Just another day saving the Earth from pollution
Highways were shut for 12 hours and people had to seal themselves in their homes for hours.
Green Inferno: Tesla Battery Catches Fire in California Causing Shelter-In-Place
A Tesla Megapack battery caught fire at PG&E’s Elkhorn Battery Storage facility in Monterey County, California. A shelter-in-place advisory was in place for 12 hours due to fears of toxic smoke from the fire caused by Elon Musk’s battery system, with county officials announcing that even though the fire was “fully controlled” by 7:00 p.m. PT, “smoke may still occur in the area for several days.”
Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, North County Fire Protection District, and Pacific Gas & Electric had all issued a shelter-in-place advisory for nearby areas, including an interactive map showing which areas are affected and closing roads for over 12 hours.
Local residents were told to shut all windows and turn off ventilation systems due to the hazardous waste material that may have entered the atmosphere due to the Tesla Megapack fire.
Also this week, but so much worse:
Electric scooter battery fire kills 8-year-old in US
New York: Amid the fires and explosions in electric two-wheelers continue unabated, a new report has claimed that an 8-year-old girl died after an electric scooter battery sparked a fire in the US.
According to the authorities, the death of Stephanie Villa Torres in New York City was at least the third time in a little over a year that a fatal fire in the city has been linked to a scooter battery, reports CBS News.
Just a random tweet last week on the joy of rapid e-bike discharging at home. What would you do?
Start planning those emergency fire drills now, buy a fire resistant cabinet, or rewire your woodstove so you can charge your batteries in it. Don’t we love the smell of burning lithium in the morning?
Electric bike caught fire during charging‼️
The worst part about burning lithium batteries is that you can’t put them out with water.lithium reacts violently with water.The more you add,the more vigorously the fire will burn.Imagine this happens with electric cars or busses‼️🤔🙏 pic.twitter.com/3526p8PMZc— Sophia Dahl (@sophiadahl1) September 8, 2022
Time to store electric bombs outside the house.
h/t Lance
So true. You are far far better being outside with Mother Nature enjoying Life. Being inside and Locked Down NO.
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Get woke, get smoked…
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What’s in lithium ion battery fire smoke?
SEE LINK FOR REST
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“Green” Leftoids complain about fluoride in the water supply (added for dental health*) but fluorides in the air are OK, LoL.
*A lot of water naturally contains fluoride anyway, about 9% of water supply in Australia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_in_Australia?wprov=sfla1
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Sodium fluoride is more toxic than arsenic. It is not added for dental health. That is another lie you have been told. My city water department admitted this to me when I asked them about it. Keep digging… you will get to the truth eventually, but it probably won’t be on Wikipedia…
(The sodium fluoride is indeed toxic to the bacteria in your mouth, like arsenic would be, and if you swish it around and spit it out, it might kill some of them without doing you any other harm. But there are safer ways to clean your teeth, and whatever you do, do not drink it. Or breathe it.)
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So now they tell us! Is this fact or fiction? Journalists are notoriously ignorant when covering poisons.
Just hurry up and invent cheaper supercapacitors so the use of lithium batteries can be limited to where they are safe.
I expect it should be possible to manufacture graphene far more cheaply than lithium.
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Nah Ted,
Couldn’t have graphene. If it caught fire it might produce that dreadful pollutant carbon something or other.
Cheers
Dave B
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Those monkey brain journos are pretty quick to accept CO2 is a poison……..
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According to Prof Paul Christensen:
“In the context of Grid-scale LiBESS, these installations typically comprise a number of ‘shipping’ containers (ranging from one container to hundreds). These containers may house hundreds of thousands of individual battery cells, of various forms (pouch cells, cylindrical cells etc). All form factors are employed in Grid-scale LiBESS and, depending on the form of the cell used, estimates of failure can range from 1 in 72 to 1 in 282 containers. These estimates do not include failures caused by poor design,
human error, poor housekeeping etc.”
Fires happen regularly in new BESS.
See ‘Briefing note: lithium-ion battery energy storage systems’ by Dr. Paul Christensen, Lithiumionsafety Ltd. 13 November 2021
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Didn’t I read somewhere recently that people are more frightened of / about Nuclear Power ( where few have died ) than Burning Batteries / EVs wher people are certainly more likely to die.
And if we shouldn’t have plastic, how are we gonna INSULATE the electric wires ( flexible ones) ? I ‘d be more firghtened of that !
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The following article is impossible to copy and paste on an Android phone but worth looking at.
I can only post a small manually transcribed sample.
Maybe someone else on another platform can post a small portion.
https://energynow.com/2022/09/commentary-battery-deaths-put-nuclear-safety-in-context-michael-shellenberger/?amp
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Here’s the Shellenberger article. PDF 528kB, font and size changed, links are retained. (line-wrapping may occur)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ruuuf6gusnz9def/Lithium%20batteries%20kill%20many%20more%20people%20than%20nuclear%20plants.pdf?dl=0
to read
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ruuuf6gusnz9def/Lithium%20batteries%20kill%20many%20more%20people%20than%20nuclear%20plants.pdf?dl=1
to download
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Thanks Martin.
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Lithium batteries kill many more people than nuclear plants. Why, then, aren’t we scared of them?
By Michael Shellenberger
In June 2022, a Tesla electric car that had been in a crash three weeks earlier repeatedly ignited in a Sacramento junkyard, despite the lack of an external ignition source. (Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District).
For decades, critics of nuclear power plants have pointed to their unique danger. When there is a loss of water coolant for the reactor cores, plant operators can lose control, leaving them to melt, and potentially spew toxic particulate matter into the environment. Nuclear accidents are unique in requiring people to “shelter-in-place,” and close windows and vents, to avoid breathing radiant particulate matter. And nuclear accidents can unfold in unpredictable and mysterious ways, such as by creating hydrogen gas explosions, like the kinds that occurred during the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011.
And yet nuclear plants remain the safest way to make electricity and one of the most benign of all human activities. Nobody has ever died of nuclear power in the United States, nobody will die from the radiation from the Fukushima accident in 2011, and only roughly 200 people will have their lives shortened by the fire and radiation from the Chernobyl fire. And because nuclear plants prevent the burning of fossil fuels, the climate scientist James Hansen calculates that they have saved nearly 2 million lives to date.
The ability to release intense amount of heat by splitting atoms did indeed bring a unique danger into the world, but it’s clear from decades of experience that the uniqueness of the danger of nuclear plants is how few people they kill, but how many they scare. Far more people were hurt from the too-broad and too long-lasting evacuations of Fukushima and Chernobyl than from their radiant particulates.
And now a series of deadly accidents reveal that even lithium batteries are more deadly that nuclear power. Last Saturday, a fire started by a lithium battery in an electric scooter killed an 8-year-old girl in New York City. In New York City alone, lithium battery fires in 2021 killed 3 and injured 57, while in the first half of 2022, they killed 5 people and injured 73.
Meanwhile, a fire this morning at a Tesla battery facility in Moss Landing in Monterey County, California, emitted so much toxic smoke that the Fire and Sheriff Departments issued a shelter-in-place order, asking people to close windows and vents, and closing several roads. Contrary to widespread perception, shelter-in-place orders are not unique to nuclear accidents but are also used to protect the public from chemical fires and other accidents.
Lithium battery fires have, like nuclear accidents, been unpredictable, mysterious, and difficult to manage. The battery fires that grounded the first Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013 were difficult to control, and mysterious, A Tesla that had been in a Sacramento junkyard for three weeks spontaneously, repeatedly, and mysteriously caught fire. “The batteries would keep reigniting the fire,” said firefighters, who only were able to stop them by flipping the Tesla onto its side.
As such, lithium batteries are deadlier and as dangerous than nuclear power plants. This is obviously true in the U.S., where nuclear power has never killed anyone. But it likely also true globally worldwide, or will be true, given the rising death toll from lithium fires, over the next decade, and particularly if we were to calculate deaths on a per unit of energy basis, given how much more electricity generated by nuclear plants than stored and delivered by batteries.
All of this begs a question: if lithium batteries are so much dangerous than nuclear, why is nuclear so much more feared?
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Thanks Graeme.
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Don’t forget the ones with fluoride in (LiF6), and for greater energy density there are more coming it seems. Its hard to imagine a more toxic inorganic product.
Don’t expect anyone in authority to tell you what is in the smoke you are breathing…
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And it was a 182.5-megawatt Tesla Megapack system in California. Presumably able to deliver that power for about a hour.
The Victorian Big Battery is a 300 MW grid-scale battery storage project (450 MWhr) in Geelong, Australia which will store enough energy in reserve to power over one million Victorian homes for 1/2 an hour.
On Friday, July 30th, 2021, a single Megapack at VBB caught fire and spread to a neighboring Megapack during the initial installation and commissioning of the Megapacks. The fire did not spread beyond these two Megapacks and they burned themselves out over the course of approximately six hours.
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Just as anyone who pushes defective covid “vaccines” should be forced to disclose any financial interest they might have in them, anyone pushing solar, wind and associated Big Batteries should also be forced to disclose their financial interests in the unreliables
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A short video (~2min) showing how well lithium and water get along together:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yGDkiUAwxRs
It’s a wonder leftist governments haven’t ordered a ‘shelter in place’ for carbon dioxide, given how toxic it is!
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The Left are now at war against “carbon” (sic) and now “nitrogen” (sic) and I can’t wait until they add lithium to the list, LoL.
Most of them are profoundly scientifically illiterate, products of the woke “education” system. They can’t do basic mental arithmetic, are unlikely to know what gases plants and animals respire but I bet they WOULD KNOW all 57 of the supposed genders, or whatever they are up to now…
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David:
Not just the Left. Yesterday in the bakery I offered $21.70 for a $11.70 bill (because I only had a $20 note). The girl on the cash machine was perplexed about the amount of change I wanted. Took her about 20 seconds.
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I have twice been handed more change than I was owed.
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I still remember when in high school, our science teacher, goggles on, fire proof mittens and a long pair of tongs, students well back… put a wafer of lithium in a ceramic petri dish of water.
Would never be done in high school nowadays. !
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Similar result with sodium and other Group 1 metals.
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Magnesium metal also burns nicely once given a kick start with a flame.
I burned some here: https://youtu.be/qSoVpKU2RjM
Don’t try to extinguish magnesium fires with water or CO2 either. Hydrogen is liberated from water and burns in the oxygen liberated from the the water. CO2 is reduced to carbon. And if you remove oxygen, the magnesium will react with nitrogen in the air and keep burning.
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Remember flashbulbs for taking pictures? The bulbs contained fine Mg wire which needed only a small electrical current to get it going.
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Thought I’d better add a caution. The demonstration in the video linked to above does not appear to be a scientific experiment and may not have been done under controlled conditions. Also, there are no accompanying cautions in the video. Obviously, it would be foolish to try this yourself as it may cause personal injury or property damage.
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Lol! More wokespeak! Just like the comics these days with their trigger warnings of graphic violence or sexual something-or-other!
It all enrages me with the assumption of just how fking stupid the people reading it are!
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Get autodidacted (it’s not painful) about Li metal batteries. Here’s a link to an excellent video by The Battery Guy on the construction of Li metal batteries. Thermal runnaway is covered and shows what happens to a laptop with an Li battery malfunction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0gAdkl34w
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Toxic Renewables. Saving us from “The Climate Crisis™”, one death at a time (if you’re lucky).
Thank you Greenslime.
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Add to the list of clean recycled green world building materials produced from recycled plastic, when cut the “dust” is very fine particles of plastic and it is advisable for tradies to wear a face mask and fit a vacuum cleaner to the saw.
So where does the plastic dust end up?
Outside into the ground, inside later swept up and placed into rubbish bins, into earth worms and other creatures including birds?
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Lithium batteries kill far more people than all nuclear accidents in history and the Big Batteries store and deliver far less power.
E.g. the world’s largest lithium battery is the Dynegy/Vistra battery system at Moss Landing and can produce 300MW for 4hrs, after being slowly charged from some other source. It would take a lot of windmills many hours or days to charge the battery if the wind happened to be blowing.
A typical “medium” nuclear power plant is 700MWe so could produce the entire energy content of the world’s biggest battery in under 2 hours and do it at 100% power rating for years, stopping only to occasionally change fuel rods and routine maintenance.
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If you have an electric car in your garage with a charger , insurance may be a problem . Thought about putting LIFEPo4 batteries in my boat to save weight but I can’t afford the risk .
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Someone needs to tell fire brigades that 100,000 litres of water isn’t the way to go. 😉
Maybe just throw a large asbestos blanket over the vehicle and come back in 3-4 days to remove the ash?
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Minister for Climate Change & Energy in the Labor Albanese Federal Government, Chris Bowen, is visiting the US at this time and bragging that Australia has returned to climate action, Paris emissions target raised from 28% to 43% and legislated into law, for example. He apparently did not mention dismissing the Federal Government owned private company Snowy Hydro CEO, hydro power station owners and constructing the pumped hydro Snowy 02 and a gas fired generator at Kurri Kurri NSW (near Newcastle) ordered by the previous Federal Government. Minister Bowen demanded that the generator fuel be changed to “green hydrogen” and when the CEO explained it cannot be done because there is no commercially viable source of supply and that mixing more than 5% hydrogen with gas is a risk the Minister dismissed him.
While in the US he took time for a photo opportunity standing alongside a Ford EV pickup truck and took a swipe at the former Coalition PM who had said EV models capable of towing heavy trailers were not available, Minister Bowen said the Ford EV can tow and has a range of 500 kilometres fully charged. First problem, Ford do not produce a right hand steering model and have no plan to export yet. According to Sky News Bolt Report when towing a camper van in the US the Ford EV pickup’s range dropped to 160 kilometres and it takes about 45 minutes to recharge the batteries to 80% capacity ….. so next tow range 130 kilometres. And the estimated A$ price is far higher than the internal combustion engine utes sold in Australia and favoured by tradies. It was mentioned that a Toyota Hi Lux EV will be available here in 2023 but the price will be around A$100,000 which is a lot more than the ICEV models already sold here by Toyota.
The rest of the three year term in government to end in 2025 will be interesting, the Minister is already way out of his depth it appears.
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“the Minister is already way out of his depth it appears.”
That’s knee-deep on anyone else!
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Over 50 years ago I owned a Formula 2 Brabham Cosworth. After a number of performance upgrades we decided to fit bigger diameter wheel studs, which required boring bigger diameter stud holes in the magnesium wheels.
This produced magnesium shavings which being young & adventurous we decided to burn. We piled a little cone about 50mm diameter & high in a cleared area of the workshop floor, & set fire to it.
Boy does it burn. It got so hot that it spalled an area of the concrete about 250mm round & 15mm deep. For years I could look at the repair patch to remind me to be less silly.
I now have a number if LiPo used batteries sitting on a big rock down the paddock, a couple of hundred meters from anything, while I decide how to dispose of them sensibly. It won’t be burning.
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[…] by Jo Nova […]
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