Moss Landing Disaster
- David Burkean
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 47 minutes ago
I write to you today about a singularly tragic event and its profound implications for Monterey County and beyond.
Devastating Incident
The world's largest BESS Plant recently exploded in the heart of Monterey County. The Moss Landing Disaster is hard to fully comprehend, being both shocking and far reaching.
Let's start by asserting that Moss Landing is the worst possible place for the WORLD'S LARGEST BESS (Battery Electric Storage System). Fact: Every BESS can be a BESS Bomb.
The Elkhorn Slough got hit.
This BESS Bomb (remember, the world's largest) blew up hard by the precious Elkhorn Slough, our precious Elkhorn Slough. The greatest estuary this side of San Francisco Bay may now be condemned to silent spring status. Let that sink in. Now, feel free to vomit.
The Slough & Moss Landing Harbor are home to Great White Egrets, like the one above.
Sci-Fi Fires
BESS fires aren’t just any old fires. They’re sci-fi fires.
They self ignite. No spark required!
They can’t be doused. Firefighters gotta just stand around and watch.
They reignite. Moss Landing has reignited at least twice.
Let that sink in. Now, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Heavy Metals over the Salinas Valley
The Moss Landing BESS Bomb sent a cloud of heavy metals all over the Salinas Valley, from Watsonville to Prunedale to Castroville and beyond. Feel free to vomit, again.
The Salinas Valley is Salad Bowl of the World. Now it’s been dusted with heavy metals.
Let that sink in. Dry heaves are now acceptable.
Local Reporting
Video from Prunedale, 8 miles from the fire
Facebook Posts
Facing Reality
I’m sorry for being so heavy, but I’m a Burkean. We face reality. We don’t look away or resort to narrative mantras, unlike dying CNN, sneaky Sixty Minutes, or the awful Atlantic.
Reality is now very heavy in the case of Moss Landing and the Salinas Valley.
However, environmental and agricultural tragedies aren’t the only implications from what Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church correctly called the Three Mile Island event of the Renewable Energy Industry.
The Political Implication
There is also a political implication, and it’s a doozy, powerful enough to realign the politics of Monterey County from D to R — if enough people start thinking straight.
Everyone in Monterey County needs to know One Big Thing.
The Moss Landing BESS Bomb is 100% the fault of the Democrats.
The Democrats want to blame the power company for being a monopoly, only the power company isn’t PG&E. It’s Vistra from Texas. They aren't innocent, but aren’t the monopoly.
The monopoly behind the BESS Bomb is the Democrat Machine.
The Moss Landing disaster started with the Dem Machine’s Sacramento supermajority, enabled and funded by the recently departed Biden-Harris, Schumer, Pelosi politburo.
Masters of Disaster
Those Democrats used monopoly power to first condemn CO2 as a pollutant. It’s not.
Then they used distorted regulatory power to favor so-called “Renewable Energy”. Renewable Energy isn’t actually, ah, you know, renewable. For starters, BESS plants use massive amounts of lithium. One estimate says that 12 million pounds of lithium burned at Moss Landing (World's Largest BESS!). TWELVE MILLION POUNDS!
Their crowning achievement was the Orwellian Inflation Reduction Act, i.e., the Green New Deal. That green dream money machine mainlined hundreds of billions into the Renewable Energy Industry. Millions of those taxpayer dollars went up in toxic smoke just 15 miles across the water from the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Cannery Row. Let that sink in.
See No Evil
The Democrat Machine enforces “Renewable Energy” über alles. Hence, their handmaidens in the mainstream media have a veritable news blackout on the Salinas Valley BESS Bomb disaster. For instance, many people in nearby San Jose are unaware what happened just 38 miles from home sweet home. Here's a simple thought experiment: If the old gas-fired power plant had a similar explosion, how much media coverage would it receive? Massive.
The Professional Democrats did this. They must be held to account.
That starts with naming and shaming the Professional Democrats who brought this disaster on us. Here are nine of the MOST WANTED miscreants behind the Moss Landing Disaster.
Some are still in office. Let's change that next year.
Our Patriotic Purpose: Set this sad situation right.
Let’s close with this: Our purpose as Monterey County patriots must now include setting this sad situation right. That starts with naming and shaming the Democrats who willfully brought this calamity on us. It can’t be set right with them still in power.
That’s because they still think Fossil Fuels must go. Monterey County Supervisor Kate Daniels said last week that California must "get off fossil fuels." That's societally suicidal.
Plus, they still think they’re the good guys, even after Pacific Palisades burned to ground due to anti-CO2 policies, and now that Moss Landing has experienced an anti-CO2 disaster.
Reject the NetZero Party.
Everyone should understand that the Dems are the NetZero Party. (Only the Dems would adopt the moniker NETZERO, aka LOSER. 😂😂) Anyway, NetZero is how we got nosebleed PG&E bills and the Moss Landing BESS Bomb Disaster. Therefore, Democrats can no longer be trusted to represent us in Monterey County, in Sacramento, or in Washington, DC.
Let's Move Forward
Moving forward requires that we throw the bums out so we can finally get cheap and reliable energy in California. To that end, we need much more gas-fired and nuclear powered juice, from Moss Landing to Diablo Canyon to the Central Valley to San Diego. Climate Change obsessed Dems won't tolerate that, so must go.
The Change We Need
The change we need starts right here in Monterey County. It starts by sharing this message from Moss Landing to King City, from Salinas to Big Sur, from Greenfield to Carmel Valley.
Every great journey starts with a determined first step. Let’s get this one going.
Footnotes
Fire Destroys Moss Landing BESS Burning Up Support for Local Project: Estero Bay News, 1/31/25
Fire at the largest BESS in the world led to evacuation of 1500 residents in Moss Landing: International Association of Fire and Rescue Services, 1/21/25
Moss Landing Battery Plant Environmental Disaster Community Group: Public Facebook group
'Extremely disturbing': High levels of heavy metals at Monterey estuary after lithium battery site fire: Los Angeles Times, 1/29/25
Contemporaneous video from Prunedale courtesy of fellow Wiseguy Larry Moore
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