Californian fires

[supersparky]

In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether you have a battery energy storage facility, a nuclear power plant or fossil fuel storage tanks. At some point they are all going to either catch on fire or blow up. It wasn't all that long ago that that Coode Island storage facility in Melbourne burned itself to the ground.
My old boss from 40 years ago used to say, "they should not be allowed to market a product, without having a reversing agent or antidote for it." He was slanting that towards chemical companies, but the same thing applies here.
If they haven't yet got a way of dealing with a worst case scenario, then create an effective one. Then you can market your product.
Given that Elon Musk and The Donald now seem to be bed partners, I doubt that this will happen.

[jon_d]

In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether you have a battery energy storage facility, a nuclear power plant or fossil fuel storage tanks. At some point they are all going to either catch on fire or blow up. It wasn't all that long ago that that Coode Island storage facility in Melbourne burned itself to the ground.
My old boss from 40 years ago used to say, "they should not be allowed to market a product, without having a reversing agent or antidote for it." He was slanting that towards chemical companies, but the same thing applies here.
If they haven't yet got a way of dealing with a worst case scenario, then create an effective one. Then you can market your product.
Given that Elon Musk and The Donald now seem to be bed partners, I doubt that this will happen.

What Dave? A reversing agent?

[supersparky]

Back on the day, my old boss owned a few wrecking yards , a bumper bar reconditioning business and a chrome platers. They all had some sort of issue with getting rid of waste. Especially from the chrome platers. He always said that 'they' shouldn't be allowed to market a product without having an antidote or a reversing agent to counter whatever the detrimental effects are.
Maybe they need to build these battery storage facilities underneath a great big hopper full of sand or something.
But the big pharma still make chemicals or drugs with ongoing side effects.
The big end of town still does as it wants to, and donates to political parties to ensure they get their own way.
And worst of all, I've just seen a Clive Palmer ad on TV.
There must be an election coming up.
Where will it all end?

[T1 Terry]

I think I put a link up to the Victoria fire services field day burning an EV and how to put the fire out. The one that was the cheapest, reuseable and actually worked, was a fire blanket.

Build the battery and build a fire blanket containment over it. If It goes up in flames, drop the fire blanket containment unit over it and let it burn itself out.

What they need to do is better police the chemical cocktails they put in batteries. If you combine, nickel, manganese and cobalt together in a battery, it's not if it will catch fire, but when will it catch fire ...... yet these batteries are NMC cells, nickel, manganese and cobalt, all with a flammable electrolyte. There was mention somewhere, no idea if it's truth or rumour, that these batteries were built from LG pouch cells by Tesla ..... kinda like putting methanol in a plastic jerry-can and using it as a fuel tank because it's a cheap fix that does the job, then putting it on the roof of a speedway car and not expecting there could be a fire issue ........

T1 Terry

[supersparky]

Thats brought back a few unwanted memories. I've seen some terrible methanol fires at the speedway. Hard to see it burning and harder to put out.

[Greynomad]

Try Hydrazine.
If left standing for more than about an hour it forms a crystalline crust. Breaking that crust (for example, by firing up a nearby V8 drag racer with open exhausts), the crust ignites — explosively.
Watched this happen at a drag meet in the 60s.

[Greynomad]

So, Terry,
What is the safest chemical combination in Lithium batteries?
It seems that Tesla doesn’t know, as the “Trump Cybertruck” incident proves.
Are other EV manufacturers smarter, or just lucky?

[supersparky]

Try Hydrazine.
If left standing for more than about an hour it forms a crystalline crust. Breaking that crust (for example, by firing up a nearby V8 drag racer with open exhausts), the crust ignites — explosively.
Watched this happen at a drag meet in the 60s.

I haven't seen that happen but I have heard of it happening. But I have seen what happens when there is too much nitro in the mix. kaboom.

[T1 Terry]

So, Terry,
What is the safest chemical combination in Lithium batteries?
It seems that Tesla doesn’t know, as the “Trump Cybertruck” incident proves.
Are other EV manufacturers smarter, or just lucky?

Sorry, this is one of those TED talk replies, skip over it if it's not your thing ...


For Lithium:
LFP (LiFeP04 lithium ferrous phosphate)

LYP, the same compound as LFP but with yttrium added to improve the operating temperature range down to -32*C where LFP has restricted charging and discharging capacity below 0*C

LTO (lithium titanate oxide) these are used in mining underground vehicles because they are so stable, and human battery implants to run pacemakers and nerve blocking implants that can be induction charged through the skin so they never need to be removed. Some crazy figure like 30,000 cycles .... even if it was recharged every day, that's 82 yrs, but the battery charge lasts for 5 to 15 yrs ...... These are less energy dense than LFP/LYP, but they can be charged and discharged at very high rates, as an example, a 100Ah battery can be charged at 10C or 1,000 amps and discharged at the same rate with no loss of available capacity while this is happening and still maintain that 30,000 life cycle. If pushed to 30C, charged and discharged at 3,000 amps, they have an expected life of 5,000 cycles, but I don't think anyone has actually tested them for 5,000 cycles to find out ...... If these were used for grid energy stabilisation and peak load carrying, the equipment attached to them would require replacing long before the battery did ..... but who in their right mind is going to invest in a battery that didn't need replacing for 80+ yrs, where the future sales possibility in that?

The one I'm experimenting with at the moment, Sodium Ion ( Na+) which is even more stable as the electrolyte isn't flammable even if heated to the point vapour forms and is released through the pressure release valve. Very little "reliable information" is known about this latest entry to the market. CATL are on their second generation commercial production run now and the latest is a hybrid battery using parallel LFP and Na+ cells to get the peak discharge capabilities of the Na+ combined with the fast charging of LFP for long distance plug in hybrid vehicle batteries .... there is talk of 300km plus on a full charge, then the regen capability could well extend that range ....

T1 Terry

[T1 Terry]

Try Hydrazine.
If left standing for more than about an hour it forms a crystalline crust. Breaking that crust (for example, by firing up a nearby V8 drag racer with open exhausts), the crust ignites — explosively.
Watched this happen at a drag meet in the 60s.

I haven't seen that happen but I have heard of it happening. But I have seen what happens when there is too much nitro in the mix. kaboom.

You can actually run a car engine on neat Nitro Methane, you just need a lot of injectors. The kaboom is when the flame goes out, so much is pumped in each combustion cycle it is an instant hydraulic lock, either pushing the crankshaft out the bottom or splitting the block in two up the middle or multiple pieces as the cylinders and head decide they no long want to remain attached to the lower block assembly

The dramatic one is the blower departing the scene, the result of a valve hanging open and the homogenous combustion igniting the fuel air mix in the manifold under the supercharger

T1 Terry