The problem with energy is that it's, well, energetic. It doesn't matter if it's green clean solar or nasty fossil fuels or highly debated nuclear energy, there are big risks of the energy production and storage getting out of our control and causing big problems. It's incredibly unfortunate that energy has become such an emotional and political topic. I think we could do a lot better at being innovative and safe (both short-term and long-term) if we could be more cold and calculated about energy production and storage.
Imagine if that area had to be strip mined, factories set up, and coal power plants built. There's nothing clean or green about renewable energy. Californians and Westerners in general should be thankful they just have to deal with things like battery fires and not the raw material extraction and solar panel production, because that's what is happening in other countries instead.
And no I'm not trolling, this sort of whitewashing out the ugly parts have contributed a lot of damage and waste from things like "recyclable plastic" which weren't actually recyclable, but everyone felt good it in a green bin next to grease soaked pizza boxes that weren't recyclable either.
