In 20 Years, We’ll Look Back and Ask:

How Did We Miss This About Clean Energy Safety?

As CESAT continues to research and learn about clean energy safety and training, one thing is already clear:

When we look back 20 years from now, the biggest clean energy failures won’t be traced to battery chemistry, charging standards, or technology limitations.

They’ll be traced to how humans interacted with energy — and how poorly we prepared for that reality.

What We Thought the Risk Was

In the mid-2020s, the conversation focused on:

• Thermal runaway
• Fire suppression
• Codes and compliance
• “Rare” battery failures

Important topics — but not the decisive ones.

Those discussions assumed risk was:

• Event-based
• Short-lived
• Contained once the fire was out

That assumption didn’t age well.

What the Data Eventually Showed

As incident data accumulated, a different pattern emerged:

• The most serious injuries often occurred after the incident
• Restoration and cleanup workers became a high-risk group
• Municipalities without clear policy faced higher displacement and insurance losses
• Courts increasingly treated lack of training as foreseeable negligence

These weren’t edge cases.
They were systemic.

The Phrase That Keeps Appearing in Incident Reviews

When future analysts review today’s clean energy incidents, one line will appear again and again:

“There was no policy.”

Not:

• “The technology failed”
• “The battery was defective”

Just:

• No policy
• No training framework
• No shared understanding of emerging risk

For municipalities, that phrase becomes a governance issue.
For industry, it becomes a liability issue.

An Uncomfortable Truth for Both Sides

Here’s something we’ll acknowledge more openly in the future:

Fire departments were never meant to carry clean energy risk alone.

They respond at the end of the chain.

The real leverage has always been earlier:

• In buildings
• In informal and DIY energy use
• In property management
• In restoration and environmental services
• In policy decisions that define what’s acceptable before something goes wrong

In the 2020s, many of those groups were simply unprepared — through no fault of their own.

Why “More Training” Wasn’t Enough

Another lesson we’ll learn the hard way:

• Knowledge-based training didn’t translate under stress
• People made rational choices right up until the moment they didn’t
• Unsafe conditions persisted because no one had authority — or language — to intervene early

The systems that succeeded didn’t just train people.
They designed out unsafe behaviour.

This Is Where the Conversation Is Going

In the next two decades, clean energy safety will shift:

• From emergency response → condition management
• From fire prevention → public and occupational health
• From individual blame → system design

Municipalities that move early will reduce:

• Displacement events
• Long-term health exposure
• Insurance pressure
• Public trust erosion

Industries that adapt early will avoid:

• Loss-driven regulation
• Coverage restrictions
• Reputational damage

Why We’re Not Sharing the Full Analysis Here

Because once you see the full picture, it forces difficult questions:

• About responsibility
• About training gaps
• About policy decisions that seemed reasonable at the time

The full insight isn’t for clicks.
It’s for people accountable for outcomes.

If You’re Responsible For…

• Municipal policy or by-laws
• Fire prevention or building safety
• Restoration, environmental, or waste services
• Clean energy deployment or insurance risk

…then you’re already part of this system — whether you intended to be or not.

Members Get the Full Perspective

Members receive access to:

• The full forward-looking analysis
• The policy gaps that proved most costly
• The training models that actually reduced incidents
• The signals that appear before disruption becomes disaster

The future of clean energy safety won’t be decided by better batteries —
but by whether we learn faster than the risk evolves.

If that’s a conversation you want to be part of, join us.

Full insight available through CESAT Membership
Contact: info@cleanenergysafety.org

The future of clean energy safety won’t be decided by better batteries — but by whether our systems learn faster than the risk evolv