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Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

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Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#141

Post by lutoma »

elihu wrote: post #38
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #19

Lithium battery fire cannot be 'put out'- in a normal sense. A fuel tank of petrol needs oxygen to burn, and when you spray foam on it your cut off the oxygen and the fire stops. A battery already contains energy, all the chemicals required for the reaction are already present, and once the energy release starts, sealing it from the environment does not stop the process. Ebike and drone batteries are large enough to…

I think the standard procedure in EV car fires is to just dump water on it to conduct the heat away as fast as possible, and to keep dumping water on it until the batteries can no longer self-ignite -- which can take awhile.

I know here in Germany some fire departments have recently bought "dunk tanks" for EV car fires. Essentially large swimming pools that they just throw the whole car in once it's on fire

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#142

Post by dotancohen »

prmoustache wrote: post #116
elihu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the standard procedure in EV car fires is to just dump water on it to conduct the heat away as fast as possible, and to keep dumping water on it until the batteries can no longer self-ignite -- which can take awhile.

Some people started setting cars on fire in a number of neighborhoods randomly in my city the last few weeks during the night. One of these fires happened next to my bedroom. First car was traditional ICE but the second car was hybrid and water was useless on it. The firefighters came up with a second truck and stopped the battery fire using a special foam. Interesting note, the fire was propagating from the back to…

What model hybrid was that? Sounds like a great safety feature.

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#143

Post by ClumsyPilot »

prmoustache wrote: post #124
scythe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my understanding that e-bikes which can ride on traditional "bike" trails (I'm used to this rule for bike lanes ) are limited to a relatively human-accessible speed, usually 15 or 20 mph in the US. Are these e-bike riders going faster than that? If so, they might be breaking the law. I had assumed dirt bikes were banned on these trails due to weight and speed, leading to damage to the trail, risks to other trail…

There are many people bypassing the limit using hacks or on some cheap chinese kits just by going in the settings (usually a button combo, knowledge widely available on the internet). Yes it is illegal but in the same way the 50cc mopeds are supposed to be limited at 45kph (27mph) and all the kids always modified them to go faster. I believe there has always been more unrestricted 50cc mopeds than legal ones in the s…

50cc moped is over 2000W, thats almost 10 times the power of a typical ebike at 250W

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#144

Post by dotancohen »

HPsquared wrote: post #131
lazide wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is, water is cold (generally), doesn't combust (generally), and there is a LOT of it. So spraying water, while it can make it spicier for a bit, allows you to suck away enough heat fast enough that it works okayish. It's the scalable, but not ideal, solution generally. Current guidance is don't bother with anything else, just spray it until the flames stop.

I wonder if they could add a "water flooding port" to the battery packs, to allow firefighters to hook up a water hose and flood that battery compartment directly. Seems like it'd be much more targeted/effective/efficient than trying to spray the exterior.

Teslas (and maybe others, I don't know) already have liquid cooling passages and piping leading to the batter pack. I do not know how feasible it would be to add a tap to that system.

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#145

Post by zenexer »

waste_monk wrote: post #113
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #19

Lithium battery fire cannot be 'put out'- in a normal sense. A fuel tank of petrol needs oxygen to burn, and when you spray foam on it your cut off the oxygen and the fire stops. A battery already contains energy, all the chemicals required for the reaction are already present, and once the energy release starts, sealing it from the environment does not stop the process. Ebike and drone batteries are large enough to…

>Ebike and drone batteries are large enough to be properly dangerous and fire departments make noises about them but offer no solutions. A suitable fireproof containment bag + fire-resistant gloves is about $1200 AUD (Brimstone Preventer [1], but I'm sure alternatives are available. This one is small phone/tablet sized and rated for 10k mAh). But most people won't purchase a >A fire extinguisher large enough for a 50…

> This Bag Has Contained 10,000 mAh Thermal Runaway Events.

Is it just me, or is their choice to use mAh—a meaningless unit in this context—a major red flag? Five figures for a bag, and they can’t even get their units right? Is there some “standard voltage” of which I’m not aware?

> Our bags were tested on 4 separate occasions with an overheated laptop, each containing a 3,500mAh - 4500mAh Lithium-Ion battery. The computers melted and burned during these 1 hour tests. The bags showed zero exterior damage. The pull over flaps combined with our carbon liner also absorbed a significant amount of smoke.

That’s meaningless unless we know the voltage. Amp-hours don’t measure energy.

> Tests were conducted with an overheated laptop and cell phone battery (combined capacity of 8,000 mAh- twice as much power as a typical laptop). Our bag passed this test with 100% containment.

Amp-hours don’t measure power—that’d be watts. Neither are measures of energy. This is misleading at best.

Maybe I’m being pedantic, but if I’m paying five figures for a bag and trusting my life with this company, I think it’s fair to expect technical correctness in the product description. This reads like a scam—maybe it isn’t, but the wording is far from reassuring.

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#146

Post by toomanybeersies »

eru wrote: post #74
simondotau wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12kg is like a two year old child or a small-to-medium sized dog.

Yes. 12kg shouldn't be much of a problem for most people, if the weight comes in the shape of a dumbbell and stuff ain't on fire. But wielding a toddler-sized implement awkwardly in front of a fire while you are a bit panicking yourself, might be a struggle for many people. Especially since you probably never practiced this, and you might even have to hold the thing one-handed, so you can aim with the other hand

Fire extinguishers are easier to carry than a dumbbell. They're a tall cylinder with a handle at the top.

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#147

Post by rich_sasha »

nottorp wrote: post #134
rich_sasha wrote: post #110

I'm wondering, in a world where we use LiPo batteries to store seasonal grid level power from renewables (i.e. overproduce from solar in summer and store til winter), how big will the battery facilities be? And how bad would the fire be as a result? It's not immediately obvious to me that these will be hugely safer than nuclear plants. Especially since LiPo battery fires seem to be much more frequent than nuclear pla…

> where we use LiPo batteries to store seasonal grid level power from renewables Can we build enough LiPo batteries to store energy at that scale? Not so sure.

Yeah I'm not sure either but that's the usual comparison point.

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#148

Post by rich_sasha »

HPsquared wrote: post #136
rich_sasha wrote: post #110

I'm wondering, in a world where we use LiPo batteries to store seasonal grid level power from renewables (i.e. overproduce from solar in summer and store til winter), how big will the battery facilities be? And how bad would the fire be as a result? It's not immediately obvious to me that these will be hugely safer than nuclear plants. Especially since LiPo battery fires seem to be much more frequent than nuclear pla…

Depends on the facility design: whether it's possible for the whole place to go up at once, or if it's divided into sections that are isolated from each other. Even individual batteries and cells can be isolated from each other if there's enough space. Space and weight, and firefighting ability are much less of a constraint in these types of facilities than they are in an EV battery.

Still, there's some rate at which these things ignite, the main choice seems to be lots of small fires vs few large ones. Firefightability matters for sure but I'd guess is second order?

What's the total expected number of LiPo fires per GW of base load, assuming intermittent renewables and grid storage?

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#149

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

Doxin wrote: post #120
radium3d wrote: post #71

Might be different for various lithium batteries but here is what Tesla's Emergency Response Guide recommends: USE WATER TO FIGHT A HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY FIRE. If the battery catches fire, is exposed to high heat, or is generating heat or gases, use large amounts of water to cool the battery. It can take between approximately 3,000-8,000 gallons (11,356-30,283 liters) of water, applied directly to the battery, to full…

> Tesla does not recommend placing the vehicle in a large container full of water. I wonder why? It's what the fire brigade here has settled on and it seems to be thoroughly effective at avoiding re-ignition.

Car is totaled.

Re: Li-ion battery warehouse fire put out with Portland cement (2021)

#150

Post by Doxin »

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #149
Doxin wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla does not recommend placing the vehicle in a large container full of water. I wonder why? It's what the fire brigade here has settled on and it seems to be thoroughly effective at avoiding re-ignition.

Car is totaled.

It's gonna be totaled in either case I imagine. Can hardly imagine the battery catching fire without somehow damaging the rest of the car.
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