers and communities caught in the middle.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California’s Aging Refineries Don’t Deserve More Taxpayer Support — It’s Time to Let Them Go appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday voted 4-0, with one commissioner recused, to approve a judge’s proposed decision that Aliso Canyon should remain open for the time being, the Southern California News Group reported.

But commissioners said the vote created a pathway to lowering or eliminating reliance on Aliso Canyon in future years by establishing a target for the level of demand for natural gas in Southern California that can be met without the need of the facility.

“This decision puts forward a path to the closure of Aliso Canyon that is achievable, realistic, and protective of families and businesses who are struggling to pay energy bills,” CPUC President Alice Reynolds said in a statement. “Huge progress is underway to bring online clean energy resources and drive down demand for natural gas-fired power plants.”

Opponents of the facility want it closed immediately. Craig Galanti, a Porter Ranch resident living near Aliso Canyon, was unhappy with the commission’s vote.

“Am I surprised? No. Am I disappointed? I’m exceedingly disappointed,” he told the news group. “The CPUC continues to support the best interests of the utilities at the expense of the community’s health and safety.”

The 2015 Aliso Canyon gas leak, which took four months to control, released more than 120,000 metric tons of methane and other gases into the atmosphere over communities in the San Fernando Valley.

Thousands of residents were forced to move out of their homes to escape a sulfurous stench and maladies including headaches, nausea and nosebleeds. SoCalGas and its parent company, Sempra Energy, agreed to pay up to $1.8 billion in settlements to more than 35,000 victims in 2021.

Last year, the company reached another settlement with the utilities commission, agreeing to pay more than $70 million to the Aliso Canyon Recovery Account to address the impacts from the leak on air quality and public health.

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