Battery bombs in the suburbs?
By Jo Nova
You think exploding pagers was a wicked trick….
Hypothetically, suppose you were distracted while you tried to change tropospheric jet streams, and accidentally gave away your national manufacturing to a foreign adversary. Next thing you know, you’re buying the batteries they make, and installing them in essential grid infrastructure and thousands of homes. You’re patting yourself on the back for getting a cheap deal (never mind the slaves) and it all seems dandy until one sunny day, a leader who was cheesed off with a trade deal, quietly switched off the “overcharge protection” on all of them remotely.
At that point, millions of solar panels are pumping excess electricity into batteries that have no safety cut off. A few houses start to go off like popcorn, and an hour later we’re all living at the Western Front.
Brian Craighead – chief executive of Energy Renaissance, has come to warn us — it’s a hidden threat to national security. He says Australia has already installed 220,000 batteries that were made in potentially unfriendly places, and each home battery has roughly 7,500 times as much energy as a pager. As he remarks: “overcharge is when all hell breaks loose”.
Now, he happens to sell secure battery management systems — so he has an interest in scaring the socks off Energy Ministers and hyping things up, but ask yourself this: would Anthony Albanese have seen this coming?
To ask the question is to know we’re in trouble.
Energy entrepreneur says Australia’s solar and battery boom is a ‘clear and present danger’
By Jared Lynch, The Australian
“When everyone talks about battery safety, we tend to think about the chemical stuff – these fires that you see on videos of Tesla cars going up. But those are relatively unusual. The key thing to focus on is battery software … that’s what protects them from overcharging.
“Let’s say you were a bad actor from a bad country, here’s what you could do, and this would be horribly easy. For example, you could say on January 7, 2025, I’m going to turn off the overcharge on 200,000 batteries installed in homes in Australia. Nothing is going to happen until then.”
It would make a great movie, but a lousy life:
“A co-ordinated attack exploiting these vulnerabilities could lead to widespread fires, explosions, and a crippling of our energy infrastructure. The risk extends beyond individual homes. Large, imported grid-connected batteries are becoming integral to Australia’s national energy grid. These massive storage systems, often managed by foreign-developed software, could be susceptible to cyber-attacks or sabotage, posing a threat to national security and public safety.
“There’s a clear and present danger.”
As Craighead says (so colorfully) — it’s like pink-batts on steroids. (A program here in Australia where a Big Government-made bubble in home insulation killed 3 poorly trained people and set fire to 200 homes.)
In the end, after the bombs and the blackouts, the hit to the GDP and the death toll — it will all be deemed a dreadful accident, due to a fault in a minor part, and a hot day caused by climate change. Everyone will know what happened, but no one will want to risk the lobster-wine-coal-barley-beer-students deal, and besides the nation needs to order new fridges and solar panels.
Unless, of course the home-battery-bombs were a decoy in a larger hostile plan, in which case we’ll have bigger things to worry about.
Speaking of which:
The US banned the Pentagon from buying batteries from six Chinese manufacturers earlier this year.
Well, the pager bombs did not use the batteries as explosives. They used actual explosives. Lithium batteries burn with impressive intensity, but they do not explode.
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They might not explode but as you say they do burn. They are parked alongside the wall of your biggest investment which is mortgaged to the hilt. They catch fire and you are left penniless so what’s the difference? Insurance companies might start requiring bigger premiums to cover battery fires. An added burden on those who think they are saving the world by trying to save themselves a few dollars. The politicians who have gotten us into this mess should be in jail.
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As Dave says, the Li-Po s combust with unstoppable fury and create a toxic atmosphere that you must avoid.
In some sense an explosion might be preferred.
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Hear hear! I’m in a running verbal battle with the Burnie (Tasmania) City Council, State Government and The Fire service concerning BCC installing EV charging points in their multi story car park, on the ground floor adjacent to the major thoroughfare. Needless to say all parties have clammed up.
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I suspect that any chance of an insurance payout would be lost as most companies would likely declare bankruptcy, or force majeur.
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The electrolyte liquid inside the battery is flammable. If the battery is damaged, the liquid can leak out and come into contact with oxygen in the air, potentially igniting and causing a fire or explosion.
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220,000 intense blazes in one day means nearly all of them would spread in all directions for weeks.
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Indeed. How many firetrucks do we have? And how many neighbors homes would also burn while they waited for a team?
The Army, the Airforce, the reserves, everyone, surely would be called up to help, and thus distracted…
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And how many places have bought EV firetrucks? I am not sure they exist, but if net zero is to be achieved, they will have to be created.
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Yes, in that respect Lithium batteries are rather like TNT which burns but does not explode without a detonating booster explosive.
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The gas that’s released by the battery as they start the runaway process is highly flammable and once they get hot enough and ignite look out , imagine hundreds of houses in a suburb doing this all at once it would be scary stuff .
As for the premise of hacking in and changing the settings that is very plausible , I have a lithium setup in the van and have a password on the battery management system but if someone was to hack into it and raise the temp and max volt settings I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near it .
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Same same for the rapid burning material used as fuses to explode bombs. I recall story about an explosives instructor who was swinging a length of cordite around that had a detonator attached. The detonator clipped a desk and the instructor lost several fingers. No explosion just rapid burning.
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Dave B, it is pretty close to an explosion, and can certainly cause more if fires break gas lines…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld00r-tEEJ4
Lots of videos like this…
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disadvantage of a connected world is everybody is vulnerable.
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It’s worse than that as all our grids/networks are being increasingly interconnnected. EMP, solar flare or hack could take the lot down – no coms, no payments, no food deliveries, no power, water or sewage, etc. Living high up in a tower block life would quickly become unbearable.
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Did you read the item? the point was mass remote control to do damage
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My system is widely available and popular, when opening the app it gives 2 choices of opening the app , one is via Bluetooth the other via remote access . If the BMS was programmed the right way it would be possible for the company or someone in the know to connect remotely and change the settings of that I have no doubt .
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So every home owner that buys home batteries,EVs will have to build a fire proof bunker good for 2200 degrees C. Ok, so $100 000+ later, there’s your 2200° fire proof bunker. 🤣
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I believe the trick was they hid explosives in the battery pack.
Point being that at least one or two of those pagers would have been disassembled out of suspicion … or perhaps for repairs. However, most people won’t take apart a battery pack, because it’s a sealed unit.
Therefore it would be the ideal place to hide a booby trap.
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Silicon based micro detonators have been available for some years- used in military devices (grenades) and automotive devices (car airbags).
In this application, the MEMS device must penetrate both the battery encapsulation and successive cathode, anode and separator layers causing anode-cathode short circuit and must create a path through the pager to direct the products of combustion.
It would need to be connected to the pager microcircuitry, so placing it inside the battery would be very challenging.
The overall device would be a flat wafer less than 1mm thick. It was likely incorporated as the lining of a surface in contact with the battery.
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Actually Lithium Batteries can in the worst cases explode!
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A scenario to be fearful of.
And, another background scenario to wonder about: what future problems are coming from all used batteries for personal and household appliances that are being sent to the local dump.
What does the council do with the ones correctly handed in and with those just dumped in waste bins?
Out of sight, out of mind.
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Something caused this pop …
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cr4xnvp25gqo
“Refuse workers’ lucky escape after lorry explosion”
In Barnet – north London.
“Barnet Council said the explosion was caused by an item such as a gas canister, a battery or aerosol being wrongly placed into a residential bin which, when crushed by the lorry’s impactor, caused the bin and other debris to be fired out into the street.”
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Don’t you worry about that. Albo will make his own.
He’ll put up wages by the 25% to fight inflation and make batteries on sites of old coal power stations (kind of reminiscent of Hitler using the train carriage of ww1 armistice for them to sign over Europe). Aussie made, jobs for aushtstwalians!
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How many political problems can you fix in one sentence?
You remind me of Keating, who, one Friday tabloid front page announced that the unemployed youth (all 15%) would be sent out onto the farms to undertake landcare work.
No mention of how they would get there, how they would be accommodated or even fed, who would supervise them. But in one swoop he eliminated the unemployed youth and all the landcare problems that those pesky farmers had not fixed.
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Or his decision that all public servants must have a tertiary qualification forcing 50% of school leavers into the tertiary system and off the unemployment statistics, then universities had to dumb down courses so average people could pass.
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Universities and TAFEs have long been unemployment delay systems
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These days it is difficult to get Landcare grants. The various tiers of government seems to be more interested in smoking ceremonies, who people have sex with and flailing about trying control a trace gas they have minimal control over rather than supporting people doing real actual work caring for the environment. Unless you application pays lip service to one or more of these required topics , your chances of funding are minimal.
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Crikey, who do (can) you trust these days?
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No one in authority it would seem. There is an ad for universities on the radio these days where universities are doing so much to make your life better and safer. They are fixing the environment, making crops drought tolerant but they forgot to say they are also turning out another crop of communists and are adept at telling lies about climate. Would they be candidates for ACMA’s disinformation laws?
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it’s like pink-batts on steroids.
Well the implementation did leave something to be desired (but what special government program does not).
Has anyone looked whether there has been any actual energy savings as a result of the “pink batts”? I would have certainly hoped so.
And where was the post project analysis of the actual ROI versus the proposal estimate?
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The overall impression of that project was “jobs for the boys and girls” that generated lasting gr$titude from the Yunions.
And weren’t those DeeSalination plants all over the country a great exercise; it was wunderful to see the Yunions and Government working so closely together to create such mammoth Mothballs.
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The desalination plants were not natural. The approval and construction were so sudden that even now there should be an investigation into who got the money.
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A big yes to that.
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The Vic desal plant was probably one of the first “super” projects, not really needed, but green lighted by Labor governments to keep union friendly companies and CFMEU members in a job. Not only a job, but an obscenely over paid job at that. A disease common to Victoria and now carried into all the railway tunnel and renewable projects initiated by the Labor government. I know who got the money!
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There is this.
https://retrofitskills.org
A £17,000 million scheme for South London.
Double that, at least, for all of London ….
And ten, perhaps twenty, times that for the UK as a whole … so maybe £170,000-340,000 million.
No indication of where this – ahh – chump change is coming from.
So, I guess – the tax-payer.
Yet renewable – unreliables – are SOO Cheap, we are told.
Yet they need ALL this money spent to make them vaguely sensible …
Ummm …
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Well, thats why I haven’t connected the wifi module to my inverter.
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Do you know for sure it doesnt have a 4G connection like a smartmeter?
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Good question. Not according to the manual.
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The potential for this sort of thing is why Trump banned the import of large scale energy infrastructure from hostile nations.
It’s also why the Biden Maladministration reversed the ban – his controllers are working to weaken and destroy the United States.
https://www.powertransformernews.com/2021/04/23/us-department-of-energy-reverses-trump-ban-on-chinese-electrical-equipment/
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W & S and batteries are dangerous toxic disasters and have very low CFs and have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years.
IOW just a dangerous toxic joke and a waste of billions of $ and very dangerous 24/7.
Germany has wasted 100s of billions $
on toxic W & S + batteries and would’ve fallen over decades ago if it wasn’t regularly supplied by other countries on a regular basis.
We should stop buying dangerous toxic W & S from China and start to buy safe Nuclear generators from Sth Korea or other friendly safe sources.
Of course the Labor , Greens, Teals want to waste trillions of $ and destroy up to 28,000 klms of eastern Australian wikderness and update these toxic W & S disasters + batteries every 15 to 20 years.
If this isn’t barking mad, then what could possibly be a better example?
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Pink Batts on steroids! Nough said!
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Again, Nuclear energy is the safest type of Base-load power in the world and much safer than unreliable, toxic W & S and will last beyond 2100 and supply power 24/7.
Here’s the link for death rates per TWH from OWI Data.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
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Why bother blowing the place up? Just turn everything off. Make electricity unaffordable and unavailable. Gas too. Don’t just blow up the coal power stations, bury the coal and remove all the machinery which was the major working part of the coal mine. China is shutting down Australia very quickly. With the enthusiastic assistance of Albanese and Bandt. And of course Daniel Andrews and Paul Keating. After 36 years does anyone actually believe this rapid CO2 driven Global Warming nonsense?
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Oh, yes they do. I go to a u3A discussion group, consisting of retired, Barristers, educators ,business people, University Lecturers, public servants, and we plebs. Despite one retired electrical engineers , constant education on the dangers to our energy supply from renewables. Half of the group are staunch believers in the danger of CO2.
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Do they believe they have experienced global warming themselves? But they are being told it is happening everywhere else. That’s the way the scam works.
For example, I am flabbergasted that the President of the United Nations, ultimate head of the IPCC, says the oceans are boiling. Really. And no one laughs out loud? 100F, body temperature is not 100C, the boiling point of water. Only in the tropic and at the surface is the water even warm. At depth summer and winter don’t exist.
But I have read no criticism, not even a questioning of this often repeated and completely outrageous statement. From anyone at all. You do not need to be a scientist to know this is absurd and a lie.
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A great chunk of the population believe that lockdowns and vaccines saved them from COVID. So yes, they also believe in the CO2 nonsense. Why? Because the government told them.
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“keeping us safe” was a phrase I heard at a lunch time discussion a while ago. Mind numbing.
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“potentially unfriendly places,”
Well, that’s difficult.. Russia was a great friend with Good Ol’ Uncle Joe while we were fighting the Germans. Now the Germans are our friends in fighting the Russians. The Chinese were our friends while we were fighting the Japanese, now the Japs are our friends while we fight the Chinese…
Maybe we need a more consistent approach as to who our friends and enemies are before we decide who to trade with. SOME people cannot envision us at war with the USA, but I reckon its just as likely..
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The Chinese were not friends with anyone. Internally there were two groups, at civil war. And when there was a world shortage of Tungsten in the middle of the war, the Chinese decided to trade with Japan because they paid better. And after the war, in Korea, when the US fought Russia and North Korea, the Chinese stepped in and pushed the allies out of North Korea.
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Advertisement for self-sufficiency, even if it costs more?!?
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Quote “SOME people cannot envision us at war with the USA, but I reckon its just as likely..”
You missed the word ‘again’. For example the US-UK war of 1812, which goes to prove your point very well.
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Again , here’s the proof that toxic and dangerous W & S are very unreliable and very dilute types of energy.
This OWI Data link proves that dilute, unreliable, toxic W & S supply under 4% of primary energy consumption around the the world in 2023. What a sick, super expensive toxic joke and yet we’re stupid enough to fall for it again and again?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-primary-energy-consumption-by-source
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The practice of connecting everything to the internet creates massive opportunities for hackers to exploit..
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This assumes that the charging circuit – the power manager – is networked. If it isn’t then it shouldn’t be a problem. However the government is big on ensuring that they are all networked.
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What could possibly go wrong with the government having control of everything?
Well, if they control information they are well on the way to controlling everything.
The “thought police” is a scenario that I don’t want to be around for.
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Don’t they have to be networked for AEMO to calculate the “small scale solar” contribution to our daily load curves … for forecasting and all that?
Oh wait – they have computer “models” for that and only a smattering of real data points. And maybe these models are outsourced to solar-lobby companies?
So who knows what our real solar penetration is?
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It is increasingly difficult to estimate because there is no way to monitor what is happening behind the meter. As more battery gets installed. The grid operators no longer have a view of what is happening.
The rooftop contribution to the grid is more obvious because the grid operators can monitor the output and they can forecast reductions on overcast days.
South Australia is relatively easy to assess because there are times when rooftops supply 100% of the demand. Any output from running reserve to keep the system stable is transmitted to Victoria. The sun has only just moved south of the Equator but yesterday SA served 100% of its grid demand from solar but it included 27% of grid solar.
So as rooftops increase, there could;d be times when all NEM noon demand is served by rooftops. It is about half way there now, Rooftops peaked at 44& yesterday but SA is the only place you could be really confident about because the entire noon Demand,and was served by rooftops. But the grid operator does not really know what the demand is. They do know that they any dispatchablew plant is only offering running reserve.
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RickWill:
I believe that South Australia keeps a minimal capacity running as a reverse – possibly diesel.
Some of any excess solar generation is directed InterState.
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The is why it only makes sense to have a battery if you are off grid. Why would anyone want to pay a connection fee for the privilege of the government controlling an asset that you purchased.
Something yet to be tested is the battery warranty for any BEV using vehicle to grid inverters. My bet is that the battery warranty will be voided. And, in fact, any BEV in a garage that is not fire isolated from the living areas should not be charged or discharged in that location.
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Again, their ABC tell us that net zero will cost Aussies trillions of $ and our grid will need to be 3 times the present size in 2050.
All sorts of ABC BS and lunacy about hydrogen etc and yet today we have SFA energy transition at all.
Again in 2023 less than 4% of primary global energy is generated by unreliable, toxic W & S and yet they expect us to follow the madness of Germany and other loony countries in the EU.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-19/australias-energy-transition-needs-gas-safety-net-report-finds/102236352
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Andrew Bolt last night talked to Tony Erwin about Dutton’s speech on Nuclear energy.
Tony is the head of Nuclear Engineers Australia and is an expert on installing Nuclear plants.
This video interview is about 5 minutes and he does provide a rough guide about the cost of the 7 Nuclears plants proposed by the Coalition.
https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/andrew-bolt/nuclear-power-is-the-only-low-emissions-technology-independent-of-the-weather/video/c4ef319721c471f53d145f65cca553e0
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You need to look at the scale of the issue. Not just comparing to the pagers. The intent against hezbollocks was to degrade their military structure without hurting civilians.
However if you are intent on hurting another nation economically and causing mayhem then the ideas are endless. Particularly as our supply chains are so lax and insecure. The Chinese have been supplying us with every form of electronic gadgets for the last 25 years. I’m sure their hackers could stop and make unusable all cars and trucks. An ordinary car has at least 10 chipsets and EV are connected to the internet. All the electricity and gas infrastructure is vulnerable. All security cameras. All communications devices. You don’t need to explode stuff. Just make it inoperable. Mayhem ensues.
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Hi Jock, yes if the electricity generation, supply/distribution could be stopped everything stops. I wonder how long it would take before people start eating their pets, or each other?
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Wow. Imagine.
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mmmm some can imagine, some can’t
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I understand that many Chinese companies (controlled by the CCP) are involved in the management of Britain’s power generation and grid – one word from Uncle Ping – and they switch them off and Britain comes to a halt. You dont need to blow anything up – just make it unusable and cripple the country – does anyone in our government recognise this?
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Now let’s imagine a hacked nuclear power station.
Seriously though, Russia, China, & Israel have successfully hacked foreign countries’ power grids. Yet another argument for distributed power systems with multiple sources of generation.
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No logic there at all. Just more targets and more complexity so that it becomes a house of cards with a small push.
off grid would make sense, distributed W&S is just a different targeting solution.
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You really mean more useless wind and solar, don’t you?
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Israelis are very good aren’t they? They managed to deprogram those centrifuges at the Iranian nuclear facility years ago. If someone had said 2 weeks ago that you could blow up pagers ( and walkie talkies ) remotely in a co-ordinated mission that would kill hundreds of your adversaries, you would think them insane. So, blowing up or igniting the electricity grid of your friendly enemy is not beyond the realms of possibility. In fact, you dont even need to implement the threat, just collect ransom or achieve some form of negotiation.
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A reputable brand Li-ion battery, especially the large ones for cars and homes should have a Battery Management System (BMS) that detects and responds to conditions such as over-heating and other potentially dangerous conditions. If this BMS gets damaged, as in a prang or other damaging situation then things could go wrong with catastrophic consequences. Hacking of the BMS by baddies is a real threat for which I’m sure there must be some kind of anti-hacking protection.
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Any household battery in Australia is required to be installed in a fire isolated zone. Most technologies do not explode from overcharging. It is a beat-up.
For comparison, almost every appliance in my house is made in China or has parts made in China. A few are internet enabled and often connected. Amazon have 400M connected devices (not all in my home) mostly made in China, with enough room to install explosives sufficient to blow the roof off most houses. You should never make Alexa angry – you are warned.
If I was a bad actor wanting to cause consumers harm, I would be looking at the places in China making Amazon web connected devices.
I imagine China has already worked out how to cripple Australian infrastructure. But China is nothing without Australia’s iron ore. Stopping iron ore shipments from Australia would be economic ruin for both countries. In that sense, China relies on Australia as much as Australia relies on China.
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“But China is nothing without Australia’s iron ore.” big statement
They have options and more evolving, and at this stage of the cycle I doubt they would be nothing without our ore.
The balance of supply is their’s to manipulate.
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Despite all the media hype and nonsense about it being batteries exploding in the pagers, it would be virtually impossible for a few reasons, so a small explosive charge is the primary suspect.
As for home pv system batteries, el-flamola is most likely with a home destroying explosion very UNlikely, with the exception of that ONE guy in Germany recently.
One guy on the planet.
There an awful lot of inferior batteries and integral BMS controllers, with wildly diverging characteristics and inconsistent operation. Welcome to low cost Chinese manufacturing.
Is it possible to destroy a pv battery by remote programming?
Yes.
Can it be done consistently?
No.
Undercharging could result in dendrite formation, shorting the battery internally, but that’s VERY inconsistent behaviour.
It would be much easier to disable over temperature sensing or allow over charging, either or both of which would easily induce thermal runaway and a fire at least.
The simplest solution is to have non upgradable BMS’s. ie not remotely programmable.
The bottom line is that the serious infrastructure (not home systems) is where the risk lies for you can guarantee the remote monitoring and control aspect.
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You missed a major point in this story about the knock-on impact to other residents.
When such an attack is instigated simultaneously, the fire services will not be able to attend all the distinctly separate fires.
In a recent event in Windsor (Brisbane), four neighbouring houses were destroyed after one owner was careless with petrol.
Fire services are wonderful with one normal house event but access-to-water on high ground and complex physical access can and will always delay their heroic progress.
Other houses will easily be dragged into the destruction through no fault of their own.
Any amplification of this by having simultaneous events will be catastrophic.
Do you know if your neighbours have these dangerous components? Are they close to your boundary fence?
What fire barriers and other protection are you employing to isolate the spread of their fire to your property?
How are local councils helping you with this matter?
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Sometimes it useful to have your closest neighbour a kilometre away?
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Even preceding batteries, the best way to economically destroy a nation is to shut down its efficient and inexpensive power stations and impose expensive and unreliable wind and solar plantations.
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Is to vote in idiots on the basis of election promises. Again. And again.
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and Again……. however……This present bunch of morons really take the biscuit. Our voting system is stuffed when 32% ?? gives them a mandate to really screw everything.
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Optional preferential in the Reps would help.
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I am thinking the Beirut port explosion was the start of the supply chain sabotage. Which has me thinking of other countries that have had port disruption recently – there was somewhere had a cyber attack that stifled port operations for two weeks, where was that? Sure it’s nothing though….
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Interesting that in an era where, across cultural boundaries, victimhood identity is sought as a political asset, Israel (and the ethno diaspora they represent) is moving in the opposite direction.
After centuries, they’ve decided no more.
Our approval is not relevant.
Can’t say I blame them.
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[…] From JoNova […]
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The first Chemistry lecture at the start of the University of Queensland Science degree course in 1962 was about laboratory safety. We were shown how to carry a glass Winchester of concentrated sulphuric acid, when and how to use a face mask against particles and some gases and which chemicals burned. We were given chemicals like Phosphorus, Sodium, Sodium Peroxide. We were shown reactions with air and water. Finally, use and limitations of fire extinguishing gear. I do not recall handling Lithium but I recall its mention.
The information known in 1960 should have been considered when recent battery design accelerated. That is a purpose of lectures and learning at tertiary level. The manufacture and sale of batteries that are a cause of fires and deaths should never have happened. It is yet another failure of professional ethics when people proceed with products that they know will kill other people.
Where are the paid public prosecutors?
Geoff S
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Lithium had to be kept in oil or something I remember learning at school.
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[…] JoNova […]
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[…] https://joannenova.com.au/2024/09/what-if-a-foreign-hacker-could-turn-home-batteries-into-pager-bomb… […]
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