Lithium battery fires

[David Paste]

They provide their own fuel and oxygen from what I
understand, and are near-enough impossible to put out.

What about dumping dry ice on them to cool the fire out?

[John Rumm]

On 13/10/2023 12:48, David Paste wrote:

> They provide their own fuel and oxygen from what I
> understand, and are near-enough impossible to put out.

Not impossible - but more difficult. It does depend on how much lithium
is present in the battery - it is only one component of it, not a pure
lump of metal.

> What about dumping dry ice on them to cool the fire out?

In some cases you can use *lots* of water, but there are hand held fire
extinguishers designed for the purpose that are better for smaller fires.



--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Colin Bignell]

On 13/10/2023 12:48, David Paste wrote:

You would need massive refrigerated vehicles to carry enough dry ice.

There is a pancake nozzle, designed to be slid under the battery, so
that it can be cooled with lots and lots of water, but the construction
and position of the batteries limits its effectiveness.

The consensus seems to be that the best approach to a vehicle battery
fire is simply to let it burn itself out, which will usually take about
an hour, while trying to prevent the fire from spreading.

--
Colin Bignell

[David Paste]

On Friday, 13 October 2023 at 14:19:42 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:

> In some cases you can use *lots* of water, but there are hand held fire
> extinguishers designed for the purpose that are better for smaller fires.

Thanks John. I was just thinking about it after the fall-out of this Luton
Airport fire. If an electric car was on fire, could a fire engine full of dry
ice pellets turn up to cool it out. Nothing more complicated than that :)

[David Paste]

On Friday, 13 October 2023 at 15:24:19 UTC+1, Colin Bignell wrote:
> On 13/10/2023 12:48, David Paste wrote:
> > What about dumping dry ice on them to cool the fire out?
> >
> You would need massive refrigerated vehicles to carry enough dry ice.

I did wonder how much would be needed! Thanks Colin.

[Clive Arthur]

Trouble is, apparently Lithium metal will burn in CO2 - it rips the
Oxygen out (technical term). Whether that's enough to overcome the
cooling effect of frozen CO2 I don't know.

I was taught that Sodium Carbonate or Bicarbonate was the best thing to
use, but that was for small batteries, not vehicle sized.

--
Cheers
Clive

[Tim Streater]

On 13 Oct 2023 at 15:50:25 BST, "Clive Arthur" <cl...@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

> On 13/10/2023 15:29, David Paste wrote:
>> On Friday, 13 October 2023 at 14:19:42 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
>>
>>> In some cases you can use *lots* of water, but there are hand held fire
>>> extinguishers designed for the purpose that are better for smaller fires.
>>
>> Thanks John. I was just thinking about it after the fall-out of this Luton
>> Airport fire. If an electric car was on fire, could a fire engine full of dry
>> ice pellets turn up to cool it out. Nothing more complicated than that :)
>
> Trouble is, apparently Lithium metal will burn in CO2 - it rips the
> Oxygen out (technical term). Whether that's enough to overcome the
> cooling effect of frozen CO2 I don't know.

And it burns in water, too. As do sodium and potassium.

--
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - GB Shaw to Churchill. "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

[Theo]

Where would the dry ice come from? Would they need a freezer trailer
plugged in 24/7 to be ready? It's not like a pump tender where they can
pump it from a hydrant or the nearest lake.

Also you'll suffocate anybody in the vicinity, so they better be wearing
breathing apparatus. You can't do it if there are civilians in the area.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/10/2023 15:50, Clive Arthur wrote:
> On 13/10/2023 15:29, David Paste wrote:
>> On Friday, 13 October 2023 at 14:19:42 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
>>
>>> In some cases you can use *lots* of water, but there are hand
>>> held fire extinguishers designed for the purpose that are better
>>> for smaller fires.
>>
>> Thanks John. I was just thinking about it after the fall-out of
>> this Luton Airport fire. If an electric car was on fire, could a
>> fire engine full of dry ice pellets turn up to cool it out. Nothing
>> more complicated than that :)
>
> Trouble is, apparently Lithium metal will burn in CO2 - it rips the
> Oxygen out (technical term). Whether that's enough to overcome the
> cooling effect of frozen CO2 I don't know.
>

Trouble is, it isn't the lithium that burns. It is not present in metal
form but as a salt, which doesn't burn.

What burns is the electrolyte Which releases oxygen all by itself. So no
method of depriving it of oxygen is going to work

> I was taught that Sodium Carbonate or Bicarbonate was the best thing
> to use, but that was for small batteries, not vehicle sized.
>

--

“Progress is precisely that which rules and regulations did not foresee,”

– Ludwig von Mises

[Paul]

I have seen a claim that I do not believe.

Some company has done the research and claims that if
the failing battery pack is shoved into liquid nitrogen,
the runaway behavior will stop.

Now comes the interesting part.

They claim that if you drop a battery pack into
liquid nitrogen, the pack will function properly later.
And have a normal lifespan. In other words, if you
recycled a failed pack, disconnected the cells, you
could reuse the cells in another pack.

And I don't buy that.

So yes, dry ice is an idea, but someone has actually
done the research using liquid nitrogen as the ingredient.

The reason for using a fluid, is for enhanced heat transfer.
If the pack emits X amount of heat, and you need to remove
all that heat, plus cool the pack further, then liquid nitrogen
is going to do that faster. Being a liquid, it conforms to the
surface (once in a while).

If you have some experience with this, the violent evolution of
gas can prevent liquid contact, or reduce the percentage of time
the liquid touches. And this is how some people do stunts with
open dewars (stunts I would not try). I've only had some minor
skin burns from tiny splashes of liquid nitrogen on the skin,
and that teaches you enough, to be more careful the next time.

The article did not explain what temperature distribution was
achieved on a runaway pack, when attacked that way.

I can just imagine a fire truck now with 5000 gallons of
liquid nitrogen in it :-) "Who wants to hold this hose for me?"
The article I was reading, had no details at all, as to how
a fireman delivers and dispenses this solution.

Paul

[Paul]

On 10/13/2023 12:44 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Trouble is, it isn't the lithium that burns. It is not present in metal form but as a salt, which doesn't burn.
>
> What burns is the electrolyte Which releases oxygen all by itself. So no method of depriving it of oxygen is going to work
>

... And this is why they are working in the lab, on solid electrolyte batteries.

There is, of course, a hype-wagon pulling this tech around. Claims, and counter-claims.

https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/the-future-of-solid-state-batteries

"Numerous automakers have announced that EVs with solid-state batteries will arrive
in some form around 2025, with more on the way by 2030. Some automakers are developing
their own solid-state technology, while others are working with partners, including
start-ups and established companies. Some automakers and their partners are taking
things a step further, forming entirely new joint ventures to get solid-state batteries
into production EVs."

"Research conducted in 2021 proved that solid-state batteries
could recharge and discharge at least 10,000 times" <=== recharge inside the stock prospectus folder...
the other number I saw was "1000"
"Real hurdles remain for solid-state batteries to overcome...

...and a new generation of EVs is coming."

*******

"Can solid-state batteries burn?"

https://ts2.space/en/can-solid-state-batteries-burn/

"The truth is that while solid-state batteries are generally considered safer
than their liquid electrolyte counterparts, they are not entirely immune to
the risk of fire.

Although the solid electrolyte is non-flammable, other components within the
battery, such as the electrodes and the separator, can still catch fire if
exposed to extreme conditions."

But during a puncture event, that would presumably be a different kind
of fire, with a different degree of energy extraction. The heat to keep the
fire going, would be the arc-welding type of heat. Could a BMS stop that ?
Could a thermal breaker, break some connection ?

Paul

[Clive Arthur]

On 14/10/2023 02:16, Paul wrote:

<snip>

> I can just imagine a fire truck now with 5000 gallons of
> liquid nitrogen in it :-) "Who wants to hold this hose for me?"
> The article I was reading, had no details at all, as to how
> a fireman delivers and dispenses this solution.
>
> Paul

And then there's the problem of people quite happily dying of anoxia
without realising they're breathing nitrogen.

--
Cheers
Clive

[Colin Bignell]

As the fire will be producing toxic fumes, it is usual to evacuate
everybody except firemen wearing breathing apparatus from the area.

--
Colin Bignell

[Paul]

What I thought was odd, is who gives a rats ass whether
the pack is affected by the LN2 ?

It seemed to be a statement to the insurance industry.

Ordinary people want to know whether you can stop the fire, and
cleanup afterwards is a minor problem.

Paul

[Colin Bignell]

On 14/10/2023 02:16, Paul wrote:

..

> I can just imagine a fire truck now with 5000 gallons of
> liquid nitrogen in it :-) "Who wants to hold this hose for me?"
> The article I was reading, had no details at all, as to how
> a fireman delivers and dispenses this solution.

Thinking further on this, liquid nitrogen might work with injector
nozzles. Those have been designed to be fired into the battery pack,
usually remotely, so that water can be fed to the interior in the hope
of cooling it down. Using liquid nitrogen instead of water should both
be more effective at cooling and avoid the problems of injecting a
conductive liquid into the battery pack.

It would need a new type of appliance, specifically designed to fight
car battery fires that carried the liquid nitrogen, possibly in an ISO
cryogenic shipping tank, which could quickly be swapped out at its base,
and a robot to fire the nozzle into the battery pack, but that might be
justified in a large city.

--
Colin Bignell

[Theo]

Colin Bignell <c...@bignellremovethis.me.uk> wrote:
> On 14/10/2023 02:16, Paul wrote:
> ..
> > I can just imagine a fire truck now with 5000 gallons of
> > liquid nitrogen in it :-) "Who wants to hold this hose for me?"
> > The article I was reading, had no details at all, as to how
> > a fireman delivers and dispenses this solution.
>
> Thinking further on this, liquid nitrogen might work with injector
> nozzles. Those have been designed to be fired into the battery pack,
> usually remotely, so that water can be fed to the interior in the hope
> of cooling it down. Using liquid nitrogen instead of water should both
> be more effective at cooling and avoid the problems of injecting a
> conductive liquid into the battery pack.

Won't the liquid nitrogen boil rapidly? Not just causing an explosion of
the pack (which may or may not be helpful in terms of controlling the fire)
but provide a lot of pressure which pushes against attempts to inject more
liquid nitrogen into it.

Injected water will boil rapidly too, but it boils at 100C not -200C.

Specific heat capacity of water at 25C: 4.2 kJ per kg per K
Specific heat of steam at 100C: 2 kJ per kg per K
Latent heat of vaporisation: 2256 kJ per kg at 100C (=0.63kWh per kg)

Specific heat capacity of LN2: 2 kJ per kg per K
Latent heat of vaporisation: 200 kJ per kg at -195C

Assuming both are heated enough to boil:

Taking the LN2 from -250C to 150C:
2*400 + 200 = 1000 kJ absorbed

Taking the water from 10C to 150C:
4.2*90 + 2*50 + 2256 = 2734 kJ absorbed

So the water has almost 3x the cooling capacity than the LN2, and is a lot
easier to deal with.

Theo
(anyone care to check my assumptions?)

[Colin Bignell]

One of the problems I read about with the water injection nozzles is
that they dump a lot of water into the surrounding area; far more than
would be required for fighting a normal fire. So, while boiling the
water is certainly an effective way to remove heat, the main mechanism
seems to be using water to transport heat away from the battery. It also
implies that they vent excess water to atmosphere, which should prevent
any build up of pressure inside the battery case.


--
Colin Bignell

[Sysadmin]

The successful quenching of the Windscale B2 reactor fire in 1957 was with
water.

[Colin Bignell]

I think turning off the fans that were feeding air to the fire also
played an important part.
--
Colin Bignell

[Paul]

To stop the fire source in a lithium pack,
you have to get all the cells cold enough, to
that they stop with the runaway behavior. They
emit heat that can restart a fire.

Individual cells may have a thermal fuse, which
could stop the entire 800V circuit. But if there
are puncture wounds to cells, those cells might
still be able to emit heat later, as they discharge.

If the only thing "driving" a cell, is heat from the
fire, then dousing in liquid nitrogen is going to work.

But if the source of the energy is multiple puncture
wounds, then the liquid nitrogen stops the "bystander"
behavior, but cannot help drain the punctured cells
so that they can no longer heat the surroundings.
After the application of liquid nitrogen, maybe the
scene needs to be viewed with an IR camera, to spot
which parts of the pack are still excessively active.

I don't know if there is any requirement for the
battery pack to be "easily removable by fire personnel".
Dunking the entire assembly in a very large dewer,
that might be difficult to arrange. Injection sounds
fine in principle, except for cases where there
is still thermal emission later.

Paul

[Thomas Prufer]

On Fri, 13 Oct 2023 14:19:36 +0100, John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null>
wrote:

>On 13/10/2023 12:48, David Paste wrote:
>
>> They provide their own fuel and oxygen from what I
>> understand, and are near-enough impossible to put out.
>
>Not impossible - but more difficult. It does depend on how much lithium
>is present in the battery - it is only one component of it, not a pure
>lump of metal.
>
>> What about dumping dry ice on them to cool the fire out?
>
>In some cases you can use *lots* of water, but there are hand held fire
>extinguishers designed for the purpose that are better for smaller fires.

As far as batteries in EV vehicles go: the German automobile association says
"lotsa water" -- more water than on a conventional fuel tank fire. Cool them and
they go out...

They also say that "Interestingly, the experiments failed to set the electric
car battery on fire by externally applying fire. Only after massive mechanical
damage to the battery housing was it possible to ignite the battery cells."


Thomas Prufer




https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/elektromobilitaet/info/e-auto-loeschen/

[Brian Gaff]

Dunno, but on the IS, their phones are inside a supposedly fire proof bag.
They have them, I understand in case an emergency landing puts them in some
random part of the earth, and they can then talk to the mission control via
the sat phones.

I don't think there is a lot you can do, since its a runaway chemical
reaction. I remember seeing a demonstration of a nail gun being fired
remotely through an old mobile phone. It was as they say, epic and the guy
said there was no way to extinguish it apart from containing it until its
fuel was gone. Probably OK for a phone, but what about everything else using
these batteries these days, everything from hand held vacuums to scooters,
ebikes and cars?
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
bri...@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"David Paste" <paste...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:54837b1f-e522-432b...@googlegroups.com...

[Spike]

Brian Gaff wrote:

> what about everything else using these batteries these days, everything
> from hand held vacuums to scooters, ebikes and cars?

QUOTE

28 June 2023

London Fire Brigade (LFB) has been called to one e-scooter or e-bike fire
every two days this year, an LFB spokesman said.

There has been a 60% increase in e-bike fires this year, "partially linked
to [retrofitted] bikes".

To date, there have been 70 e-bike, 14 e-scooter and 35 other
lithium-battery fires in London in 2023, according to LFB data.

ENDQUOTE


--
Spike

[Theo]

There's a big problem with Chinese ebike/escooter batteries. They're often
no-brand cells of dubious manufacture, inside a plastic enclosure (no fire
protection), with a very simplistic BMS (if they didn't just skip it
completely), and then charged from a charger with just a DC barrel jack on
it. It's very easy to charge them with a charger of the wrong voltage or
current and there's minimal protection for that.

Basically they're often Aliexpress quality junk, which can fail explosively.
Plus the buyer has no way to know if what they're buying is any good and,
because the batteries are shaped to the particular vehicle's battery
compartment, there isn't an open market of 'good' batteries.

If you can, it's a good reason to DIY your own batteries, since you then
know exactly what goes into them.

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 14/10/2023 16:38, Sysadmin wrote:

And Chernobyl, but they were carbon fires. Not lithium batteries.

--
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social
conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the
windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "

Alan Sokal

[Colin Bignell]

On 15/10/2023 01:21, Paul wrote:
...

> I don't know if there is any requirement for the

> battery pack to be "easily removable by fire personnel"...

The standard for most seems to be as difficult to get at as is possible.
That is probably a result of trying to protect them from impact, but it
does make fighting the fires a problem.


--
Colin Bignell

[Tim Streater]

On 15 Oct 2023 at 11:05:02 BST, "Theo" <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
wrote:

> Spike <aero....@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>> Brian Gaff wrote:
>>
>>> what about everything else using these batteries these days, everything
>>> from hand held vacuums to scooters, ebikes and cars?
>>

>> London Fire Brigade (LFB) has been called to one e-scooter or e-bike fire
>> every two days this year, an LFB spokesman said.
>>
>> There has been a 60% increase in e-bike fires this year, "partially linked
>> to [retrofitted] bikes".
>>
>> To date, there have been 70 e-bike, 14 e-scooter and 35 other
>> lithium-battery fires in London in 2023, according to LFB data.
>

> There's a big problem with Chinese ebike/escooter batteries. They're often
> no-brand cells of dubious manufacture, inside a plastic enclosure (no fire
> protection), with a very simplistic BMS (if they didn't just skip it
> completely), and then charged from a charger with just a DC barrel jack on
> it. It's very easy to charge them with a charger of the wrong voltage or
> current and there's minimal protection for that.
>
> Basically they're often Aliexpress quality junk, which can fail explosively.
> Plus the buyer has no way to know if what they're buying is any good and,
> because the batteries are shaped to the particular vehicle's battery
> compartment, there isn't an open market of 'good' batteries.

Now imagine what happens if we managed to build a battery big enough to power
the grid for some days. Even if dispersed around the country to many sites an
acre or so large, sabotaging one would require no more than putting a bullet
through a couple of the units. Or dropping a bomb in the middle with a drone.

--
Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.

-- Tim Berners-Lee

[The Natural Philosopher]

Isn't it strange that the MSM have, after several days, not come out
with a definitive ID on the car that caught fire?

Whilst the meme 'it was a diesel Land Rover' is completely contradicted
by the fact that no *plain* diesel car catches fire like that.

There is a massive amount of political and financial capital riding on
the EV market.
Don't expect to hear the truth anytime soon



--
To ban Christmas, simply give turkeys the vote.

[Spike]

Search for Australian megabattery fires, of which there have been two. Less
bad than one might have thought. There’s loads of videos. Spacing out the
individual packs seems to be a good idea.

--
Spike

[The Natural Philosopher]

Fortunately the costs - especially insurance - would well outweigh a
nuclear reactor cost. Which is why we will end up with the irrational
policy of wind turbines AND nuclear power.

--
Climate Change: Socialism wearing a lab coat.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No battery is grid scale. Realistically something like Dionorwig is
4GWh of storage, and no lithium in existence can match that.

And that only keeps part of the grid alive for an hour or so.
Lithium battriess are not there to store energy to keep the grid up for
hours or days, but minutes or seconds to allow secondary plant to be
brought up, and most importantly to stabilise the frequency so other
renewable plant doesn't disconnect itself..

[Tim Streater]

On 15 Oct 2023 at 11:35:09 BST, "The Natural Philosopher"

You know that. I know that. But to many, the problem of intermittency,
assuming they're even aware of what it means, can be solved by "batteries".

--
"People don't buy Microsoft for quality, they buy it for compatibility with what Bob in accounting bought last year. Trace it back - they buy Microsoft because the IBM Selectric didn't suck much" - P Seebach, afc

[Theo]

Tim Streater <t...@streater.me.uk> wrote:
> On 15 Oct 2023 at 11:05:02 BST, "Theo" <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > There's a big problem with Chinese ebike/escooter batteries. They're often
> > no-brand cells of dubious manufacture, inside a plastic enclosure (no fire
> > protection), with a very simplistic BMS (if they didn't just skip it
> > completely), and then charged from a charger with just a DC barrel jack on
> > it. It's very easy to charge them with a charger of the wrong voltage or
> > current and there's minimal protection for that.
> >
> > Basically they're often Aliexpress quality junk, which can fail explosively.
> > Plus the buyer has no way to know if what they're buying is any good and,
> > because the batteries are shaped to the particular vehicle's battery
> > compartment, there isn't an open market of 'good' batteries.
>
> Now imagine what happens if we managed to build a battery big enough to power
> the grid for some days. Even if dispersed around the country to many sites an
> acre or so large, sabotaging one would require no more than putting a bullet
> through a couple of the units. Or dropping a bomb in the middle with a drone.

There is a marked difference in quality between something designed with
multiple protection, failsafes and active thermal management, and something
sold on an unregulated overseas marketplace with no repercussions to the
seller for problems and a race to the bottom on quality.

When you start talking about putting bullets and bombs into things, a lot of
places with much stored energy can have similar results - oil terminals, gas
pipelines, oil tankers, LNG ships, aircraft. For some examples, the gas
plant lightning strike in Oxford last week, Buncefield, 9/11...

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its always easy to fool people without STEM education over technical
matters.

they use binary boolean logic in their brains, such as they are, to
think in lazy GrandConcepts, rather than doing the hard work of
calculating quantities. Cancelling the people with messages they don't
want to hear rather than analysing those messages and seeing if they inform.

--
There is nothing a fleet of dispatchable nuclear power plants cannot do
that cannot be done worse and more expensively and with higher carbon
emissions and more adverse environmental impact by adding intermittent
renewable energy.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 15/10/2023 11:46, Theo wrote:
> Tim Streater <t...@streater.me.uk> wrote:
>> On 15 Oct 2023 at 11:05:02 BST, "Theo" <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> There's a big problem with Chinese ebike/escooter batteries. They're often
>>> no-brand cells of dubious manufacture, inside a plastic enclosure (no fire
>>> protection), with a very simplistic BMS (if they didn't just skip it
>>> completely), and then charged from a charger with just a DC barrel jack on
>>> it. It's very easy to charge them with a charger of the wrong voltage or
>>> current and there's minimal protection for that.
>>>
>>> Basically they're often Aliexpress quality junk, which can fail explosively.
>>> Plus the buyer has no way to know if what they're buying is any good and,
>>> because the batteries are shaped to the particular vehicle's battery
>>> compartment, there isn't an open market of 'good' batteries.
>>
>> Now imagine what happens if we managed to build a battery big enough to power
>> the grid for some days. Even if dispersed around the country to many sites an
>> acre or so large, sabotaging one would require no more than putting a bullet
>> through a couple of the units. Or dropping a bomb in the middle with a drone.
>
> There is a marked difference in quality between something designed with
> multiple protection, failsafes and active thermal management, and something
> sold on an unregulated overseas marketplace with no repercussions to the
> seller for problems and a race to the bottom on quality.
>

Unfortunately. EVs are already horrendously expensive and heavy and
adding chobham amour to the battery pack to make it proof against
'sleeping poliemen' ot shrapnel ftom a high speed car crash would just
make them even more unsaleable than they already are.

> When you start talking about putting bullets and bombs into things, a lot of
> places with much stored energy can have similar results - oil terminals, gas
> pipelines, oil tankers, LNG ships, aircraft. For some examples, the gas
> plant lightning strike in Oxford last week, Buncefield, 9/11...
>

Indeed, but nearly all those things need atmospheric oxygen to maintain
a fire. Lithium batteries, in common with chemical explosives, do not.

That makes them a rather unique risk, to a STEM mind. ArtStudents of
course wont understand the point

> Theo

--
If I had all the money I've spent on drink...
..I'd spend it on drink.

Sir Henry (at Rawlinson's End)

[Paul]

You're forgetting there is another battery type.

Flow batteries. (Vanadium, but there is some other chemical they're using as well.)

The Chinese are working on a hybrid (two battery types in the same plant) project,
and it will hold 500 megawatt hours. And this is a prototype for experiments, rather
than just a production item. The flow battery will be the major energy holder. I
did not see a rationale or what this would be connected to. All I know, is they're
building something. Presumably, one of the objectives is, that it be bigger
than batteries build by other countries.

With a flow battery, the battery can be small, and the
tank of solvated vanadium can be large. The larger the
tank, the more megawatt hours. The fluid can be used
for, on the order of twenty years or so (maybe 7000+ charging
cycles).

The difference is, for this kind of storage, you can use
"stationary batteries". They can have immense weight if
you want. Unlike an automobile, where there is an advantage
to a lightweight battery (since regeneration is not 100 percent
efficient).

They could use lead acid for the grid, but since you and
I know that immense batteries are silly, forget it. It's as
silly as throwing a million refrigerators into an
Arctic sea, to bring back the ice. Nobody can afford to
build the "ten day battery".

The company that makes Vanadium flow batteries, says right
on their web page that "this technology is NOT suited to
grid scale storage -- it's for small projects in remote places".
Apparently, other people don't agree with that opinion. So expect
to see some efforts to build bigger ones and test them.

And they will keep looking for redox reactions which are
cheaper to implement than Vanadium.

Paul

[charles]

In article <uggebg$ef9h$9...@dont-email.me>, The Natural Philosopher

But, they might have had something sitting on the drivers's seat

> There is a massive amount of political and financial capital riding on
> the EV market. Don't expect to hear the truth anytime soon

--

from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4t้ฒ
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[The Natural Philosopher]

you have read the same marketing bullshit that I have.
Strangely cost and turnround effeiciency were not stated...

> The difference is, for this kind of storage, you can use
> "stationary batteries". They can have immense weight if
> you want. Unlike an automobile, where there is an advantage
> to a lightweight battery (since regeneration is not 100 percent
> efficient).
>
> They could use lead acid for the grid, but since you and
> I know that immense batteries are silly, forget it. It's as
> silly as throwing a million refrigerators into an
> Arctic sea, to bring back the ice. Nobody can afford to
> build the "ten day battery".
>

Exactly. Not chemical battery anyway.

And pointless when 500 tonnes of plutonium /enriched uranoium could keep
the (existing) grid going for a year.

> The company that makes Vanadium flow batteries, says right
> on their web page that "this technology is NOT suited to
> grid scale storage -- it's for small projects in remote places".
> Apparently, other people don't agree with that opinion. So expect
> to see some efforts to build bigger ones and test them.
>
> And they will keep looking for redox reactions which are
> cheaper to implement than Vanadium.
>
> Paul

All chemical batteries have the same problem. If they are to be
efficient, then the ability to take on and discharge high levels of
energy quickly, will be an inherent inescapable property of them.

And that will men they are fucking dangerous.

The great thing about piles of coal or tonnes of plutonium is that left
alone, they cannot go bang without some extremely complicated kit
surrounding them and considerable pre processing.

All other storage - hydro power, hydrogen, methane, natural gas,
batteries, tanks of oil or gasoline can, in the limit, go bang
remarkably easily.

Every way you look at it, the only sane practical answer is nuclear
power. Shitloads of it.

But when were either politics or greed ever sane?

--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Josef Stalin

[The Natural Philosopher]

The pictures show that the fire is not inside the vehicle. It is under
the left hand floor at the front.
Do keep up.

>> There is a massive amount of political and financial capital riding on
>> the EV market. Don't expect to hear the truth anytime soon
>

--

[Clive Arthur]

On 15/10/2023 12:31, Paul wrote:

<snip>

>
> You're forgetting there is another battery type.
>
> Flow batteries. (Vanadium, but there is some other chemical they're using as well.)

Sodium Nickel Chloride batteries looked promising for static
installations. They need to be heated, though to a lower temperature
than other molten salt batteries, and in a large enough installation
this requirement gets less relevant.

Unfortunately, the company developing and researching them was acquired
by GE, so innovation was replaced by corporate treacle-wading.

I did some work with specially made small (think two C cells) versions
for downhole use, kept in a long thin Dewar flask, but with limited
success - the solid electrolyte is a bit too fragile for rough work. A
pity, because the high temperature Lithium cells normally used are
single use and very expensive.

--
Cheers
Clive

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think your experience typifies the real situation with batteries. All
the basic ideas are known and every one has been progressed to the
point where its been discarded for one reason or another.

The renewable dream is kept alive on the one hand by the faith of those
who want it to work, and on the other by the cynicism of those who don't
care if it works as long as the public purse is raided to pay them for it.

The smart money is leaving the renewable energy industry in droves -
30% fall in the sector in the latter half of this year.

https://www.euronews.com/2023/10/10/green-stocks-in-the-red-renewable-sector-tumbles-as-investors-pull-out-billions.

Governments want it to at least appear to work, but cannot fianance it
any longer. And the electorate is fed up with paying through the nose
for policies that achieve nothing.

They will both turn to nuclear power, once every other alternative has
been explored.


--
"A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight
and understanding".

Marshall McLuhan

[Thomas Prufer]

On Sun, 15 Oct 2023 11:07:14 +0100, Colin Bignell <c...@bignellREMOVETHIS.me.uk>
wrote:

There is a firefighting system where a device rams a spike into the battery pack
from underneath, and floods the pack from the inside.

https://youtu.be/xaIAb3XgYVY

In one of the videos, there is mention of 8 gallons a minute being enough to
cool a burning battery.


Thomas Prufer

[Joe]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/burning-electric-cars-dunked-baths-water-stop-fires-spread/

--
Joe

[The Natural Philosopher]

They are still desperately maintaining the fiction that it 'wasnt an EV'
at Luton.


--
In todays liberal progressive conflict-free education system, everyone
gets full Marx.

[Andy Burns]

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> They are still desperately maintaining the fiction that it 'wasnt an EV'
> at Luton.

You're going to have to hire a private dick, or get a journalist
interested to track down the owner of the range rover ...

[Spike]

It doesn’t matter, the idea is to control the narrative *now* because when
the facts do emerge at some point in the future, all people will remember
is a fire in a diesel car.

Much like most people believe that 200,000 people were killed in the
bombing of Dresden. That figure was arrived at by the Germans adding a zero
to the true figure, which in reality was considerably lower than those
killed in the bombing of Hamburg.

They have to get their narrative in early, because that’s the one people
will remember.

--
Spike

[Paul]

On 10/15/2023 8:31 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Governments want it to at least appear to work, but cannot fianance it any longer. And the electorate is fed up with paying through the nose for policies that achieve nothing.
>
> They will both turn to nuclear power, once every other alternative has been explored.

The problem, is finding quality builders to do the work.

The problem with SMR plans, is a lack of fuel.
(I'm sure these people have some sort of ax to grind...)

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/will-the-feds-approve-any-of-the-new-small-modular-nuclear-reactors

You would likely want some of your traditional/successful nukes
for the job. Full sized one, that run on regular fuel.

Since no shovels have turned earth for our proposed SMR plants,
I assume they are not real.

Even for our regular-sized nukes, I would expect to have to complete
truckloads of regulatory paperwork for them. There was something in
the news a few years ago, about some reactor needing 2 million pages
of documentation.

Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 17/10/2023 08:28, Spike wrote:
> Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> They are still desperately maintaining the fiction that it 'wasnt an EV'
>>> at Luton.
>>
>> You're going to have to hire a private dick, or get a journalist
>> interested to track down the owner of the range rover ...
>
> It doesn’t matter, the idea is to control the narrative *now* because when
> the facts do emerge at some point in the future, all people will remember
> is a fire in a diesel car.
>

+1

> Much like most people believe that 200,000 people were killed in the
> bombing of Dresden. That figure was arrived at by the Germans adding a zero
> to the true figure, which in reality was considerably lower than those
> killed in the bombing of Hamburg.
>
> They have to get their narrative in early, because that’s the one people
> will remember.
>

Indeed. How many people think that Chernobyl killed 'hundreds of
thousands' and that Fukushima was a 'disaster'.

But Bhopal was 'just an industrial accident' and Hamas are, as the BBC
calls them 'only militants'.


I am reminded of the old joke from the Blair era. Gordon Brown is
visiting a school in Scotland, where a teacher is giving a modern
studies course about moral implications of death. And how we should
think about it.
Gordon Brown listens, and then asks the class:
"If I were to be run over and killed, would that be a "tragedy", an
"accident", or just a "bad thing"?",
There is complete silence. Eventually one boy raises his hand.

"It woul ha' ta be a tragedy"

"Correct! Now tell the class why"

"Well sir, it would sure be no bad thing, and no way would it be an
accident..."

We store the past as words in our heads - the art of propaganda is to
supply the 'correct' words.

--
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established
authorities are wrong.”

― Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 17/10/2023 08:31, Paul wrote:
> On 10/15/2023 8:31 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> Governments want it to at least appear to work, but cannot fianance it any longer. And the electorate is fed up with paying through the nose for policies that achieve nothing.
>>
>> They will both turn to nuclear power, once every other alternative has been explored.
>
> The problem, is finding quality builders to do the work.
>

Not really. Even a boy scout built a nuclear reactor.
Anyway that's the point of SMRs, build em in a factory.

> The problem with SMR plans, is a lack of fuel.

You are joking, surely?

There's enough plutonium lying around up north to keep Britain going for
ten years.

And 4 billion tonnes in the sea.

> (I'm sure these people have some sort of ax to grind...)
>
> https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/will-the-feds-approve-any-of-the-new-small-modular-nuclear-reactors
>
> You would likely want some of your traditional/successful nukes
> for the job. Full sized one, that run on regular fuel.
>

SMRs run on regular fuel.

That article is only right about one thing. The regulators have been
paid to stop nuclear.

> Since no shovels have turned earth for our proposed SMR plants,
> I assume they are not real.
>

Not yet, no.

Rolls Royce is pushing for 2030

> Even for our regular-sized nukes, I would expect to have to complete
> truckloads of regulatory paperwork for them. There was something in
> the news a few years ago, about some reactor needing 2 million pages
> of documentation.
>

Correct. it is in fact the major cost,.
Hence SMRs which are 'type approved'

Once you have done the paperwork, you can build as many as you want


> Paul

But the fact is simple. Renewable energy is a failure, and we have no
alternative but nuclear, and if we don't adopt it, other nations will,
and we will sink into renewable poverty and world irrelevance.

I wont be here to see it.
But your children will.


--
“But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an
hypothesis!”

Mary Wollstonecraft

[Spike]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

LOL

--
Spike

[maus]

On 2023-10-17, Spike <aero....@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
> Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> They are still desperately maintaining the fiction that it 'wasnt an EV'
>>> at Luton.
>>
>> You're going to have to hire a private dick, or get a journalist
>> interested to track down the owner of the range rover ...
>
> It doesn’t matter, the idea is to control the narrative *now* because when
> the facts do emerge at some point in the future, all people will remember
> is a fire in a diesel car.

Car Park fire in Jervis St car park in Dublin, ireland, last week

>
> Much like most people believe that 200,000 people were killed in the
> bombing of Dresden. That figure was arrived at by the Germans adding a zero
> to the true figure, which in reality was considerably lower than those
> killed in the bombing of Hamburg.

They do not really know how many were killed in Dresden, the city was
crowded with people fleeing from the Russian advance in Silesia. It was
a war crime, repeated since in Vietnam.

>
> They have to get their narrative in early, because that’s the one people
> will remember.
>


--

grey...@mail.com
Death to the Influencers, hung, drawn and Quartered is more than they deserve.
Meantime, back at the Estancia, etc.

[nib]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2023 09:13:14 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 17/10/2023 08:28, Spike wrote:
>> Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> They are still desperately maintaining the fiction that it 'wasnt an
>>>> EV'
>>>> at Luton.
>>>
>>> You're going to have to hire a private dick, or get a journalist
>>> interested to track down the owner of the range rover ...
>>
>> It doesn’t matter, the idea is to control the narrative *now* because
>> when the facts do emerge at some point in the future, all people will
>> remember is a fire in a diesel car.
>>
> +1

...

And what do we remember the car park fire in Liverpool in 2017 as?

nib

[Spike]

maus <ma...@deb2.org> wrote:
> On 2023-10-17, Spike <aero....@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>> Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote:
>>> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> They are still desperately maintaining the fiction that it 'wasnt an EV'
>>>> at Luton.
>>>
>>> You're going to have to hire a private dick, or get a journalist
>>> interested to track down the owner of the range rover ...
>>
>> It doesn’t matter, the idea is to control the narrative *now* because when
>> the facts do emerge at some point in the future, all people will remember
>> is a fire in a diesel car.
>
>
> Car Park fire in Jervis St car park in Dublin, ireland, last week

No-one seems to be claiming it as an EV fire, apparently only four cars
were destroyed.

>> Much like most people believe that 200,000 people were killed in the
>> bombing of Dresden. That figure was arrived at by the Germans adding a zero
>> to the true figure, which in reality was considerably lower than those
>> killed in the bombing of Hamburg.

> They do not really know how many were killed in Dresden, the city was
> crowded with people fleeing from the Russian advance in Silesia.

The Germans were meticulous about these things, but even so another 1800
bodies were discovered up to the late 1980s during rebuilding work.

> It was a war crime, repeated since in Vietnam.

Those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind.

>> They have to get their narrative in early, because that’s the one people
>> will remember.

Just like Dresden, where fewer people were killed than in the Operation
Gomorrah attack on Hamburg.

--
Spike

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 17/10/2023 10:26, maus wrote:
> They do not really know how many were killed in Dresden, the city was
> crowded with people fleeing from the Russian advance in Silesia. It was
> a war crime, repeated since in Vietnam.

Whatever. It was a strategic target.
--
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the
very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift

[Colin Bignell]

On 17/10/2023 14:38, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 17/10/2023 10:26, maus wrote:
>> They do not really know how many were killed in Dresden, the city was
>> crowded with people fleeing from the Russian advance in Silesia. It
>> was a war crime, repeated since in Vietnam.
>
> Whatever.  It was a strategic target.

Fire bombs are not an effective way to attack roads and railways.

--
Colin Bignell

[Tim+]

Why would he? He’s made up him mind on this (and so many other matters).
*Nothing* will convince him otherwise. Any PI or journalist would turn out
to be in the pay of art students (in his head).

Tim

--
Please don't feed the trolls

[Tim Streater]

On 17 Oct 2023 at 08:31:59 BST, "Paul" <nos...@needed.invalid> wrote:

> The problem with SMR plans, is a lack of fuel.

Can you elaborate on that? What is so special about SMR fuel?

--
If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

Ernest Rutherford

[Fredxx]

On 17/10/2023 14:38, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 17/10/2023 10:26, maus wrote:
>> They do not really know how many were killed in Dresden, the city was
>> crowded with people fleeing from the Russian advance in Silesia. It
>> was a war crime, repeated since in Vietnam.
>
> Whatever.  It was a strategic target.

You are just the sort to call civilian housing a strategic target and
endorse the dropping of incendiary bombs on civilians 'targets'.

[Tim Streater]

It's no good having a fit of the vapours about it, Fred. And it's no good
bleating about International Law or the Geneva Conventions; Hamas has
demonstrated quite clearly what they think of civilians, both their own and
what they call their enemy's. As did the Arab slave traders down the
centuries, along with the pirates of the Barbary Coast (latterly Tunisia,
Algeria, etc).

--
First, find out who are the people you can not criticise. They are your oppressors. - George Orwell

[Vir Campestris]

On 13/10/2023 16:51, Theo wrote:
> Where would the dry ice come from? Would they need a freezer trailer
> plugged in 24/7 to be ready? It's not like a pump tender where they can
> pump it from a hydrant or the nearest lake. Also you'll suffocate
> anybody in the vicinity, so they better be wearing breathing apparatus.
> You can't do it if there are civilians in the area.

You get it the same way you did in school. Have a cylinder of liquid CO2
and let some out. It will get _very_ cold as some evaporates - which
freezes the rest. CO2 won't stay liquid at normal pressure.

Andy

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 17/10/2023 18:34, Tim Streater wrote:
> On 17 Oct 2023 at 08:31:59 BST, "Paul" <nos...@needed.invalid> wrote:
>
>> The problem with SMR plans, is a lack of fuel.
>
> Can you elaborate on that? What is so special about SMR fuel?
>

Nothing. One particular SMR needs highly enriched fuel. Most use bog
standard fuel

--
“it should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism
(or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans,
about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and
the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a
'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,'
a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for
rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet
things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that
you live neither in Joseph Stalin’s Communist era, nor in the Orwellian
utopia of 1984.”

Vaclav Klaus

[Theo]

For fire truck size quantities of LN2?

[Paul]

And sheets of dry ice (solid CO2) sublime to gas directly,
with no liquid phase.

When CO2 gas escapes from an orifice, it becomes colder.
A number of gases do that.

Whereas Hydrogen reverses that, and is exothermic when
it escapes from a cylinder. which also makes it "auto-igniting",
when you use regular 80 liter cylinders. However, if a hydrogen
cylinder is filled with a Zeolite, the hydrogen evolution rate
can be slowed enough, to make the "fire, a small one". If they
were to make a hydrogen-powered car, it's unlikely the hydrogen
cylinder (at 10000 PSI), would not be adulterated in some way
to reduce fire potential.

And have people suffocated via dry ice ? More than once. Example below.
It would be no different with nitrogen gas (still can be toxic
at 100%). One difference is, you might "taste" a level of CO2,
but the nitrogen might not have a taste to it. because you're breathing
an 80% mixture, right now.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51680049

Paul

[Paul]

On 10/17/2023 1:34 PM, Tim Streater wrote:
> On 17 Oct 2023 at 08:31:59 BST, "Paul" <nos...@needed.invalid> wrote:
>
>> The problem with SMR plans, is a lack of fuel.
>
> Can you elaborate on that? What is so special about SMR fuel?
>

It depends on whether you believe the claims here.
This is teh Internetz after all.

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/will-the-feds-approve-any-of-the-new-small-modular-nuclear-reactors

For our "SMR plan", I don't even know if we have settled
on a brand, as part of this plan. All we have so far, is
a cheesy sketch of a "building" that could be mistaken
for a strip mall, that is supposed to have an SMR inside it :-/
I figure the "SMR janitor" sleeps on the second floor.

Originally, when the idea of SMRs came out, there were sketches
of "sleek cylinders" representing the SMR. And one sketch had multiple
cylinders on the same concrete pad.

It could be, that the cheesy sketch forming our plan, was actually
an administration building, and didn't actually make the power.
Who knows, maybe the people making the Powerpoint slides, are in
that strip mall office.

Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/10/2023 09:43, Paul wrote:
> One difference is, you might "taste" a level of CO2, but the nitrogen
> might not have a taste to it. because you're breathing an 80% mixture,
> right now.

I have taken a breath of pure CO2. Terrifying. It tastes of carbonated
water but the breath does nothing.

I was a schoolkid touring a brewery and there were huge open topped
fermentation tanks. I wanted to sniff at the fermenting liquid, so I put
my face below the tank rim...

--
Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early
twenty-first century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a
globally average temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and,
on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer
projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to
contemplate a rollback of the industrial age.

Richard Lindzen

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/10/2023 10:30, Paul wrote:
> On 10/17/2023 1:34 PM, Tim Streater wrote:
>> On 17 Oct 2023 at 08:31:59 BST, "Paul" <nos...@needed.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> The problem with SMR plans, is a lack of fuel.
>>
>> Can you elaborate on that? What is so special about SMR fuel?
>>
>
> It depends on whether you believe the claims here.
> This is teh Internetz after all.
>
> https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/nuclear/will-the-feds-approve-any-of-the-new-small-modular-nuclear-reactors
>

I dont. It may be true for one reactor type, bbut it is not generally
true. Rolls Royce claim 'standard fuel'.
That article looks to me like standard anti-nuclear propaganda.

> For our "SMR plan", I don't even know if we have settled
> on a brand, as part of this plan. All we have so far, is
> a cheesy sketch of a "building" that could be mistaken
> for a strip mall, that is supposed to have an SMR inside it :-/
> I figure the "SMR janitor" sleeps on the second floor.
>

six models are in the competition.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK%C2%A0SMR-selection-contest-Six-companies-into-next

> Originally, when the idea of SMRs came out, there were sketches
> of "sleek cylinders" representing the SMR. And one sketch had multiple
> cylinders on the same concrete pad.
>
> It could be, that the cheesy sketch forming our plan, was actually
> an administration building, and didn't actually make the power.
> Who knows, maybe the people making the Powerpoint slides, are in
> that strip mall office.
>

Rolls Royce have been making PWRs for submarines for decades, their
design is not radical in any way.


> Paul

--
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the
greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most
obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of
conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which
they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by
thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

― Leo Tolstoy

[Vir Campestris]

On 18/10/2023 09:39, Theo wrote:
> For fire truck size quantities of LN2?

Yup.

<https://www.ascoco2.com/en/co2-and-dry-ice-equipment/co2-storage/transportable-co2-tank>

is just the first hit from googling "road tanker co2" (no quotes)

(oh. Hang on. You said LN2. I was talking about CO2. "road tanker
nitrogen" gives me

<https://wessingtoncryogenics.com/media/1240/road-tanker.pdf>

as a first hit; that specifically mentions cryogenic nitrogen)
Andy