Sudden tragic release of stored chemical energy in Beirut
It turns out storing Megawatts of high density energy in a confined space is “like a bomb”. Who could have seen that coming, apart from everyone who understands what a megawatt is?
Clean, green, noisy and explosive.
And they are “unregulated” in the UK.
UK’s giant battery ‘farms’ spark fears of explosions that can reach temperatures of 660C
Amy Oliver Mail on Sunday
…according to a troubling new report from leading physicists, these vast batteries amount to electrical bombs with the force of many hundreds of tons of TNT.
With the potential for huge explosions, fires and clouds of toxic gas, they could devastate towns and villages nearby, says Wade Allison, emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University and co-author of the report.
The batteries, designed as reservoirs of spare electricity for when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun fails to shine, are spreading around the British countryside. And this, says Prof Allison and his fellow scientists, could spell catastrophe.
It’s like a potential bomb,’ he says. ‘When batteries catch fire, you can’t just squirt water on them and put out the flames. It’s evident from our research that nothing has been done to tackle this problem.’
Given the size of the proposed plants, Prof Allison says this could, in theory, lead to an explosion several times bigger than the one that destroyed the harbour in Beirut last year.
The threat of fire is not merely theoretical. South Korea saw 23 battery farm fires in just two years. A recent battery fire in Illinois burned for three days and thousands of residents were evacuated.
Such blazes release highly toxic gases. One – hydrogen fluoride – is lethal if inhaled, and causes irreversible health effects after an hour of exposure, according to Public Health England.
Meanwhile 3 – 4,000 people were evacuated in Morris Illinois the week before last, as 100 tons of batteries burned. The fire burned for days. They could not use water or foam, and in the end, the burning batteries were smothered with 28 tons of cement.
These were run of the mill cell-phone and car batteries.
State Declares Disaster For Morris After Battery Fire https://t.co/QUaZCaplfr pic.twitter.com/jeO7SuaXl4
— CBS Chicago (@cbschicago) July 6, 2021
And why are we even considering the use of renewables and batteries when the following is the case?
http://Www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9779781/Climate-change-Just-25-mega-cities-emit-52-cent-worlds-urban-greenhouse-gases.html
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Because we are stupid.
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Lets build a bunch of lithium battery, grid scale farms on top of coal deposits. What could go wrong?
Bigger than Hiroshima once the coal starts to burn.
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It’ll happen as sure as eggs given they’re already proposing building a gas fired power station on a coal field in NSW.
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Tonight in the UK News: Doris in Coventry: 6000 jobs expectted from new investment in GigaFactory. Nooooh – nothing to do with PC RAM or HDDs – (electric) battery production for the electric cars. What could go wrong ? Coventry all over again.
40
“Because we are stupid.”
It is because we vote in a government to solve our major concern, and everything else must wait until another day.
If some of those secondary concerns get fixed, wonderful, but if not, they have to wait until they become the ‘major concern’
I can see the whole Green, NET Zero Emissions, farce rising to the top of the list in the near future. 🙂
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I do believe you are correct,Robert and I do believe IT is rising at an even faster rate than we think.
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Cannot use safe, clean, reliable nuclear because of irrational fear.
But can deploy completely unnecessary “green” technology that actually realises those fears (an explosive, toxic mess).
Just look at all that beautifully clean, green, toxic smoke billowing into the air.
Ain’t it beautiful. The planet is saved.
#toostupidtosurvive
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I tried informing a relative recently that nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy with current technology. It was like I’d said the world is flat.
“What about Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, Japan etc” was the reply.
There is no use trying to convince these people otherwise.
They ‘believe’, therefore it is fact according to them.
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Some of the reactors used in modern naval vessels rely on maintaining a laminar flow of fuel to establish and sustain fission. If it gets too hot, the laminar flows become chaotic and the reaction stops. Meltdown becomes physically impossible. It’s my understanding that this technology is being commercialized.
Make it bulletproof, completely autonomous and scale it down to a hundred Kw or so costing the same couple of dollars per watt and I’d much rather have one of those in my actual back yard than the equivalent amount of solar or wind.
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You’d probably have a chance of the nuke fitting in your back yard as well
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There are good videos on Youtube about the modern Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. Kirk Sorenson (or Sorensen?) is a nuclear engineer who lectures very effectively about modern nuclear plant.
Pay attention to the Safety Features — they’re impressive.
What about Three Mile Island? It’s Old Technology Pressurised Water Reactor. Out of date, Dangerous (Explosive) and Irrelevant.
What about Chernobyl? Irrelevant. Same as Three Mile Island
What about Japan? (Fukushima?) Same as the prevous 2. Old Technology Pressurised Water Reactors. Out of Date, Dangerous (Explosive) and irrelevant.
LFTRs run at atmospheric pressure so they can’t turn into bombs.
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You might like to check this introduction to nuclear that I’ve assembled in the hope that anyone with even half a brain might risk checking: http://www.galileomovement.com.au/media/SaveThePlanetStart.pdf.
And I’d be most interested in any feedback …..
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I think it’s very good Michael. I’ve bookmarked it for future reference.
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Michael,maybe you should send it to every politician in Canberra?????Then again,if they don’t have this information you would be wasting your time,methinks????
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Meanwhile the US news said absolutely nothing about Loin batteries being the problem. The fire was in a chemical plant. Yea, the problem was due to those mean nasty chemicals not those beloved earth-saving totally green Lion batteries.
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That the chemical hating greens should embrace chemical energy is hilarious!
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My favorite way to store excess electricity is to turn it into Aluminum. To get the energy back out, react it with rust as thermite. The byproduct is Al2O3 and molten iron. The Al2O3 is turned back into AL with electricity and ‘stored’ in the safest way possible. The heat from the molten iron makes steam to drive a turbine and rust to go back into the reaction. You just need to make the right kind of rust to ‘close the loop’. A beneficial byproduct is that the most efficient production of Al also releases large amount of CO2 to offset any losses from burning fewer fossil fuels.
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Do you do that often?
I reckon you’ll find using a battery easier.
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Yes it’s hilarious but it’s also consistent with their fake logic and total lack of critical thinking skills. Nothing will change until the vast majority of people recognise those facts and stop pretending that reducing our emissions will make any difference other than destroy our economy.
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I have “a new theory. You’ll find it’s more simple than most”
One or several large truck loads of coal. Boil large pot of water, bleed off the steam to a turbine generator & hey presto……. remember??
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Batteries would never be a bomb like Beirut. What went off in Beirut was Ammonium nitrate which is not an explosive unless its been mixed with fuel oil or heated to 200C for an extended period of time. A battery contains organic esters as an electrolyte and these can be ignited and burn in with air plus the battery can generate hydrogen which in a closed space containing air can explode but that is not the scale of an ammonium nitrate detonation. They are have similarities to fuel fires except the batteries can generate heat and sparks to keep reigniting the blaze, hence they go on for hours or days. The smoke is indeed toxic as most smoke is and the fluorides in the battery are a genuine concern but its interesting that the battery facility in Illinois was extinguished with cement which would suffocate the batteries by covering them over. The cement would also likely absorb some of the HF biproduct from the battery components.
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I grew up in coal country.
I’ve never seen a lump of coal explode.
Some coal is quite pretty: search up Peacock Coal
John
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I’ve seen it spontaneously combust after being exposed for 24 hours though.
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FWIW, 1 MWh = 0.86 ton TNT
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Even big Wikipedia agrees with Jo,
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An explosive charge is a measured quantity of explosive material, which may either be composed solely of one ingredient or be a mixture containing at least two substances.
Should make for a very big virtue signal.
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There is a big difference between an explosion, which is a broad generic term that covers a lot of things and a detonation which is a reaction that takes place at the speed of sound in a material. Beirut was an Ammonium nitrate detonation and if its packed dense enough can be 5000 m/s. All that material going up in milliseconds will damage building for hundreds of meters around Li ion Batteries will mostly combust which is why they burn for hours.
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AN is a pretty slow explosive though, 5km/sec is not fast for explosives.
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That’s why it’s used mainly for civil purposes rather than military.
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They are simply crying about what they were told to cry about. They don’t have any understanding whatsoever. Nor can they be convinced that they are being used for other people’s purposes (think world wildlife fund or green peace).
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And this was supposed to be in reply to PeterS at #3.1.2
But in reply to Yonniestone (and I’ll loose the spontaneity of reply):
Is that like a smoke signal?
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Yes but we are being told to take it seriously by our so called “leaders” since reducing emissions is very important if not the most important issue of all time. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying until the cows come home; WAKE UP AUSTRALIA! Stop putting up with all this BS, although I do recognise we are generally a lazy lot who don’t give a damn about these issues, at least not until it’s TOO LATE!
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Well D’uh !
Whenever you have stored energy at any level there is an issue if it is released suddenly.
The amount of energy you would need to store for a grid scale battery that does anything more than stabilise the frequency fluctuations, is enormous. !
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Virginia alone wouod need millions of MWh for 100% renewables. BOOM
https://www.cfact.org/2021/02/05/virginia-will-pay-trillions-for-renewable-power/
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Amazing stuff, David. It is truly, awfully frightening how unsophisticated our politicians of all stripes are when it comes to technical issues. We have true experts in this country and yours that could provide true experience and advice, but our elected leaders refuse to use them.
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“Amazing stuff, David. It is truly, awfully frightening how unsophisticated our politicians of all stripes are when it comes to technical issues.”
That would actually matter if the politicians based their judgements on facts rather than a political agenda.
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And as for ‘true experts’ – sorry, Peter, but the last 18 months of the plague have seen the disgorging of an ever increasing number of ‘expert’ immunologists, epidemiologists, chief health officers, etc. on to our daily news services. I did not realise we were so richly endowed with medical expertise. I am left wondering what this host of highly qualified medical supremos does for a living when there are no scary stories to frighten the general population with. Jesus wept, I am fed up with their ‘learned opinions’,and am more determined than ever to trust my own judgement and I hope the majority of people in this country have not yet lost the ability of critical thinking. Otherwise we are well and truly stuffed and might as well run the white flag up the pole.
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I realise that was off topic, but the opportunity presented itself.
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I keep looking around to see who has run up the white flag and I see hords of them every day,with face diapers.As some one has said before me”Jesus Wept”
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Mostly not explosive
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“Mostly not explosive”
Is that the same as “Mostly Harmless”?
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It’s only 42% the same as “Mostly Harmless” 😉
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Mostly peaceful
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Mostly left, oh damn it! Is it mostly right? I’m lost! LET ME OUT OF THIS MAD HOUSE CALLED AUSTRALIA!
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“It’s like a potential bomb,’ he says. ‘When batteries catch fire, you can’t just squirt water on them and put out the flames. It’s evident from our research that nothing has been done to tackle this problem.’” –https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9775467/UKs-battery-farms-spark-fears-explosions.html
IMHO each battery container should be connected to the outside world by ‘quick release’ connectors and structural fitting. Solidly fitted to all sides of the outside of the container are minimum of 50 of THESE (link) gas cylinder modules .
Each container has a trigger device built into it — at it’s simplest it is a pivoted weight held up by low melting point solder and a mechanical arrangement to the outer gas cylinders, basically falling weight pulls pin on gas cylinder releasing the gas.
When overheating/fire initiates within the battery container the solder rapidly melts the weight drops and a mechanical trigger causes at lease 2hrs of non-flammable cylindered gas to fill the battery enclosure. The gas, of course is CO2 (or perhaps CO2/Argon mix), and this will very rapidly cool the whole battery container. Once cooled the container is filled from floor to ceiling with dry ice from yet more CO2 gas cylinders brought and installed by AI controlled robotics. It is now ready for the next stage.
Automatically all ‘quick release’ devices are now safely operated freeing the electrical and structural fittings from the battery container. The batteries and container are safe to be moved by IA controlled robotic forklift truck, to it’s designated position in the on-site water filled containment reservoir where it is left to either burn itself out or stay safely extinguished. If done correctly it is a perfectly safe operation and no blindly unaware sheeple should be physically or emotionally hurt.
This system now seeks approval and incorporation into the government’s ‘Green Authority Industry Assurance’ (GAIA) scheme.
When the last battery container hits the water filled containment reservoir the government pays over an excessive amount of taxpayer funds to the crony corporation and owner/farmer mates. The site is given a cosmetic ‘clean-up’ prior to abandoning it.
The government is now free to repeat the same stupidity again at a different location but with the same group of increasingly wealthy government crony corporation & friends, safe in the knowledge that no sheeple were aware they were being robbed, or understands fund transfers through ‘company/corporation named’ offshore bank accounts.
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You can’t use CO2, it’s a earth heating bad gas and the batteries are just necesary to limit the use of CO2
/sarc
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Except that all CO2 used is, through intricacies of the GAIA scheme, generating ‘carbon offsets’. When all batteries are exhausted and safely disposed of, then this government will be the world leader of ‘carbon offsets’ through it’s many (offshore) Green company interests. 🙂
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Jo
Excellent that you have picked this up as I read it in the printed copy only a couple of hours ago and started asking how long these battery farms could supply electricty to the national grid, or more likely it’s on a local circuit.
So the other question is how many houses could a hattery farm power with their average needs and for how long?
In other words is the potential danger , if there is any, worthwhile because the farms could provide a big benefit to consumers?
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As I said to someone recently, those who make the decisions about renewables either have a death wish for the grid, know nothing about Engineering, or maybe both.
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I tend to believe it’s one or the other, not both but there are exceptions of course. The point though is it’s the blind leading the blind. PM Morrison firmly believes we MUST reduce our emissions drastically if not to zero only because that makes him more popular, so he believes. What makes him believe that? The expectation that will help him at the next election obviously. Therein lies the rub. Will it work out that way? I suspect it will but time will tell if Australians by and large are as stupid as they appear to be.
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Another latent “green” explosive, like compressed Hydrogen fuel. It seems the Cultists never think things through…
Reality is an externality to their minds.
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It’s rather reminiscent of how they had to dump tonnes of sand and boron on the open air nuclear fire of Chernobyl (an accident that wouldn’t have happened in the West).
And yet those who love Big Batteries have a pathological hatred of properly designed nuclear reactors of the West which are safer than windmills.
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They should declare an exclusion zone of, say 5km, around Big Battery installations.
There is also meant to be a large exclusion zone (500m?) around windmills in case they throw blades or ice. And when they catch fire those burning rare earth elements from the magnets can’t be too good for you either…
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DM:
The ‘record’ for blade throw is 1300 metres. This was from a relatively small turbine and the piece of blade was only 6 metres long.
The other reason for an exclusion zone is that burning lithium batteries react with water releasing hydrogen fluoride, which in water becomes hydrofluoric acid – the stuff that etches glass. It is also not good in contact with skin as it penetrates and attacks the bone. I met a yank who had been splashed with solution containing HF despite a safety shield. He washed the contact a.s.a.p. and applied the approved ointment (calcium gluconate base). He was on heroin for 3 weeks and another 3 weeks recovering in hospital. Nasty stuff. I ‘handled’ small amounts of the 35% grade for 5 years always very, very carefully.
If I were a firefighter I would be giving the government hell about the hazard – HF can penetrate firefighting gear. There is no way these batteries should be located anywhere near humans.
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Turbine blades can also shed microfibres which can be ingested by any livestock grazing under the towers. The micro fibres then end up in the livestock products sold for human consumption.
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Not from turbine blades but
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/141622-dairy-cows-dying-in-tunbridge-vt/
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We used to call that Hardware’s Disease. Very rarely a cow would ingest a scrap of old barbed wire or something and perforate the rumen. Exit cow.
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An article just last week said Germany required 2km distance from windmill to house. But there are no places like that left to add more blades around the landscape.
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Are you listening SA? There’s plenty of Youtube footage about uncontrolled fires at public EV recharging points. Seems EV’s are mobile BBQ’s now banned from underground parking stations because of the difficulties associated with extinguishing EV fires. Insurance costs will soar!
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Maybe the fire nsurance folks will ban them from garages that are attached to or within houses. Might wake people up.
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For the same reason there is no way I would mount a battery system in my enclosed garage.
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Hang on, could we use exploding batteries to turn a turbine. – a ‘green’ mostly safe alternative to nuclear power. Bye, I’m off to the Patent Office.
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like project Orion, except with batteries instead of nuclear bombs? Could be on to something…
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Yesterday while driving I listened to some interviews on their ABCCCC for an hours entertainment.
The verbiage was “reasoned woke” and terms like your example; “mostly safe alternative” were the norm.
For those people the truth is in the tone of voice and follow-up agreement from the interviewer, and to a believer, listening to that station, it could safely be stored away as gospel.
There was a hot discussion in the recent thread which was essentially about the use of chronic Verbalism to smother soundly based comments from the bulk of contributors here who are seeking to explore and develop understanding of the world.
In that discussion one contributor asked of another;
“what are you doing here”?
A year or so back, didn’t we have a problem with a “battery” going off in a hospital? On a smaller scale I’ve seen a Lipo that would fit easily in the palm of your hand, plunged into wet dirt where it went off. Water_ tear in battery skin_ water etc. Nobody would go near it.
How has this dangerous aspect of renewables storage been kept from view when LiPo users have always been aware of it.
Cover up?
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Perhaps the battery farm owners ought to be required to perform a hazard/risk analysis, define the probable explosive arc and endangered areas, provide a hazardous response plan, and show proof of liability insurance comparable to the projected damages. All prior to being permitted to install their devices.
My homeowner insurance is void if I place a Tesla Powerwall or similar device in my dwelling/garage. I wouldn’t have one, but it is another reason not to have one. Local Fire Department said their obligation is to prevent any battery fire from spreading to other homes, not to attempt to extinguish the battery fire (IOTW, let it burn).
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Reality bites, and it’s good to see it in writing from the insurance mob.
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Do EVs count as similar devices? They should!
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Imagine the consequences of an EV catching fire in an underground parking garage? The fire sprinkler system won’t extinguish the fire and the heat will likely cause a chain reaction of other vehicular fires.
Sensible underground parking garages are banning EV’s.
“Fire Danger: Underground Parking Lot Bans Electric Vehicles”
by Thom Taylor on February 21, 2021
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/nhtsa-reports-ev-battery-fires-weeks-after-crash-a-problem/
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Like this?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sAQlLu5ttOk
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It’s a pity the video ends just as the fun starts…
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So this would mean that we should also ban liquid fuel storage and distribution like petrol and diesel – which have seen service stations explode, cars ignite while refuelling, etc.
Arguably, batteries are safer than that.
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Of course not. Petroleum fires are capable of being extinguished with water and foam and storage facilities have multiple safety measures and exclusion zones.
Petrol/gasoline service stations do not explode like in the movies.
Gasoline cars rarely catch fire and are capable of being extinguished when they do. They also do not explode like in the movies.
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maybe not water so much unless you are referring to other things that ignite.
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What I meant was water with foam additive, not water or foam.
Firefighting foam is the standard way to extinguish large scale petroleum fires, or to prevent ignition if there is a spillage.
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Thanks for your fact filled response.
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You can cool a liquid fire with a fine spray. Fact.
Flooding is different, that just spreads the liquid.
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Water fog with 6% foam concentrate will snuff a quite large fuel fire easily, I’ve trained for it.
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The now banned BCF is incredibly effective. Still installed in aircraft.
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Not arguable at all. Fuel storage facilites do not self ignite as battery systems demonstrably have.
Its also a stroke of genius to put them out on regional locations in a bushfire prone countryside. Never mind , I am sure the local fire brigade volunteers are well placed to handle a Lion battery fire, no worries.
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very true but spin. Spin the other way: holding a lit match near a battery does not pose a risk like it would for fuel.
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Are you serious?
Current batteries give off hydrogen.
I thought hydrogen goes ‘boom’.
Or becuase they place the word ‘green’ in front of hydrogen, then that negates the boom content.
Tony.
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I am serious. Go look up the risk of that hydrogen accumulating to a level that is a danger. You do the research Tony as you made the claim.
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Oh dear!
Tony.
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Great… where is the risk data in all that?
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I’ll answer that. The risk follows overcharging and excessive heat – let’s see how a can of fuel copes with excessive heat.
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Only a fool would connect petrol to an electrical outlet !
But hook up the lithium battery, that’ll do the trick. 😉
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GA, it happened in a research lab that I was in. A spark blew up a large 24 volt battery right at the feet of one of the techs, spraying him with acid. We managed to get him into a shower quickly, and luckily the acid didn’t hit his eyes. I can absolutely assure you that hydrogen in a confined space is very dangerous.
Also there used to be quite a few hydrogen accidents when Met balloons were filled onsite, generated from caustic sofa. A very dangerous practice.
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Don’t have to hold anything near an EV battery, they are known to combust all on there own !
Please tell me you have an EV that you park in your garage. !
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Batteries don’t need a lit match to go off.
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Gee Aye
You really do know nothing.
Amazing.
Why don’t you try reading the specs for a battery room?
Tony’s “Oh Dear” is dead right.
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Yes John,
and we are comparing battery and fuel risks and both have special storage facilities to ameliorate risk. If you take away the amelioration they are both dangerous which is why Yarpos’s comment was pure spin.
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Again… Would you park your EV in your attached garage, Gee Aye.
Or do you own an SUV ?
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I will just re-quote Tony “Oh dear”.
Do you, Gee Aye, even comprehend your own writing?
Or are you a character from Red Dwarf?
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Obviously I do which makes one of us.
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“Obviously I do…”
Ah.. so you intentionally write garbage.
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ie.. its not just bad luck and ignorance.
10
This squabbling; it’s almost as if you two knew each other.
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Correct John. I used to be doing daily checks on battery banks, and not having an ignition source nearby was a strict requirement.
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Not spin, its obeserved reality
yet somehow you introduce a match into a discussion that was about self ignition
spin? yes I guess you would know
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Nonsense. Petroleum fuels have been around for a long time and we acknowledge their characteristics, however the irony is when proponents of “green” energy think that battery storage is efficient and safe – think immolation of EVs. Now we will have Beirut events and such others on a regular basis. The point being is that you can’t put all your green virtues in one basket.
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Absolutely nobody worries about parking a petrol or diesel car in a garage.
Spontaneous combustion of petrol is a very rare event.
EV’s banned from many enclosed car parks because they do have a propensity to spontaneously ignite.
140
At petrol stations the fuel is stored underground where it is impossible for them to be heated. The refilling port has an airtight seal on it so no gas can escape. The tank is vented by a small pipe that rises above the building roof. The head pressure of gas in this pipe prevents further evaporation and there is no petroleum present at the vent.
Stored petrol can’t burn, let alone explode.
80
Diesel is even better – proven by multiple tank battles!
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Peter, how about just saying “Yes, this is a concern and a problem that needs mitigation. I hope they make it safer because I love storing electricity from non-fossil fuel sources” rather than “hey, look over there”.
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Peter Fitzroy has mastered the art of getting the site’s hares running; twenty=three in this effort thus far greatly assisted by Gee Aye having a bout of foot stamping.
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Yeah, a bit tiresome I guess with all that refuting and dare I say it – debunking.
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Foot stamping it was indeed. Not particularly well informed foot stamping though.
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Just that its in a place where BS usually isnt left to stand as fact or reasoned comment.
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And on a related topic:
Gavin Newsom Suspends Environmental Rules to Expand Fossil Fuel Energy in Heat Wave
by JOEL B. POLLAK12
Jul 202130
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/07/12/gavin-newsom-suspends-environmental-rules-to-expand-fossil-fuel-energy-in-heat-wave/
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Sounds like a bout of common sense, and in California of LL places. No doubt nothing will be learned from the exercise though.
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4000 people, 100 tons of batteries, 28 tons of cement, and all that smoke and dust, hows that for an environmental disaster . .
GeoffW
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The issue of the the danger of EV’s catching fire and being almost impossible to extinguish was brought to my attention via Top Gear. Richard Hammond nearly killed himself when he crashed his high performance EV in Switzerland. The car wreck literally burnt for days because the local fire authorities were unable to do anything. The multi million $ car ended up as a large ball of molten metal.
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Less than 1 in 30 vehicles on California roads are EVs. And they are cutting out nuclear and fossil fuel power generation. Australia has met its climate chasing match. They will need a whole lot more battery farms
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-cleantech-incubator-pushes-to-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-ahead-of-2028-olympics/
There are 15 m registered cars in California
https://www.statista.com/statistics/196024/number-of-registered-automobiles-in-california/
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Total registered on-road vehicles in California: 29,830,797
Total registered light-duty cars in California: 16,101,262
Total registered light-duty trucks in California: 12,741,718
That makes EVs total 1.4% of vehicles in California or more than half the one in thirty you claim.
Further, they cannot power them with wind and solar, nor with their hydro.
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381 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Without a level 3 recharge en route, it will be an adventure travelling the route in one day
A mere 7 years away. I don’t envy the EV owner
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California also went heavy with the subsidies and now they are having problems providing enough electricity to businesses and homes, let alone its EV fleet.
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The article above just keeps on giving. Notice that California is seriously running out of energy, especially with all the new green manufacturing
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When they say “Adoption”… like it is a little thing needing a better home.
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More virtue signalling greenidiots in CA than anywhere in the world
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Dunno about that. I have just forwarded a link to this article to our federal member; a greenie ‘independent’.
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Surely it’s obvious that more cement is the way to fight climate change, just as mining millions of tonnes of coal and quartz and……is the answer by making millions of solar panels rather than a nuclear power plant! Everyone knows this was a logical well thought through plan by the renewables investors.
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What’s the track record of domestic storage batteries that are attached to houses for solar capture?
20
EV (and e-bike) batteries are a bigger concern since those are not stationary so are more likely to suffer damage that leads to shorting and then to self-ignition.
Additionally, e-bike batteries are often charged indoors and EV batteries tend to be far larger than home storage batteries.
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I have an old ventilated metal cabinet for storing LiPo (drone) and Lion (power tools, ebike) batteries when not in use and I charge in a ventilated shed.
The real problem is not the risk of fire, since that can be dealt with using behavioural and engineering methods (such as I just mentioned), but is the fact that few people know about the hazards and risks and how to control them.
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So after you buy an EV, will you park it out by the old shed or build a new one separate from your house?
30
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion):
“Exposure to repeated nuclear blasts raises the problem of ablation (erosion) of the pusher plate. Calculations and experiments indicated that a steel pusher plate would ablate less than 1 mm, if unprotected. If sprayed with an oil it would not ablate at all (this was discovered by accident; a test plate had oily fingerprints on it and the fingerprints suffered no ablation)”
Amazing what a little bit of fossil fuel can do.
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After all it is a boom-ing industry. Heat generated by rapid charge and rapid discharge, what can go wrong.
All DC backups for large telco exchanges is in a separate room, well ventilated for a reason. It doesn’t smell pretty when one battery gives up the ghost.Although small compared to the subject, but always a risk. We ran a 5 year complete replacement due to those risks and regular checks for bad cells.
30
I recently saw video of an electric van “brewing-up’ at a charging station. It started off as a violent issue of white vapours underneath the van then quickly erupted into a van sized blow torch. The small car being charged next door also became a carbeque. ‘Needles to say’, all up, the fiery scene was a turn-off regarding any notion of making any Li-ion battery powered electric vehicle an object of motoring desire.
40
Holy shit.
30
I warned a friend who now sells capacitor based systems that he is putting bombs into peoples homes. He had never heard of that before.
What happens in case of a fire when the casing is damaged and the energy inside is released???
Thanks for highlighting here!
60
Sounds like he has never heard of battery technology either…. if he is selling capacitor based home power storage !
There are many viable technologies for power storage, but capacitors are not on the list !
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There is an awful lot of miss information being posted above..
For a start , grid scale Storage batteries do not “explode “ !
Sure, they can burn and be very difficult to contain, ..but that is very different to an explosion with its associated collateral damage zone.
The writer of the article suggesting non combustible gas and dry ice for flooding battery containers, knows less than my cat about the subject. You cannot control a self fueling , oxygen generating , battery fire with inert gasses.!
Nobody wants a large fire anywhere, just as nobody wants a oil refinery/storage fire or Amonium Nitrate or Nuclear explosion,..so the solution is similar ….safe design, and operating proceedures…..proportionate to the risk.
Battery fires are invariably the result of a human failure somewhere along the manufacturing , installation, and operation process.
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Chad
We always take care, but the sheer size of some of these installations is getting concerning.
As the mass goes up the surface area proportional to it and hence ability to shed heat and discharge gases dramatically reduces, hence the ability for a large explosion greatly increases.
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Explosion or not the resulting fires are extremely difficult to manage and create a huge amount of pollution . .
GeoffW
20
The law of unintended consequences applies here.
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I’ll have to tentatively disagree, Jo.
I checked on this recently, simply because militaries everywhere, including our own, are going all-in on lithium battery powered unmanned armor and weapon or logistics systems, for forwards combat uses.
Which might seem to work terrifically in peace-time and during exercises, but in combat? They would be constantly shot at and explode, plus burn in close proximity to friendly forces, potentially contaminate friendly bases and equipment and may render them unusable.
So I checked the current anti-combustion Li technologies, and came to the view they are probably safer and less toxic a hazard to use than hydrocarbon powered vehicles. There are a number of test videos of short circuits and mechanical ruptures, showing battery destruction, expansion and hot gases, but no flames or melting, etc. In fact firemen were all around them without breathing apparatus protection (which was a startling thing to see).
On balance, if a vehicle blows apart with hydrocarbon fuel and burns, it is always toxic and can kill you easily, plus it’s a secondary explosion hazard, and the fire is dangerous to all around, and to bases and equipment.
So are Li batteries in unmanned combat vehicles more dangerous, if the battery is instantaneously fragged by a weapon?
I don’t personally know, but presumably militaries are testing rigorously and destructively for this, before selecting any vehicle for service.
With older Li battery chem it would indeed be a disaster – definitely. Images of Samsung S8 phones exploding suddenly in people’s pockets, is clearly a totally wrong technology for civil or military uses today.
But with LiFePO4 batteries and Lithium polymer batteries in general, they seem to be a manageable and not particularly dangerous risk for a major fire, any more than warfare or exploding weapons generally are.
It all comes down to what Li battery chemistry is being used, and how it’s being used, or abused. Because common Li batteries in new commercial equipment today doesn’t actually burn any longer, and they are not really lacking for energy density or cheap cost either, as this product shows.
Cheapest 48 volt LiFePO4 Battery, Pre-Built with BMS, Testing and Review, Gyll from Signature Solar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYJ25izYSGc
And they don’t burn or explode, they just expand and give off hot gasses. What isn’t clear yet is how hazardous the gases given off are?
So there’s no reason to think a new major battery storage will explode, or burn for days. The things around them may burn, sure but the batteries probably won’t.
On balance, new military vehicles with non-flammable Li chemistries and packaging are probably a lesser hazard than an armed burning hydrocarbon fuel vehicle and the surrounding materials and people.
To me this means Li batteries are probably viable on safety grounds. Not sure they’re economic, nor a good-idea though. Totally delusional if CO2 from coal or gas is plant food, and the basis for all life on earth.
41
I would have to see the full proposal that included the battlefield charging stations.
I guess once the depleted uranium rounds come burning through the armour, the type of fire you are going to die in (battery vs oil) becomes a bit academic.
60
Armed forces throuhout the world are going into green energy simply out of political necessity.
Don’t believe for a moment that it is a superior product or improves battle capability . .
GeoffW
30
What we chose to believe is irrelevant, the advantage of unmanned ground combat systems is very obvious, the politics of it is incidental (b`ut not inconsequential) to the combat advantages of building the forces to take full advantage of it. This will occur irrespective of the climate change malarkey, or rather the politics, which just happen to be very supportive of that technology direction too. The far bigger challenge is secure command, control and communications plus computers to operate them reliably, effectively and adaptively.
10
Nevertheless these exist and are being widely used now. Automated tracked ‘donkeys’ for instance that can carry ammo, food, medicine and water in, and casualties out to a triage, on continuous rotations and also take them to locations where helicopters can survive to get them out. Batteries are charged in rear areas of course (lots of discussion of micro reactors and distribution grid systems) and then bought forward by automated logistics supply, and distributed precisely, either by a tracked donkey, or a VTOL cargo drone. The point being to relieve combat forces of the incredible dependence and vulnerability on endless logistics supply of liquid fuel. As armor gets heavier (even ‘light’ armor) and the number of protected vehicles increases, the fuel overhead keeps getting higher. If this can be replaced with much lighter unmanned Li battery systems, for ancillary support tasks, many fighting and mobile security vehicles, the liquid fuel quantity needed decreases sharply. It’ll be a big deal during this decade. But without small semi-mobile buried and protected meltdown-proof reactors, those vehicles are still reliant on liquid fuel delivery, and its politics and diplomacy, etc.
20
Do you not mean “Megawatt hours of high density energy”?
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[…] h/t JoNova, GWPF; Brace for impact – as Beirut learned the hard way in 2020, thousands of tons of unstable chemicals piled up in one place can abruptly release their stored energy a lot faster than intended. […]
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This item picked up at WUWT
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/13/study-grid-battery-facilities-could-explode-with-greater-force-than-the-beirut-harbour-blast/
More examples of big battery fires in comments there
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[…] JoNova, GWPF; Brace for impact – as Beirut learned the hard way in 2020, thousands of tons of unstable […]
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Batteries + Solar + Wind are NOT RENEWABLE. How much lithium/copper/nickel/paladium is there in the Earth’s Crust? I would say…NOT INFINITE. Until technology advances in giant strides, energy production (except wood and water) is FINITE.
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Interesting comment:
Just like Chernobyl. Hopefully renewables will end up working better than a BRDM reactor. Ironic that the greens end up turning into the thing they claim to hate the worst. Cheers –
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