• NY may have new codes, but that doesn’t change the fact that lithium batteries have a highly flammable electrolyte (lithium).

• Before these new codes, lithium battery chemistry made it impossible to extinguish a fire. After the new codes, the batteries remain impossible to extinguish.

• There are no new firefighting techniques; in the event of a fire, the plan remains the same: let it burn. And it could burn for days. We don’t have enough volunteer firefighters to monitor a fire 24/7 for days at a time.

• When fires are left to burn, toxins are spread over a wide area. The Moss Landing fire is the perfect example. Health impacts from hydrofluoric acid and heavy metal contamination were reported as far as 20 miles from the site of the fire. No matter where you place a battery facility on Long Island, a 20-mile radius encompasses a large, vulnerable population, and, like Shoreham, there is no viable evacuation plan.

• Developers assure us that batteries are now safe, but this is the same assurance that has been given before each and every battery fire to date.

• A single, large battery storage facility (250/300 MW) will contain over 1 million individual battery cells. The odds of any single battery failing are very small, but the odds of a battery failure in a facility with millions of batteries are actually quite high. Size matters! The only question is whether those battery failures will create a big problem or a small one. For communities where these facilities are being built, the question is: “Do you feel lucky?”

• We note that data centers, often cited as driving the need for more power, do not prefer intermittent sources of power. To remain competitive, these data centers require power that is cheap and reliable. Recently, software giant Oracle signed a contract with Bloom Energy for their fuel cell technology to power their data centers. Oracle presumably sees the availability of cheap, reliable, green power from this technology without the need for windmills or battery storage. Despite the obvious health and safety risks, the State continues to focus on intermittent wind and solar energy sources to the exclusion of other, probably more green, technology. Why?

• Quoting the Newsday story: the state will “employ a ‘market-based’ subsidy… which will give project owners ‘greater revenue certainty while incentivizing them to participate in wholesale energy and capacity markets.’” And who pays for that subsidy? The taxpayers of New York pay for it, and as a taxpayer, I have a problem with tax dollars going to PE companies so they can ensure their investors earn high returns. If these facilities require subsidies, then the economics simply do not work.

• Finally, all this is being done in the name of climate change. The Biden EPA, beloved by environmentalists, had this to say regarding global climate change in Volume 2 of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Vineyard 1 project: “Overall, it is anticipated that there would be no collective impact on global warming as a result of offshore wind projects, including the Proposed Action alone, though they may beneficially contribute to a broader combination of actions to reduce future impacts from climate change.” So why are we exposing residents to clear and present dangers from batteries when it will have a negligible impact on the problem we are purportedly attempting to solve? 

There is nothing about this push for windmills, batteries, and very high voltage cables that passes the smell test!