A business park in South San Jose. Jack London Square in Oakland. The San Diego bank. In addition to a highschool in Santa Barbara County.

Large battery storage systems are planned throughout California and built faster than somewhere within the USA at dozens of locations. They are a critical a part of the state's plans to expand renewable energies by storing electricity that may use solar parks and wind turbines later if the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.

But now, after a large fire last month with certainly one of the most important battery storage values ​​on this planet – Moss Landing in Monterey County – caused the evacuation of 1,200 people, closed the Highway 1 for 3 days and solved poisonous heavy metals over the encompassing landscape. New limits to maintain the rapidly growing technology away from populated areas.

According to the California Energy Commission, there are 187 battery systems in California in California – from only 17 in 2019. Battery storage has increased by 1,340% up to now six years, from 928 megawatts to 13,391 Megawatt today. A megawatts are enough electricity to operate 750 houses.

“We need these facilities,” said the meeting woman Dawn Addis, a democrat from Morro Bay, where the voters rejected a battery warehouse by the ocean in November. “But we have now to construct trust with regards to our future of fresh energy. We would love to watch out after we are and be sure that we usually are not vulnerable to school children, local business owners and residents. “

Addis, whose district of Moss Landing, has introduced a draft law in state laws that will ban recent battery storage systems inside 3,200 feet by houses, schools, firms and hospitals. Under your invoice from 303News are also prohibited within the coastal zone of the state, on earthquake errors, first -class arable land, wetlands, dangerous waste stands and in very high focus zones with high fire races on Cal Fire Maps.

The invoice would also prevent the battery storage systems from approving of state officials from California Energy Commission in 270 days, even when local cities and counties take off the projects. These rules were created in 2022 when governor Gavin Newsom signed an invoice to hurry up the pace of renewable energies in California. So far, six projects have applied. It has not yet been approved.

Addis receives a return from the industry for renewable energies, the unions and another Democrats.

“We share the goal of wanting to do an incident like Moss Landing to never pass again,” said Alex Jackson, California director of the American Clean Power Association, an industry group. “We just don't agree on the approach. This calculation focuses on organizing recent facilities. We shouldn't be concentrated here. “

Jackson and other industry leaders say that the Moss Landing plant is exclusive. The battery storage system was in-built 2019 when the technology was in its infancy and was in-built an enormous concrete camp with a former PG & e-oil and gas burning power plant from the Fifties from the Fifties. The lithium-ion batteries were stacked and comprised of older chemistry with nickel, manganese and cobalt, which may cause fires which were lit when ignited.

He noticed newer plants, use lithium iron-phosphate batteries which might be less vulnerable to fires. The units are sometimes arranged outside the outdoor area and housed in individual metal containers, each in regards to the size of an 18-wheel trailer. So when a hearth begins, the probability of propagation could be very low.

Jackson said that after the Moss Landing Fire, the state should check the older battery systems as a substitute of blocking recent ones which might be needed to cover rising electricity requirements because more people drive electric vehicles and require artificial intelligence more data centers.

“We don't have to choose between the clean energy and security of the community,” he said. “The technology is proven. It's protected. The corresponding answer is to take a look at a few of these legacy institutions that usually are not representative of state-of-the-art species. “

A challenge is the lightning speed at which the battery storage spreads throughout the state. No state agency has a public list that shows what number of more are planned, where and after they are expected to be built.

But a review of the Bay Area News Group of A US Ministry of Energy Database Of all planned energy projects nationwide, there are no less than 96 recent battery storage systems in California or are to be built by 2027.

These include the 75-megawatt Hummiingbird project within the 6321 San Ignacio Ave. In South San Jose, near the Highways 85 and 101. It needs to be opened next month.

Another is planned near the Jack London Square in Oakland. Visstra Energy, the Texas company that belongs to the Moss Landing, also has an aging dynegy power plant in Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The company has been planning for several years to construct a 43 megawatt battery plant on the location by May 2027.

The largest 275 megawatt Kola Energy Center eight miles east of Livermore on the Patterson Pass Road. It is to be opened this summer.

In the south, the painter energy storage project in Santa Barbara County is built by the Carpinteria High School on the opposite side of the road. In San Diego, several plants are planned and in-built the country, and one which is known as the Peregrine Energy Storage system is under construction for a mile south of Petco Park.

Local officials near Moss Landing say that further borders are obligatory for brand new plants.

“Moss Landing was approved because we were promised that it would be safe,” said Glenn Church of Monterey County. “This promise couldn’t be met. If people wish to get concerns about health and security of their neighborhoods, what's incorrect with it? “

The fire has brought environmental groups which have supported the battery technology and their legislative champions in a difficult place.

Senator John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, is the previous secretary for natural resources under governor Jerry Brown. He said he had serious concerns about Addis Bill. New technology is best than Moss Landing, he said, and the state should think about older plants as a substitute of limiting recent ones.

“We have three goals here,” said Laird. “To keep the sunshine, to deduct fossil fuels and to be protected. We just can't sacrifice for the opposite. We have to satisfy all three. “

San Jose-Zwei Technology corporations hacked combined jobs in Bay in Bay Area, a memory that the layoffs continued to scale back certainly one of the predominant engines within the region's economy.

The work cuts are willing to affect the employees at quantum cape and Invenense locations in San Jose, that are separated by some blocks.

Quantum cape creates lithium metal batteries for electric vehicles. InVersense produces motion tracking sensors which can be gyroscopes that could be utilized in consumer electronic devices comparable to smartphones, tablets, wearables, gaming devices and TV distant controls. Both corporations are based in San Jose.

Here you will discover some details in regards to the order cut -banknsee and quantum cape battery, in line with the Warn Letters:

– InVensense, 55 job cuts in San Jose. These should happen on March 31.

– Quantenscape -aku, 53 layoffs in San Jose. The reductions are planned for March 29.

In each cases, the layoffs are described as everlasting.

“After careful consideration and comprehensive analysis of our business needs, the QuantumScape battery will lead to a reduction in the power of its workforce,” wrote Pamela Fong, Chief Human Resources Officer from QuantumScape, in the corporate's warning letter.

Disappeared staff in each corporations don’t have any right to tune. This implies that the workers concerned cannot displace other employees, even in the event that they have a service to other employees.

In 2024, technology corporations announced plans for the elimination of virtually 18,000 jobs within the Bay Area. The sums of 2024 in 2023 in 2023 were about 16.7% below the 21,600 layoffs of the tech sector, as could be seen from the warning notes sent to the EDD by this news organization.

In 2022, technology corporations released plans to scale back around 10,300 jobs within the Bay Area, because the warn announcements show.

Originally published: January 31, 2025 at 5:30 a.m. PST

Less than two weeks after an enormous fire within the Moss landing in one among the world's largest battery storage facilities, scientists who’re connected to San Jose State University have discovered unusually high toxic metals in floors in Elkhorn Slough, roughly a mile.

Researchers at Moos Landing Marine Laboratories have proven microscopic particles of nickel, cobalt and manganese, that are normal in 1000’s of lithium ions.

“These three metals are poisonous,” said Ivano Aiello, professor of marine geology at Moss Landing Marine Labs, who led the floors. “They are dangerous for water life. We would love to know how you progress and interact with the environment, whether you’ll be able to do it through the food network and at what level – from microbes to seabed. “

The dramatic fire within the 750 megawatt battery system began on January 16 and burned two days. It caused the evacuation of 1,200 inhabitants and the closure of the Highway 1 for 3 days. The flames overwhelmed the fire-promoted system within the factory, which was managed by Visstra Energy, an organization based in Dallas, at the previous point of an organization in-built Dallas within the Fifties.

The lithium battery beaches burn at high temperatures and are difficult to bring out. As a result, fire fighters didn’t fight for the hearth and let it burn out. The fire distributed a big cloud of poisonous smoke across the world near the border between the counties Santa Cruz and Monterey and has raised questions on security in other communities during which battery storage facilities are planned. The plants are the important thing to storing electricity and wind power to make use of at night in order that California can proceed to alter from fossil fuels to renewable energies.

The discovery of battery levies within the floors of Elkhorn Slough, a protected network of wetlands, streams and wild animals which can be popular with bird watchers and kayakers, became aware of the results on people living in communities near the plant.

Officials from the Monterey County district said on Monday that the Monterey County Ministry of Environment continued to work with civil servants from the California EPA to check floors in real estate on the trail of the cloud of smoke. You expect the primary results to be published by the tip of this week, said Nick Pasculli, a spokesman for Monterey County.

“We are completely devoting ourselves to the safety of people and their health,” said Pasculli. “This is our top priority and protects the environment. We are very occupied with obtaining the information from the Elkhorn -Lough samples in order that we will analyze the outcomes and seek the advice of state and federal authorities who’ve the supervision to find out one of the simplest ways. “

Aiello said he took samples of around 100 jobs. He has studied the world for greater than 10 years. He analyzed the floors with an electron microscope in Moos landing laboratories and said that the spines of the battery metals were present in the most effective millimeters of the soil, not in lower values. He said he took measurements on 21, 23 and 24 January and compared them with soil samples, which were faraway from the hearth system's fire in the identical places.

“The concentrations rose from ten parts per million to thousands of parts per million – 2 to 3 orders,” he said. “It's a lot.”

Aiello said it is crucial that the tests will proceed for weeks, months and years to follow how the metals change and move. It rained last weekend, he noticed, and he planned additional tests to see the results.

Aiello just isn’t a health care provider, but said it is crucial that state and native officials test soils in communities within the plant to see how they’ve modified and the way they compare themselves to Elkhorn -Slough.

High heavy metals resembling nickel, cobalt and manganese “bio -accumulated” or move the food chain of plants and microbes into fish and bigger animals that eat the fish. At high levels you’ll be able to cause neurological damage, reproduction damage and other problems. It just isn’t yet clear that Aiello said whether the extent had affected the health of fish or wild animals.

“We know that these particles are poisonous,” he said. “They are heavy metals. We have no idea whether or not they are a danger. But we want to know. I live here. I work here. Let us discover. “

“The future will be more battery storage facilities worldwide,” added Aiello. “We move away from fossil fuels. Is that the answer? Is that the fitting technology? “

Officials from the US environmental protection authority have arrange air monitors on the night of the hearth. In the times after the hearth, she and officials from the Monterey Bay Air Resources district said that their monitors didn’t find soot or hydrogen fluoride, a toxic gas from burning batteries, in unhealthy values.

At several public meetings, nevertheless, dozens of residents expressed concerns in regards to the effects of the cloud of smoke not only in air, but additionally water and soils in the encircling communities. Some people complain a few metallic taste, the results of their asthma and other health changes.

Pasculli said Visstra officers laid straw rolls across the work for erosion control. Visstra met with state, local and federal officials to plan the clean -up work of the work that continues to be offline, he added. Governor Gavin Newsom called for an independent examination of the California public utilities commission last week.

Originally published: January 27, 2025 at 4:20 p.m. PST

Moss Landing – The meeting woman Dawn Addis is committed to the law on security and accountability by Battery Energy and an invoice that was presented on Wednesday to forestall future fires of the battery plant after the Moss Landing Battery's fire last week.

In addition, from 303, “appropriate restrictions will determine where battery energy storage facilities can be located,” said Addis in a press conference on Thursday afternoon and said that the facilities ought to be in environmentally sensitive areas resembling flood zones and areas with a high risk of fireside.

“The Moss Landing Energy storage facility is surrounded by critical marine and educational institutions, important agricultural areas, dormitories and shops,” said Addis. “We have to protect this sensitive habitat and our communities.”

The restrictions include that a setback from sensitive places resembling residences, schools and hospitals require a setback of three,200 feet.

“From 303, the municipalities would give the municipalities, but there would also be guidelines for the location that are urgently needed,” said Addis.

The church said that from 303 it had full support.

“What we have now are random regulations for this relatively new industry, and we have to go on a way where things are organized and secured,” said Church. “I particularly appreciate the aspects contained therein that enable local control.”

During a special meeting on Tuesday, the manager formed an ad hoc committee with the supervisor Kate Daniels to work with other counties and to bring an answer to the newest stand. The Supervisory Board also sent a letter to Visstra and Pacific Gas & Electric, during which the locations remain offline until a whole comprehensive examination is carried out during which the reason for the fireplace was described. Apart from the decision to motion, Church said that the district cannot stop the work in the long run of coming online.

“I understand that this industry is of essential importance for a sustainable future, but we simply cannot continue without the right regulations,” said Church. “We are at a point where state regulations and control over this technology by industry is not so high that it should be.”

Five days after a serious fire at one in all the world's largest battery storage plants in Moss Landing, Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for an investigation into the blaze that rocked California's renewable energy industry.

“The governor believes this incident should be investigated to determine the cause and identify any steps that can be taken to make older facilities like Moss Landing safer,” said Daniel Villasenor, a spokesman for Newsom. “As the governor said, as this technology advances, California has made significant efforts to improve battery safety and reliability.”

Villasenor said Newsom believes Vistra, the Texas company that owns the burned battery plant, and the California Public Utilities Commission, a state agency, should each investigate. The commission's safety and enforcement division is scheduled to fulfill with plant officials on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, local officials on Tuesday called on the 2 firms operating at the positioning to shut their battery storage facilities there indefinitely until the reason for the fireplace might be determined and measures might be taken to scale back the chance of one other fire.

By a 5-0 vote, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors decided in an emergency meeting to ask Vistra, the corporate whose 750-megawatt plant burned, and PG&E, whose neighboring 182-megawatt plant didn’t burn, to suspend operations until the causes have been eliminated The causes of the fireplace within the renewable energy plant “have been identified and eliminated”.

“This technology surpasses the government's ability to regulate it and the industry's ability to control it,” Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church said. “This process we’re in right now, which is about constantly learning, just isn’t working. It puts communities at risk.”

The vote got here after a tense three-hour meeting wherein dozens of North Monterey County residents raised questions on the dramatic fire's health impact on their families, possible ongoing water and soil contamination and the way in which facilities are granted county permits were issued openly and the way security might be improved.

“We all had a metallic taste in our mouths, burning eyes, burning throats and yellow residue all over our belongings,” said Michelle Clary, a resident of Royal Oaks, 4 miles east of the power. “If you can't get it out there, this technology has to stop. You have to be able to express it.”

The fire began at 3 p.m. on Thursday. Within hours, 100-foot-high flames shot from the concrete constructing where Vistra operated 300 megawatts of battery storage as a part of its facility on a former PG&E natural gas power plant site inbuilt the Fifties. The fire sent a column of toxic smoke rising into the sky. Police evacuated 1,200 people by Friday night and closed Highway 1 until Sunday.

The fire department didn’t fight the fireplace but waited until it burned itself out. Lithium battery fires are notoriously difficult to place out. They burn at high temperatures and might emit toxic gases that may cause respiration problems, skin burns and eye irritation.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials arrange air monitors Thursday evening. At Tuesday's meeting, Monterey County Environmental Health Director Rick Encarnacion said no monitors had detected levels of particulate matter – or soot – or hydrogen fluoride, a toxic gas that may result from lithium battery fires, that were above state health guidelines .

Vistra officials confirmed this claim.

“We continue to monitor the site and can confirm that there is no active flame,” said Peter Ziegler, vp of Vistra. “A limited amount of smoldering continues. Air monitoring conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and independent air quality experts continues to indicate that the site and surrounding area are safe and do not pose a threat to the public.”

The fire was the fourth on the Moss Landing site since 2019. Two occurred on the Vistra site in 2021 and 2022. Investigations determined they were attributable to a malfunction of a sprinkler system that released water and damaged several LG battery units overheating. The other happened on the adjoining PG&E site in 2022, when an improperly installed vent guard on one in all the 256 Tesla units there allowed rainwater to enter and short-circuit the batteries.

However, this hearth was much larger. According to Vistra and the fireplace department, almost the complete 300-megawatt portion of the positioning was destroyed. One megawatt is sufficient to power 750 households.

Neither Vistra nor PG&E said Tuesday how long the 2 plants would remain closed.

Vistra's Ziegler said the corporate's employees haven’t yet been in a position to begin inspection because a few of the batteries are still smoldering.

There was some confusion Tuesday over whether Vistra and PG&E had accomplished contingency plans under a law signed by Newsom in 2023. State Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said it doesn’t appear that PG&E has submitted a plan to Monterey County, as required by the law he authored, SB 38.

Late Tuesday, PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paolo said the corporate submitted an emergency response plan to Monterey County's North County Fire Protection District in July. When asked to release a duplicate, she said the corporate wouldn’t accomplish that since the plan contained confidential information.

Vistra submitted an emergency facility to the county in September 2023, 4 months before the law went into effect. County officials said Tuesday that the plan doesn’t include a “worst-case scenario” of a serious fire, but only plans to take care of a small fire.

“The impact of this fire has been profound – from the financial difficulties of small businesses affected by the highway closure to the stress and disruption caused by the evacuation,” Laird said. “These challenges highlight the importance of not only managing the immediate consequences, but also implementing long-term solutions to prevent similar incidents in the future.”

Originally published: January 21, 2025 at 4:05 pm PST

MOSS LANDING — Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church and state Assembly member Dawn Addis are calling for the Vistra Moss Landing battery energy storage facility in Moss Landing to stay offline until officials can explain what caused the hearth that began Thursday has broken out, and may assure the general public that this plant is secure.

Church previously called for a “full independent investigation at all levels into exactly what happened.”

A Vistra representative responded later Friday afternoon, saying that determining when the plant comes back online will likely be a “collaborative process” and that the corporate will follow regulations and inform the general public.

The fire appeared to flare up again Friday afternoon, but Addis and Church said they were informed the hearth would flare up if more batteries flared up contained in the constructing where the hearth ignited.

The fire prompted an evacuation affecting about 1,200 people and the closure of Highway 1 in each directions in addition to other roads. The evacuation orders were lifted late Friday.

“There has to be some accountability,” Church said within the Friday morning news conference, noting that this was the fourth fire on the Moss Landing battery facilities in five years.

The fire at one among the world's largest battery energy storage systems occurred in a constructing containing 300 lithium-ion batteries, an unknown variety of which burned and proceed to burn. Hazardous substances present in lithium-ion battery smoke include hydrogen fluoride, a colorless gas that may cause serious physical harm.

North County Fire District Chief Joel Mendoza said a hearth suppression system on a battery rack did not contain the hearth. The fire was at its most intense Thursday evening, he said, and was mostly out Friday morning. However, the cloud remained a priority and was being monitored by each the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and CTEH, an external Vistra consultant.

Mendoza reported that preliminary information from monitoring the plume showed that no dangerous hydrogen fluoride was detected.

Flames could possibly be seen coming from the power again on Friday afternoon, and the cloud of flames had grown exponentially.

On Friday morning, Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto said evacuation orders were still in effect and were awaiting the report from the advanced air surveillance system to “play it safe so no one gets hurt” before the county and sheriff's office Department revoked evacuation orders

Pete Ziegler, regional vice chairman who oversees the Moss Landing power plant and energy storage facility, said monitoring began immediately after the hearth broke out.

He acknowledged the system error, but added: “We do not yet know what triggered this event.”

Church called the hearth a “worst-case scenario disaster here,” adding that it was a “wake-up call for this industry.”

The fire on the Vistra power plant began around 3pm on Thursday and no injuries or fatalities were reported.

Vistra and Pacific Gas and Electric/Tesla operate battery storage facilities on the Moss Landing power plant.

The Moss Landing power plant site has been producing energy in various ways since 1950. It has the infrastructure and demarcated land that make it a chief location for battery storage systems. The energy storage systems exist there after going through the general public process and were approved by commissions and committees before construction and operation.

Vistra experienced incidents in its battery storage system on September 4, 2021 and February 13, 2022. An incident occurred at Pacific Gas and Electric/Tesla, also referred to as Elkhorn Battery Energy Storage System, on September 20, 2022.

Both Vistra incidents on the Moss Landing facility in 2021 and 2022 were brought on by water leaks from the mitigation system. This led to ground faults, arcing and native smoke. Both events were localized to the location and had no impact on air, water, soil or surrounding communities.

The laws, enacted in response to the 2022 fire outbreak on the Elkhorn Battery Energy Storage System facility in Moss Landing, was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2023.

Senate Bill 38, authored by State Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, and co-authored by Assemblymember Dawn Adddis, D-Morro Bay, requires battery storage facilities to ascertain security and communications protocols.

“If renewable energy is to be the future, it really needs to be based on safe energy,” Church said.

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Originally published: January 18, 2025 at 10:42 am PST

MOSS LANDING – Highway 1 was closed and evacuations were ordered within the Moss Landing community and Elkhorn Slough area after a serious fire broke out Thursday afternoon at a battery storage plant in Moss Landing in northern Monterey County.

The fire, which burned uncontrolled Thursday night and produced huge flames and dangerous clouds of black smoke, was reported at the ability on Highway 1 around 3 p.m., Monterey County spokesman Nicholas Pasculli said.

RELATED: Energy Storage at Moss Landing: A Smokey Challenge for a New Chapter

“It is imperative that residents obey the evacuation order and follow the instructions of the police and fire departments,” Pasculli said. “In this situation, we take the protection of life and property very seriously. We urge people to follow the evacuation order and move to a safe location.”

Evacuations of about 1,500 people have been ordered for areas from Moss Landing south of Elkhorn Slough, north of Molera Road and Monterey Dunes Way and west of Castroville Boulevard and Elkhorn Road to the ocean, he said.

Pasculli said the Monterey County Sheriff's Office called other agencies within the county to help with the emergency.

“It is a serious incident,” he said. “All resources from the county and our neighboring jurisdictions were deployed to assist with this incident.”

The plant belongs to the Texas company Vistra Energy and is considered one of the most important battery storage power plants on this planet. It incorporates tens of hundreds of lithium batteries that store electricity generated through the day from solar and other sources to be used at night. Such battery storage plants are a vital a part of California's efforts to convert most of its electricity generation to renewable sources.

“You can’t sugarcoat it. “This is a disaster,” Monterey County Supervisor Glen Church told KSBW-TV. “This is extremely disturbing.”

Church said the fireplace was “contained” in a concrete constructing whose roof had collapsed.

“We don't think there's any real danger of it expanding outward and penetrating further into where it's inside,” he said. “There are a lot of batteries in there and the system is on fire quite a lot.”

The plant is positioned on the location of a now-closed Fifties PG&E Moss Landing natural gas plant, visible from its huge smokestacks near Moss Landing Harbor. The first phase was accomplished in 2020 and expanded to 750 megawatts in 2023. Vistra sells the electricity stored there to PG&E, which also owns a separate 182-megawatt, 256-tesla battery storage facility on the north side of the location. “Megapack” battery packs. This system didn’t look like burning at 8 p.m

Employees on the Vistra plant called the North Monterey County Fire Protection District for assistance after a fireplace was discovered on the 300-megawatt Phase I energy storage facility, company spokeswoman Jenny Lyon said in an email to this news organization.

Lyon said all personnel were safely evacuated.

“Our top priority is the safety of the community and our staff,” she said, “and Vistra greatly appreciates the continued support of our local emergency responders.”

Lyon said the reason for the fireplace has not yet been determined, but an investigation will begin once the fireplace is extinguished.

Lithium battery fires are notoriously difficult to place out. They burn at high temperatures and may emit toxic gases that may cause respiratory problems, skin burns and eye irritation.

There have been other fires at the ability.

Fires broke out on the Vistra plant on September 4, 2021 and February 14, 2022. Investigations revealed that they were brought on by a malfunction of a sprinkler system that released water and caused several units to overheat.

Then in September 2022, a fireplace broke out at PG&E's Elkhorn battery plant. Police closed Highway 1 for 12 hours. An investigation determined the cause was an improperly installed vent guard on considered one of the 256 units, which allowed rainwater to enter and short-circuit the batteries. There were no injuries to firefighters, PG&E employees or the general public.

Governor Gavin Newsom then signed a law requiring battery storage power plants in California to work with local fire departments to develop emergency plans and increase fire protection.

“Expanding the state’s battery storage is critical to achieving our clean energy goals,” state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who authored the bill, said in an interview last yr. “But we also need to ensure that these facilities have safety systems in place to protect the health and well-being of workers and surrounding communities.”

Last summer, after two fires broke out at San Diego County battery storage facilities, San Diego County regulators asked county officials to impose stricter rules that may restrict battery storage facilities near homes, schools and other facilities. And when Vistra proposed constructing a big battery plant in Morro Bay, residents there approved a measure on the November ballot that they hoped would block construction.

Battery storage has increased sevenfold in California over the past five years, from 1,474 megawatts in 2020 to 10,383 megawatts last summer. One megawatt is sufficient to power 750 households.

On Thursday evening, the Castroville Recreation Center at 11261 Crane St. served as a brief evacuation point for individuals who needed to depart their homes.

Highway 1 is closed in each directions between Highway 183 and Struve Road. There isn’t any estimated time for the roadway to reopen.

Originally published: January 16, 2025 at 7:40 pm PST

The obvious advantage of a hoop is that it’s smaller and easier to wear across the clock, including while sleeping and exercising. But there are other benefits. I'm testing the RingConn Gen 2, which competes with the industry-leading Oura Ring. Unlike Oura Ring, Ringconn has no monthly or annual subscription fees.

Unlike most smartwatches, smart rings don't require day by day charging. The Ringconn claims a battery lifetime of 10 to 12 days, which seems about reasonable to me based on my usage. It's liberating to not need to charge it every single day, especially for those who wear it while sleeping. I also sleep with my Pixel Watch 3, so I actually have to search out a time through the day to charge it after I don't depend on the watch to trace my movements.

Unlike a smartwatch, rings don't have displays, so you could have to open the smartphone app to view your data. In most situations I don't find this bothersome, but when walking or doing other exercises it's nice to give you the option to see your heart rate and other metrics just by the watch. This is very true for those who don't like carrying a phone with you or whether it is difficult or dangerous (e.g. while cycling) to have a look at your phone.

Detection of sleep apnea

One reason I wear the ring is to judge my sleep. I suffer from sleep apnea and although my CPAP machine reports nighttime apnea events, I wish to get other readings to confirm its data. Apple just added sleep apnea detection to its latest watch, but most personal fitness devices don't try and report sleep apnea. Ringconn has added this feature to its recent ring. The company claims 90.7% accuracy, however the device is just not FDA-approved and I’m not aware of any peer-reviewed studies that may support this claim. In my experience, apnea events were measured some nights but not others, although my CPAP machine detected some events. Anything lower than five per hour is taken into account normal.

Although the numbers reported by my CPAP and the ring don't match exactly, they were close, suggesting that it appears to be an affordable approximation of what happened on the nights the feature worked.

Not for medical diagnosis

All major fitness equipment manufacturers warn users to not depend on their equipment for diagnostic purposes. You should see a physician if you could have reason to consider that you could have sleep apnea or one other medical condition. Doctors have much more accurate ways to measure apnea. But the advantage of a fitness machine is that it gives you a way of the way you're doing over time, not only an occasional snapshot from a medical sleep study. The same goes for other metrics you possibly can measure at home, including blood pressure and SPO2.

SPO2

Because of my apnea, I sometimes track my SPO2 while sleeping to find out my blood oxygen levels overnight. Fitbit (which is built into Google Watch) gives me a nightly average and range, but doesn't show the way it goes up and down over time. Fitbit only measures SPO2 when you sleep. The Ringconn measures SPO2 through the day and night and displays a graph of its highs and lows over time. There can be the choice to take an quick measurement.

I compared the outcomes to those of a pulse oximeter and to Wellue's medical-grade continuous oxygen monitor O2Ring Oximeter, which might be worn all night. Again, the numbers weren't exact, but they were close and trending in the identical direction. As with other metrics, these are indicators and never diagnostic tools. Sleep Foundation Recommends: “Anyone monitoring their blood oxygen levels should talk to their doctor about what level is right for them and what level should be considered too low.”

The Ringconn app also graphically records heart rate, which closely matches the outcomes from my Google Watch. When you click on the measurement icon, probably the most recent measurement and your current tariff are displayed. With most fitness watches, you don't need to press anything to get your current rate. The average heart rate, resting rate and range are also displayed.

Like many fitness trackers, the Ringconn reports heart rate variability (HRV), i.e. the variation within the time interval between heartbeats. “The variability of your heart reflects how adaptable your body can be,” it says Cleveland Clinic. “If your heart rate fluctuates a lot, this is usually evidence that your body can adapt to many types of changes. People with high heart rate variability are typically less stressed and happier.”

Sleep tracking

Like most sleep trackers, the ring measures total sleep time, time in bed, and sleep stages: awake, REM, light, and deep. It also measures respiratory rate and skin temperature.

Although sleep trackers are generally pretty good at measuring how long you sleep, they have an inclination to be notoriously inaccurate with regards to sleep stages. My results from Ringconn normally differ from those from Fitbit and my sleep tracker app. As Johns Hopkins Medicine points out: “They often measure inactivity as a substitute for sleep estimation. Most sleep monitors give estimates of how much you actually sleep. … Still, tracking devices can be useful for identifying patterns in your sleep habits.”

The ring's activity screen shows steps (very near what Fitbit reported), calories from activities, and basal metabolic rate calories, that are also near what Fitbit estimated for me. It displays the activity intensity ratio as a percentage of inactive, low, moderate, and intense, and permits you to track outdoor and indoor running and outdoor cycling, but not the larger variety of activities that Fitbit and lots of other trackers cover.

Diploma

While there is no such thing as a tracker that tracks all the things and is 100% accurate, the Ringconn seems to deliver pretty good results based on my two weeks of testing. At $299, the value is competitive with smartwatches, although you possibly can get Fitbit and other activity trackers for significantly less. For me, the undeniable fact that I only need to charge it weekly at most is an enormous selling point, and I feel the trending information it incorporates will prove useful over time.

Originally published: January 9, 2025 at 8:00 am PST

RICHMOND — An East Bay green technology company has decided to chop quite a few jobs, shaking up the clean energy sector – lower than a yr after loudly announcing plans for a large-scale expansion in Richmond.

Moxion Power has announced that it plans to chop 101 jobs in Richmond, a discount in staff that stands in stark contrast to what the green technology company has said about its expansion plans within the East Bay.

The green battery company said the layoffs would happen at 1414 Harbor Way S in Richmond, a part of the large Ford Point complex on the shores of San Francisco Bay.

The company announced the layoffs in an official WARN notice that Moxion filed with the state Department of Employment Development.

“Moxion Power Co. is implementing a workforce reduction,” the greentech company said within the WARN announcement. “As a result, certain employees will be leaving the company.”

The job cuts are expected to come back into effect around August 20, the WARN statement said.

Moxion Power manufactures mobile clean energy technologies utilized by businesses and organizations in construction, film production, live events and disaster response.

In July 2023, Moxion announced that it had decided to undertake a significant expansion in Richmond by leasing space within the East Bay city.

It was not immediately clear what impact the layoffs would have on the corporate's overall expansion or hiring plans.

The layoffs affected employees with a wide selection of job titles, including employees within the battery sector.

“These separations are intended to be permanent,” said Collette Zaro, vp for individuals with Moxion, within the WARN letter to the state EDD.