Comfort remains primary target; Officials urge active intervention
Comfort residents continue to make it clear — they do not appreciate attempts to bring battery energy storage systems to their town.
A Town Hall meeting Thursday, hosted by Kendall County Precinct 4 Commissioner Chad Carpenter, drew a packed house to the Comfort Cafe, where officials updated the crowd on efforts to bring electric storage systems to the Comfort area ... and efforts to block their arrival.
Kendall County Commissioner Jeff Holt sits on the 391 Sub-Regional Planning Commission, a formulation of officials from Kendall, Kerr and Gillespie counties organized to voice concerns about negative impacts the introduction of BESS plants will have on Comfort and the surrounding community.
Electricity is a $47 billion industry in Texas, Holt said, outpacing the oil and gas industry’s worth, an estimated $26 billion.
“As we become the electrical giant in the United States, part of the model being pushed by both parties ... and that we have concerns with, is energy storage,” Holt said. “We have grave concerns, and we’ve seen it happen, poorly, in California, and we don’t want that to happen here.”
Land along Flat Rock Creek Road has been snatched up by firms wanting to establish their BESS close to a Lower Colorado River Authority power substation in the area. The BESS, if established, will store wind, solar and nuclear-generated power in lithium batteries encased in mobile-home-sized containers on the site, and sell the electricity to the state when demand reaches or exceeds the state’s current output ability.
“The growth we’re expecting is $178 billion in Texas for energy storage alone,” Holt said, a need being driven by data centers.
“Our concern, why we formed the 391 Commission, is there should be some oversight, which we’ve seen very, very little of” to this point, he said.
“We are one of the very few voices of opposition,” he said, “because we’ve seen the problem that energy storage presents. It’s just not that safe.”
Access to homes along Flat Rock Creek Road could be disrupted if there was ever a fire at a BESS site. Firms proposing the BESS have said such fires are best left to burn themselves out, while pouring water on the surrounding units. Such fires could burn for 5-6 days, if not more — isolating homeowners down Flat Rock Creek.
Comfort is served by a volunteer fire department, which Kendall County Fire Marshal Brady Constantine has previously said is inadequately trained and ill-equipped to handle any such blaze.
The amount of water needed to cool and protect BESS near a blaze could require anywhere from 1 to 8 million gallons, officials said Thursday.
Speaker Michael Wheeler said the secret to defeating battery energy storage is education of the masses to the efforts to bring BESS operations to Comfort.
The sheer number of subsidized wind and solar plant operations, he said, has depressed the price of wholesale energy, below profitable creation of natural gas or nuclear power generation.
As a result, Wheeler said, thousands of energy storage facilities are being planned across the state.
“They’re coming. A thousand of them are coming. There’s no region in Texas that’s not going to be impacted,” said Wheeler, senior adviser for the U.S. Small Business Administration, serving in the Office of Investment and Innovation in Washington, D.C., and a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives 21st Congressional District seat.
“Thes lithium batteries are incredibly dangerous,” he said. “You can’t put out (a fire) with water. The battery storage companies themselves ... say ‘Let them burn.’ That’s unacceptable in my mind.”
Wheeler said he’d like to see Congress phase out subsidies to wind and solar firms.
“No subsidies were cut for battery storage, none. They are all still there,” he said. “I don’t want to phase them out, I want them done. Cut.”
Carpenter urged attendees to be better informed, educate friends, neighbors and co-workers, and become active in efforts to have their voices heard.
Comment
Comments