Lithium batteries are dangerous. If you don’t believe me take a hazmat certification course to ship them anywhere. It’s a big deal. Lots of rules. They can’t be fully charged. Very specific packaging requirements.
Doing it wrong can bring down the aircraft carrying them or ignite freight cargo cars on trains.
It’s a thing, and as more things use lithium packs for power, the more fires they can spark. A few months ago, we reported that Havila, a pro-ESG and Self-Proclaimed green shipping concern, has banned Electric Vehicles from its ships.
Havila shipping company boss Bent Martini said the risk analysis showed that the fire in an electric car required a particularly complex rescue operation. The crew on board could not afford this. Passengers would also be at risk. This is different for vehicles with combustion engines. A possible fire is usually easy to fight by the crew.
NY Fire Department Assistant Chief explained it like this (same article). “The problem is that lithium-ion fires burn extremely hot and are virtually impervious to conventional firefighting methods that use water or foam. Lithium reacts very badly to water, which is really a problem if firefighters are attacking a fire for which they don’t know the cause.”
A few other suggestions from the NYFD which has gone to great lengths to create protocols to address the rising number of lithium battery fires in the City.
– Transmit a 10-80-1 and request BFI. The IC should then contact Haz-Mat 1 or the Haz-Mat
Battalion via cell phone for further instructions.
– Wear full PPE, including a donned SCBA facepiece, whenever near a damaged/smoldering
lithium-ion battery.
The combustion is more dangerous than COVID, which I also take to mean, not so good for air quality or the environment. And that’s just the battery. EV battery fires have taken out garages, homes, bus terminals, apartment buildings, and the lives of parents, friends, and children.
April 15, 2023- Fire Officials Issue Warning After Electric Bike Sparks Blaze, Killing a Child and a Teenager. “A 7-year-old and a 19-year-old were killed in a house fire Monday that officials said was caused by an e-bike battery.”
Sep 2022 – Electric Scooter Fire Ignites Showroom, Kills 8 in Deadliest Incident Yet – … “Monday’s fire started in a hotel basement that housed the showroom, which contained about 24 electric scooters in Secunderabad, police told Reuters. The fire was brought under control and an investigation was underway, they said. Most of the casualties in the blaze were hotel guests in the building, which was choked with smoke.”
Aug 2022 – E-Scooter/Bike Battery Sparks Apartment Blaze, Kills Woman and Child, Leaves Father in Critical Condition. “The fire, which started just before 2:30 a.m. in a sixth-floor apartment in the Jackie Robinson Houses in Harlem, per the Times, was sparked by the lithium-ion battery from an electric bike or scooter, the New York City Fire Department said Wednesday afternoon on Twitter.”
The girl and her family were trapped within their flat when the fire began, officials said, according to the New York Post.
Jan 2022 – NYC Landlords Ordered to Post E-Bike Warning After 140 Fires and 6 Deaths. “E-bikes are responsible for at least 140 fires which have injured 140 people and killed six throughout 2022, according to a fire department bulletin posted on Nov. 23.”
2019 – 8 firefighters hurt in explosion at APS facility in Surprise; 3 flown to Phoenix burn center
Battery recycling and disposal operations are also subject to these sorts of fires – most common carriers like UPS, DHL, and FedEx will not transport expired or damaged batteries in or out of equipment.
I often get asked what is causing the growth in fire incidents, and the answer is quite simple: lithium-ion batteries.
According to my colleague Ronald Butler, the Jedi Master of lithium-ion batteries, “Lithium batteries are capable of spontaneous ignition and subsequent explosion from overheating. That may be caused by electrical shorting, rapid discharge, overcharging, manufacturers’ defect, poor design or mechanical damage, among other causes. Overheating results in a process called thermal runaway, which is a reaction within the battery causing internal temperature and pressure to rise at a quicker rate than can be dissipated.”
This is why you should not dispose of any lithium batteries, no matter how small, in general, waste like household trash. Subjected to heat or damage, they could ignite and, if surrounded by anything flammable, the material around them, creating what, for lack of a better term, would be another significant emissions/pollution event that erases any perceived benefit the use of the device pretended to create.
The effect has been property damage, injury, and death caused by the race to net zero, which represents a significant threat to the quality of life and the environment before we even get to the problem of battery fires.
They want to build massive banks of these things to store power from weather-dependent solar and wind to replace fossil fuels. Even if we had the material and time, and they could deliver as promised – they are not – people who think this is safer than Nucelar should have their heads examined.
