A toxic blaze at the site of Australia’s largest Tesla battery project is set to burn throughout the night.
Key points:
- A 13-tonne Tesla lithium battery is on fire near Geelong
- The battery was expected to be ready later this year
- It was due to be the biggest battery in the southern hemisphere
The fire broke out during testing of a Tesla megapack at the Victorian Big Battery site near Geelong.
A 13-tonne lithium battery was engulfed in flames, which then spread to an adjacent battery bank.
More than 150 people from Fire Rescue Victoria and the Country Fire Authority responded to the blaze, which has been contained and will be closely monitored until it burns itself out.
“If we try and cool them down it just prolongs the process,” the CFA’s Assistant Chief Fire Officer Ian Beswicke said.
“But we could be here anywhere from 8 to 24 hours while we wait for it to burn down.”
The Tesla battery is expected to become the largest battery in the southern hemisphere as part of a Victorian Government push to transition to renewable energy.
HT/Roger
Green Hellfire! You can’t put it out! 🙂
Now imagine a parking under an apartment building .
Now imagine that you own a condo/house that has an attached garage.
Where will you charge your Tesla? Not in your condo. Not in your attached garage. When there are more fires, insurance will not allow you to charge in your attacked garage or condo building underground garage.
A Tesla fire burns so hot, it melts the steel structure in a building. And it ignites the other vehicles in the garage.
Melting the steel structure in a concrete, reinforced building, will cause complete concrete build to collapse, just like the condo collapse in Miami.
And the problem will gets more dangerous and more likely as the batteries age and the risk of an internal short, when charging the battery or during normal battery operation/storage.
Tesla have been sold to rich people who use the Tesla as a second car/toy. When the Tesla starting to show wear the Tesla will be resold to people who will wear the car out. The Tesla batteries will fail.
And yet there are Priuses (sp?) here in Southern California with over 100,000 miles of use and aren’t anywhere near a battery change.
They are hybrids and very often the battery is hardly used. The Prius is very popular in the uk as a private hire vehicle as, regardless of whether the battery is any good, the tax is low and the battery is not tested as part of the annual inspection.
In Paris I pretty much only see hybrid taxis now (almost all Toyotas). Notably the “G7” taxi company: I only see Toyota hybrids for G7 taxis now. French taxis used to use only diesel cars.
There is a huge diff in taxes in France in favor for diesel, against unleaded. (It’s a hot political issue.)
In electric charging spots, I see in Paris:
I think I have a statistically significant view of Paris (I look at many different charging spots when I walk, IOW I don’t walk only in a small bourgeois area – but all of Paris is becoming more bourgeois).
So I think the market for electric cars is highly non-normal (far from average): they don’t represent the average car usable for families. Niche markets are fine, but don’t get too impressed by number of cars sold recently. The taxi fleet changed only recently.
If the electric part isn’t going to be used, what’s the point of a more complex, heavier, more expensive car?
Virtue signaling!
Many fleet hybrids in the UK are returned at the end of the lease with the charging cables unused. This is particularly true of the upmarket BMWs.
Just because they would not bother with recharging (or couldn’t do it?) doesn’t mean the electric system is of no use. It just means it’s used as a non plug in hybrid.
Yet the electric is used extensively in hybrids. Especially in plug in hybrids.
I am not a fan of subsidized EVs solar or wind. I am not a fan of wind or solar period
The genius of the hybrid (Prius) is that the battery is charged by the gas engine while the gas engine is being used; thus, you don’t need to charge it. The battery per my understanding is mostly used during idling and accelerating from an idle stop, up to maybe 10 mph. After that the gasoline engine takes over.
The plug-in’s use Li, the non plug-ins early on used NiMH batteries so these may not be Lithium based and NiMH batteries don’t spontaneously ignite.
What’s the rational for the difference?
REJ- I just cut to the chase and call that line what they are – a ‘Prissius’!
Regards,
MCR
Priapus?
Prius standard doesn’t use lithium ion batteries. They LithiumMetalhydroxide batteries.
Prius Plug uses a lithium-ion battery.
Different technology, different risks.
I think you mean a Toyota Pious
Toyota still use NiMH chemistry on many Priuses. Some versions do have Li-ion cells.
Toyota prefers dependability and not conflagration.
Keep telling yourself that…
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-toyota-billion-dollar-justice-department-settlement-20140319-story.html
What is your point? The Prius not an EV. The Prius is practical and safe.
The issue is the safety issues of large batteries vs a gasoline tank.
The Prius has a massive energy source in its gasoline tank. The Prius does not have a massive battery.
The problem is massive batteries burn extremely hot when they are damaged.
The Prius has a small battery that is charged by the gasoline engine. The gasoline engine runs a generator that produces electricity to power powerful small electric motors.
My mom has a Prius and she loves it but as others point out, the Prius is a hybrid a middle class economy car, while the the Tesla is a rich man’s toy. There are too many of these fires to ignore or write them off as one-offs or bad maintenance.
That’s comparing apples to sausages
Yes, it’s applesauce,
It seems the early models of Prius had NiCd packs.
One might expect an increase of issues after Li replacements:
https://projectlithium.com/products/prius-lithium-replacement-pack
No problem.
Just wear one of those useless 5 cent, blue masks to feel less miserable
second car/toy? Maybe, I thought it would more typically be a 3rd car.
teslas fake it. they use subsidised batteries on an 80/20 charge schedule. They oerate on an 8 year lease so that tesla swap out the 8 yr battery when noone is looking to avoid tarnishing the image. when normal operators sell cheap batteries on a 100/0 charge schedule and dont change them when noone is lookng, all hell will break loose.
tela powerpacks placed on house walls here in Aus
criminally stupid idea. should be well clear of residences
Rejecting pure electric vehicles from underground parking and possibly the Euro Tunnel may well happen. LPG vehicles are forbidden from many European parking garages
LPG w/o safety valve are forbidden everywhere in France, those with the safety are allowed.
However, it is quite likely that the resale value of any EV is going to be pathetic. Who wants a EV that is slated to burn up?
The condo collapse in Miami was a different cause, lack of rebar and no maintenance in a marine environment, but your point is taken 😉
There was rebar. The “before” photos show a bunch of it.*
/s
Short by a few cooling fans.
I see what you did there. Was it intentional? 😉
FFS everyone, read the figgin article. It’s not a 13 ton Tesla car battery.
Tell us something we don’t know. The point is that it is the same technology.
Is this the same Greg who asked what LCOE and opex was in the comments to The levelised cost of floating offshore wind?
Wow, just WOW!
From the article: ‘…A 13-tonne lithium battery was engulfed in flames, which then spread to an adjacent battery bank.’
boy! I sure would like one of those in my backyard. NOT!
I think the perfect place for them would be Washington DC. Under the Capital, the WH, and on K street.
And they should be charged using only solar cells mounted on the roof of the capital. Force the legislature to actually live with that wonderful green energy.
Schadenfreude makes me feel vaguely guiltily.
Me too, but only for a second or two.
Femtosecond or two here.
With comedy ended by the snowflake woke cancel culture, schadenfreude is about the only honest entertainment remaining. Revel in schadenfreude!
Or satirize it. The problem can be solved by locating battery arrays under a large turbine hall, so that each time a battery goes up, it can power a generator. (lol)
Sigmundfreud does away with guilt.
It’s now the smallest battery. I wonder who flips the bill for this catastrophe.
Victorian’s taxpayers
Experience through the aging process has taught me that it’s the good old Taxpayers who always end up paying somewhere down the line!!!
Interesting question. From what I gathered from the article, it was still be installed/set up.
Would this be a warranty claim?
It might have been if they had procured from a reputable supplier with a proper contract in place. But they’ll get nothing out of Tesla.
Dang! I was hoping a warranty claim might get Tesla on the hook for a major portion of the bill.
*sigh* I suppose Tesla will put it all on on the installer. “They did it wrong.”
*hope* Maybe Tesla contracted for the whole job.
If it is under construction, then the installer/contractors insurance should pay for it unless the Victorian Government had some stupid contract clause about ‘self-insuring’. Somewhere in the washup everybody pays for this through higher insurance premiums or taxation.
More like a pile of lithium slag. Can you imagine what entered the atmosphere? I bet it wasn’t green.
Write off one megabattery plant there. At least twice the cost to replace it, too – massive toxic waste site to clean up first.
Might not be a bad time to sell off any TSLA stock in the portfolio today, before people wake up – unless an underwriter was foolish enough to not include a loss cap in the insurance policy.
Wow, and the plan is to make lots of these to store power from wind/solar? This one wasn’t even on-line yet, imagine what can happen with scores of these things scattered across the country?
If they all catch fire at the same time, would that be enough to heat the planet up past the 1.5C tipping point?
If there’s one thing the planet is good at, it’s shedding heat to space via that good ol’ T⁴.
Insurance buyers rates go up. Good time to give up on these nonsense batteries. Incredibly expensive if the storage is for more than a few minutes to get a gas turbine up to speed.
If the gas turbine is going to be carrying the load for the 2/3rd of the time that the solar or wind isn’t available why bother with the solar, wind, battery? The avoided fuel cost for the 1/3rd of the time the RE (Ruinous Energy) is producing will never equal the capital expenditure for the RE plus batteries. We here in Cali are only spending a few $million every year paying for wind generators to curtail, that’s bad, and yes, it’s getting worse every year; but not nearly as bad as spending lots of $millions for batteries. A business model only a liberal can love.
From what I have seen online, the fire trashed only two of at least 8 buildings holding the batteries. Still, my thought is that putting both elements of an energetic chemical reaction close together gets all too close to the definition of an explosive. This was a deflagration rather than a detonation.
Dear God!
Please save us from those who worship the planet instead of you!
what the hell is wrong with down under aussies? looking to ban fossil fuels with batteries…. thus screwing up their energy supply? and now sending the army out to help ensure masking and lockdowns in place for nearly 1.5 months? Gestapo tactics? what the hell is wrong with white liberal progressives?
victorias got a moron as premier
scomo went to eu G7 and came back brainwashed
deity help aus, cos its gone to sh*t the last 30 yrs
I’m not sure things are any better Up Over.
“what the hell is wrong with white liberal progressives”
Nothing. They’re doing exactly what we’d all expect progressives to do when people don’t see things their way.
No, they’re doing exactly what you expect when the costs of their programs are hidden and shifted on to our children and grandchildren.
“Progressives” don’t know when to stop “progressing,” thus there is no end to their madness. Used to be, when their lunacy reached a certain point, the media would make fun of them. Now the media just applaud.
How is house insurance affected by an EV in an integral garage?
If the car burns, the house burns. That risk drives up insurance rates.
It isn’t. They don’t ask you.
If a statistically significant number of house fires are started by EVs, then they’ll start asking, or just raise all insurance rates.
Just like the premiums in Portland, Minneapolis, L.A., New York City, Baltimore, Altanta, et. al.
Yep, just as Warren Buffett said. When asked about the climate change risk to his insurance companies, he basically said there was none, as any increased claims get accounted for in the next year’s premium.
Note, he also said there was only one reason to invest in a wind farm, and that was for the tax credits.
That’s why they are so profitable, see comment above, the taxpayer foots the bill eventually!!!
They’ll never ask, right to privacy, not PC, bad for the corporate image, anti environmental justice.
Not true at least in Canada, they ask about everything in, around or near the house.
They don’t ask as they know a change like that would invalidate any insurance claim and they can refuse to pay if not informed.
Burn baby, burn
unexpectedly
unprecedented
Used to be a 1 in 100 year event. Now we hear about them frequently. Obviously CO2 is to blame.
Lmao
A one in 100 year event becomes once a year for a group of a hundred vehicles.
It’s going to be worse than we thought if the adjacent batteries start smoking…
Smoking is bad, mkay?
Generally speaking, yes, if we’re talking tobacco or batteries.
But smoking is a good thing if you’re talking brisket or ribs or pork butt.
Eloon Gantry assured the world this could never happen, not ever.
Tilbury: Fire At Power Station – Heart Essex – Heart Radiohttps://www.heart.co.uk › essex › news › tilbury-fire-po…
6. Tilbury Power Station Fire 6 … Incident commander, Chief Fire Officer David Johnson, said the blaze was one of the most challenging he had dealt with in his …
Power Station Fire – Heart Sussex – Heart Radiohttps://www.heart.co.uk › sussex › news › local › powe…
Police helicopter image shows scene of major fire at Shoreham Power Station last night.
xplosion and fire at Dartmouth power station – live updates …https://www.devonlive.com › news › devon-news › explo…
30 Aug 2020 — Explosion and fire at Dartmouth power station – live updates … Four fire engines are currently fighting a fire after a power station exploded in
Fire at power station – Greenwich | London Fire Brigadehttps://www.london-fire.gov.uk › incidents › january
23 Jan 2021 — Fire at power station – Greenwich … Four fire engines and around 25 firefighters were called to a fire at a power station on Old Woolwich Road ..
Major fire at gas-fired Didcot B power station – BBC Newshttps://www.bbc.co.uk › news › uk-england-29684205
20 Oct 2014 — Fire crews have been battling a major blaze at Didcot B Power Station, Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue has said. · At the height of the fire, which
Over a dozen firefighting teams deployed to blaze at Poland’s …https://www.euronews.com › European affairs › Europe
22 May 2021 — State energy group PGE that runs the mine and the neighbouring power plant said on Twitter the fire was caused by the ignition of brown coal …
Mitchell Power Plant fire contained; all employees thought to …https://www.wtrf.com › news › west-virginia-headlines
9 Apr 2021 — Mitchell Power Plant fire contained; all employees thought to be safe … UPDATE: (10:30 AM) — According to AEP spokesperson, Joelle Moray, there ..
And I’v barely gone through the first page!
Dramatic footage shows a blaze ripping through a car after it burst into flames.
Firefighters were called to Cam High Street at 2:34pm today (July 29).
Crews extinguished the blaze by 3:16pm, but say the vehicle was completely destroyed.
Massive fire engulfs truck in Texas: VIDEO
This video is unbelievable
etc
God that was a stupid comment, ghoulfrump. The world is full of these kinds of things whereas there is only one battery destined to become the world’s largest and a part of it just burned up. Having a coal mine in your garage that catches on fire in the middle of the night is just a tad less likely than having an EV catch on fire in the middle of the night when it’s charging.
There are 10’s of thousands of coal mines and hundreds of thousands of coal piles.
There 100’s of millions of cars.
There’s only one of these batteries.
Like most leftists, ghoulfont has no understanding of statistics.
Around 1.4 billion cars and growing!
I should also add that ghoulfont had to go back almost a decade to find his examples.
Ghalfrunt stick to telling people to drink bleach…you are a terrible human
Thats about the tenth time, that I’ve read, you’ve repeated this silly lie.
It’s a bit rich coming from someone who claims the moon landings were faked.
Not a lie at all. Ghalfrunt really wrote to drink bleach. Very dishonest person.
no, I wrote that your lord and master, Trump, suggested that drinking a disinfectant (bleach) might be a way of curing C19. I know you find comprehension difficult but this is easy to understand.
And what you wrote is a not true. He never said any such thing. Even left-wing politifact rates that one as false. When even the so-called “fact-checkers” won’t spin it your way, you know what you are saying is total garbage. (But then it is garbagefrunt that I’m replying to, so it pretty much goes without saying that we’re discussing garbage)
The last video is impressive, why would you say it’s unbelievable?
Only magic batteries are known to burst into flames on their own.
Firefighters also tackle ‘green & clean’ woodchip and biomass fires –
https://www.shropshirelive.com/news/2020/02/01/firefighters-tackle-woodchip-and-biomass-boiler-fire-near-much-wenlock/
https://www.hazardexonthenet.net/article/48395/Tilbury-biomass-plant-blaze-caused-by-fuel-store-fire.aspx
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2107082/Tilbury-Fire-100-firefighters-tackle-huge-blaze-Europes-biggest-biomass-power-station.html
https://www.radioexe.co.uk/news-and-features/local-news/doddiscombsleigh-woodstore-fire/
https://resource.co/article/fire-biomass-facility-north-wales-10129
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-37935807
Did the Wilton wood recycling blaze win the prize for longest fire or do we have one that made it past 16 days before being damped down? https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/uk-wood-recycling-plant-blaze-6854278
Energy is dangerous, regardless of the form. Some forms are less dangerous than others.
This video is unbelievable
You forgot “number 6 will shock you!”
Lol, the clickbait master.
From the very first link – “There have been no injuries and no loss of power to anyone in the area.” – “…not affected the power station’s main turbine generator hall.”
The fire was was able to extinguished, and had no effect on operations. As opposed to the battery fire in the post completely destroyed the battery, and it is so much more challenging that firefighters aren’t even bothering deal with the main fire.
Your link proves that the Tesla fire is orders of magnitude worse.
ghalfrunt
You had to work hard to find those far-flung examples.
If we asked the question – what effect the fires had on power station electricity output and performance say one month post fire, the Australian battery fire would be on its own.
It probably won’t even have stopped burning in a month’s time.
The green dream is an unattainable fantasy, a fact that is becoming more obvious with each day that passes.
Your first example was a fire in a wood chip power plant that WAS a coal plant that never had such a problem when it was a coal plant and they cannot fight the fire because getting the wood wet would increase the weight so much the structure would collapse.
If it was still coal, it would not have caught fire in the first place. If somehow it had, it could have been extinguished with water because the coal would not absorb he water.
So, you provide an example for NOT using greentard “biomass’ to replace coal.
Great job. I hope your paymasters doc your salary for such stupidity.
Um…Does this count towards Global Warming or not? I get lost in all the nonsensical rules.
I think it’s in the same category as a BLM protest during a covid lockdown.
Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter is a principle and prime directive of planned population cults.
It’s the Green blight analog of the Urbane Island effect.
That’s gonna set the project back.
“Ya think, DiNozzo?”
According to
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Australia-To-Build-The-Worlds-Largest-Battery.html#:~:text=With%20a%20cost%20of%20%242,the%20biggest%20in%20the%20world.
Australia to build world’s largest battery ,
quote
“With a cost of $2,4 billion, this 1.2 GW mega-battery will challenge the dominance of the Moss Landing storage facility, located in California, which is currently the biggest in the world. Not only will it have a 4 times higher storage capacity than the Moss Landing one,
Well now a deep cycle lead acid 12 volt battery will supply 130 Amp Hrs at 12 volts, and costs about £80 This is equivalent to about 1.5 kWhr so to supply 1.2 GW hr we need 800,000 of these for a cost of 64 million . Admittedly 800,000of these batteries takes up quite a lot of space.t25 of these into a cubic metre. so my 1.2 GW facility would occupy 32,000 cu m. – about 1,000 20 ft shipping containers so could fit into a fairly large parking lot.
So are not these big storage batteries a tad expensive – about 3,000 times the price of a lead acid facility of equivalent capacity .
You will not fail to notice that these batteries are static so weight doesnt really matter. Lead acid batteries do not readily catch fire and if they do it can be extinguished easily.
Also of course 1. 2 GW hr of storage would run the UK electricity grid of today (Power about 30 od d GW) for about half an hour . So hardly a huge amount of storage . Cloud cuckoo land doesn’t go half way to explaining all of this
Maybe someone can explain why we use lithium batteries for this type of storage.
Because technology!
But seriously, I am given to understand that lead-acid batteries are not very suitable for this type of storage and use. I’d like someone more knowledgeable to confirm or refute that, though.
As stated above, deep cycle lead acid is where I’d start. Lithium battery fires cannot be extinguished easily. Unfortunately, the two most green, woke, scared states in Australia are South Australia, the first to install a Tesla battery and Victoria with this monstrosity. It’s any wonder why Australia has some of the most expensive electricity.
Weatherill – the SA Premier at the time – wasn’t hard green. He was a useless twat who’s party had caused the problems in the first place and, having completely blacked out the entire state, latched onto the snake oil of the super battery deal.
Musk came in and offered a 30 days or it’s free deal to Mr “I am doing something look at me” Weatherill and Weatherill, with the support of the gibbering media pack happily bent the knee.
Apparently this big battery was also going to be a major tourist attraction, because that – apparently – is what cool kids want on their holidays.
“Jane? Have you heard? John is taking me to see the Big Battery this weekend. I think he is going to finally propose!!!”
and
“Kids! We are going to the Gold Coast and hitting those theme parks!”
“But Dad!!! We want to go to Big Battery!!! You promised us!!!”
There is being Woke, being Green and also being a lot of an idiot.
You keep repeating yourself
But Dad!!! We want to go to Big Battery <on fire> !!! You promised us!!!
I’d take a road trip to watch a Tesla Pyrotechnics Show ™ !
Lead-acid batteries are heavy and large (low power density, low power per unit mass). Properly constructed, they have decent recharge cycle life. However, you need to pick your style, the “car battery” gives high discharge rates, “golf-cart” allows long/deep discharge at modest demand, “telco” gives full charge / discharge cycles but at low rates. Did you want a peaking battery that only gets hit once a day for an hour, or an overnight supply battery, or a battery that can fill in when a catastrophic event kills your supply line? Obviously, with a lead-acid utility battery bank, you can mix & match, and even reconfigure as experience suggests with far greater freedom than with the Tesla giant battery. You’ll be replacing the batteries in the banks more often, but it will be with less expensive labor and material charges with a far cheaper safety regime.
Lead-acid batteries have only recently been replaced with Li-ion batteries in submarines. Just the Japs so far.
“Ouryu submarine had an acquisition cost of $608 million, while its predecessor—which was equipped with lead-acid batteries—had a cost of $488 million, according to Defense News.”
You have to wonder why Australia with one person and two sheep per square kilometers would need to go down the Li-ion path.
this is actually fake. the japanese claims dont bear serious scrutiny. has noone wondered why submarines didnt / dont lead the way on battery technology?
Any battery technology is more appropriate at point-of-use. The grid is not for storage, charging and transmission waste make it uneconomical. The only purpose behind having a lightweight power storage device is for transporation devices. It is a dangerous, expensive, polluting, and wasteful idea to centralize a power storage facility. Musk is a charlatan, made wealthy at taxpayer expense.
Lead acid makes sense in a small, appropriately designed facility, but only when there is cheap power production. Grid storage is a con for morons who don’t care about spending other people’s money.
Progressive prices and availability because they care or something.
What the hell does that mean?
Vanadium redox batteries (and future variants thereof) look like the most viable technology for this sort of task: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery
Problem is supply, I delved into why they aren’t happening, turns out one city size Vanadium Redox battery would consume most of the global annual supply of Vanadium.
There’s a reason for asteroid mining, if one can be found with lots of vanadium.
Interesting. I had a different impression on its viability from an analyst’s report that I sadly can’t share b/c of licensing restrictions. As a physical chemist I find the technology interesting from a purely academic perspective and not b/c I’m a fan of the whole renewable energy scam…for the hopelessly curious like myself (who should really get a life) here’s some info on Vanadium from the mining industry…https://www.mining.com/web/vanadium-metal-cant-without-dont-produce/
Ebor,
Thanks for the link, really interesting.
Drake
Weight doesn’t matter much.
The heavier the battery, the stronger and hence more expensive, the racks built to hold them will have to be.
We got a couple of billion to play with before we get up to the Muskrats prices
What irony, a scheme to get to net zero instead pumps out a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide plus some nasty stuff. We are in the throes of cultural regression.
50 shades of intermittent/renewable energy with carbon/green, per chance nuclear/reliable, backups.
But it’s GOOD CO2 because it was “green”, right?
The smoke is deadly, potentially causes dementia like brain injuries, permanent muscle weakness, long list of horrible symptoms.
Is that what happened to Biden?
No
He was sniffing hair!!
I do not know why, but it did impair his brain
Some type of infantile fetish?
Addicted to hair spray most likely, the offspring went to a higher level.
Must have had a battery on his chin.
My guess is Biden is suffering age related dementia, possibly Alzheimers. If they are giving methylphenidate (Ritalin) to Biden, it improves cognitive function in dementia patients, the the downside is increased agitation, disrupted sleep and decreased appetite. In some cases it can cause psychosis.
He is a progressive Democrat so we don’t have to worry about him GETTING psychosis.
Fortunately Stairman Dan, with the help of his trusty Belt and Road colouring book, already had a plan to lock the entire state of Victoria indoors, ensure they all wear masks and brutally arrest people.
If Dan is really lucky he might even be allowed to employ soldiers against their own countrymen and finally get back ahead of his NSW Mother-in-Law Rival in their border spanning pissing contest.
(also, and unrelated, here in my home state I managed during a ‘Complete Lockdown’ to catch Bronchitis, because remaining indoors and avoiding human interaction does that to you. Good thing I didn’t catch any footballs or I might have really been in trouble)
My understanding is the primary risk associated with a lithium battery fire is exposer to high levels of HF. Producing possible damage to skin and lungs, including severe burns, and systemic effects, such as cardiac arrhythmias and acute renal failure.
I don’t see any references suggesting brain injury or permanent muscle weakness.
If I’m missing something, please feel free to educate me.
Is standing around issuing press releases while waiting for a lithium-cobalt battery fire to exhaust its fuel supply now considered “battling” ?
Why not try and dump bucket loads of sand or soil on it from a helicopter…just like they did with boron at Chernobyl. Surely if it’s buried it would go out and eventually cool down.
Good chance to try different techniques I would have thought…this won’t be the last battery fire! The site is quite remote if anything goes seriously wrong.
Mitigating the progress of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change forced by laundered, disposable, Green technology, with means and material transported by hydrocarbon-fueled helicopters. Oh, the comic relief.
Yes, just like de-icing windmills with a helicopter!
That won’t stop the reaction b/c it doesn’t need oxygen but it would control the emissions, as with Chernobyl
The lithium is lighter than sand. So it would simply float above the sand and keep burning.
Yes, because there is no practical way to extinguish them.
Thank you Monte.
You still have to isolate it, possibly protect other property, and monitor. It’s not like you just sit and watch, even if that’s what it looks like.
Just another reason not to buy a Tesla. Somebody needs to send a 13-ton Tesla battery to the White House, Joe Biden loves electric cars so much. Just kidding.
It would serve Elon Musk and company right if their whole battery factory in Australia burned down because of this.
GET OUT THE MARSHMALLOWS!
You mean the largest battery fire in the southern hemisphere.
So far…
Hold my beer….
8-24 hours????
A recent 200,000 lithium battery (cell phone etc) storage facility fire located in Morris Illinois broke out on a Tuesday and the residence were allowed to return on Friday after crews created a sarcophagus out of Portland cement.
My money is on more than 24 hours for this one.
From the pictures in the full story, this of one of 120 units that make up the installation. It will probably delay progress a short time, but they want to re-consider their spacing requirements.
And their use of fire separations?? All will make the installation more expensive, yet another under-estimation of cost. Don’t worry, the taxpayers are happy to make up the difference, and the contractor will be happy to make the same % off MORE MONEY = MoMoney.
Two units… but I see your point.
I think we can now say, high density batteries are an “existential threat” to humanity. We must ban the use and the deployment of high density batteries for the sake of mankind oh and womankind, and itkind….have I missed anyone out?
The new slogan will be “go woke get smoke”
I bet the BBC do not cover this event.
Interestingly, this news had completely missed the morning papers here in Victoria, even though it is probably still burning.
“mankind oh and womankind, and itkind….have I missed anyone out?
Kind of, yes;
‘your kind’, ‘my kind’ & ‘you’re just too kind’.
By the last count I have seen – at least 150.
Another proof that variants are bad and We Need More Lockdowns?
The green goons are too much in denial that net zero is nonsense to do this risky thing right. A responsible construction engineering firm and/or competent government licensing body would have required that sufficient and proper fire fighting and fire prevention gear on site throughout construction and operations. Woke is brain dead.
Good thought but with this type of material, fire separations to segment the materials into limited quantities is the only thing you can do other than NOT building it in the first place.
Can’t remember exactly who posted it and what the list was but for GREEN electricity.
Update:
1) Build Bird Chopper
2) Build Solar Farm
3) Build grid scale battery
4) Build dispatchable electricity generation facilities equivalent to the required load.
5) Tear down 1) and 2)
6) Don’t worry about 3), it will eventually burn down of its own accord.
Sorry Drake, but I respectfully disagree. An honest and skilled designer can engineer around the fire hazard, but it becomes less useful and more expensive quite quickly. Imagine, in this instance, having to keep on the side multiple tons of a flux and silica (boric acid and sand) mixture and a working means of instantly delivering the mix in high volumes anywhere on site. Imagine also providing wide area lightning mitigation and mine-grade heavy equipment. This is done all the time in high-explosive and extreme hazard manufacturing and storage facilities, but is prohibitively expensive in most situations.
In this case, the dumb@ur momisugly$$ has been multiplied by its base in a misapplied technology (net zero), wishful thinking (human modified climate change), and technical fraud (hazardous materials handling without disaster mitigation). A predicted failure based on a realistic appraisal of technology and industrial history.
More info here….
https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-megapack-container-on-fire-at-site-of-australias-biggest-battery/