BEVs are dangerous

[orthoclad]

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) are involved in two recent ship fires which were extremely difficult to extinguish. One was in New Jersey last week. The fire took the life of two firefighters and injured five more. Another is still burning (as of 7/27) off the coast of the Netherlands. A ship crew member died; I don't know the cause. The rest of the crew was rescued. Some plunged from the ship into the sea to escape the fire. This sounds to me like a rapid, intense fire which induced panic.

According to Associated Press, the ship burning off the Netherlands was heavily laden with BEVs.
https://apnews.com/article/cargo-ship-fire-dutch-coast-b3e1de5aa14b5a039067909220a463b6

Company spokesman Pat Adamson said the ship was carrying a total of 3,783 new vehicles, including 498 electric vehicles. The coast guard, citing an early freight list, had said it was carrying 2,857 cars, including 25 electric cars.

Initial reports said there were just a few BEVs aboard. There were almost 500.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has warned about the possible dangers of electric vehicle battery fires, a hazard that stems from thermal runaway, a chemical reaction that causes uncontrolled battery temperature and pressure increases.

The burning vessel was close to the shallow Wadden Sea, a World Heritage-listed area that is considered one of the world’s most significant habitats for migratory birds. It’s also close to the Netherlands’ border with Germany, whose environment minister, Steffi Lemke, said Thursday that if the ship were to sink, it “could turn into an environmental catastrophe of unknown proportions.”

I don't think these burning BEV ships are near as large of a threat as oil tankers. These events did not do the damage of an Exxon Valdez, for instance. But ship fires require human intervention and lives have already been lost. The batteries are a hazard. Once ignited, they are extremely difficult to put out. Usually, they will just burn, but we can't let a whole shipload of them just burn out.

We certainly need to replace combustion cars using fossil fuel with electric drive (plus reduce dependence on personal cars). This will require batteries, even if relatively small ones in hydrogen fuel cell cars, PHEVs, or solar electric vehicles (SEVs). We need to minimize the mass of flammable, reactive, polluting metals in EV batteries. Massive lithium batteries, which sometimes weigh as much as an entire Aptera SEV, are a poor way of solving the fossil problem. Spending a large fraction of the stored energy in the battery just to move the battery around seems like a losing bet. We need to shift to small-battery designs and find a better way to power vehicles.

[multigraincracker]

1. Electric scooters are big fire starters.

Bikes too.

[orthoclad]

2. Those things tend to have

really cheap batteries with zero quality control.

The safer batteries are much more expensive. Poor people using them for delivery/courier work can't afford the good ones.

[orthoclad]

4. Say OK, that was a good video

with some good links explaining small battery issues.

I had a discussion comment prepared.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Didn't we have huge problems with other power sources...

before we decided on gas/diesel?

We'll work it out.

[moniss]

6. Solid state batteries

answer most of our current challenges and are scheduled for availability from some car makers beginning late next year or 2025. the cost is likely high starting out like most things. It will take awhile for the transportation system to morph to anything really meaningful as far as GHG reduction but it is starting. The question remains whether it is enough to really help and fast enough. The only choice we have is to go forward because backward is not an option but we may be screwed no matter what. But we can always count on one thing and that is foot dragging and sabotage by the GQP and the fossil fuel industry. Happy times.

[orthoclad]

10. Thing is, we're relying on "the market"

to come up with solutions -- the same market which created this problem.

When OPEC threatened the fossil fuel pipeline, suddenly we had compact cars with twice the mileage of the old brontomobiles. Then the SUV appeared. They really want to sell us poison. Think "Marlboro Man".

I saw a demo of a hydrogen car on 60 Minutes ca 1980.

[moniss]

19. The hydrogen vehicles are coming along also but

it is not all market driven because the huge auto market of Florida has set the date of 2035 as the year that all new vehicles sold in California must be zero emission. The only way that is achieved is by eliminating direct use of fossil fuels for engines. Others here and around the world are moving with mandates also. The total annual sales of new vehicles in California is over 2 million. If we just took an average price (probably low) for cars and light trucks of $50,000 each that makes the California annual market worth over 100 billion dollars. No manufacturer is not going to want a share of that. So the mandates by governments can push the change that is needed but the market as such may be slow/reluctant to make.

One of the problems I see with hydrogen is that it still requires a "fuel supplier" network and would undoubtedly give the fossil fuel industry a way to try and maintain a death-grip on transportation by being the ones controlling supply as they do now with fossil fuels. I've been rather amazed that they haven't become more aggressive in buying up electricity grid operators/generators but that will probably come. Solar EV combined with solid state batteries may eventually allow more and more people to break free of even grid or charging station dependency. It is sort of the holy grail to have the roof of the vehicle be solar panels generating electricity to power the vehicle/battery. We aren't there yet but people are working hard on that as well.

[orthoclad]

21. China's not waiting for the market

They're defining the market. The advantage of an organized economy.

I'd expect fossil corps to buy up transmission lines as the chokepoint for a monopoly. That's one reason I say that distributed power, in the form of rooftop, community, and parking lot solar, is robust. Central points of power and power distribution are vulnerable to storms, earthquakes, terror attacks. Distributed power means fewer points of disaster/attack and less reliance on giant transmission lines. THE most distributed power might be the solar electric vehicle (SEV).

I think we can adapt existing distro systems for H. Fracked gas pipelines can be lined (hydrogen embrittles steel) by pipe-crawlers, and "gas" stations could use adapted tank trucks.

20 years ago I saw a home methane digester on sale for making biogas. I could see home H electrolyzers. There would definitely be some code and zoning issues, but at least some people could make their own H from sunlight and water. The market would say that that has no efficiency of scale, but convenience and reliability count.

[Caribbeans]

22. "I could see home H electrolyzers"

Here's a demo- from Mike Strizki who built a solar/hydrogen home in 2006

Expensive now yes but China is dropping the prices every month and one day they will be everywhere

TeamSimpleFuel.com is on it too

https://www.ivysinc.com/hydrogen-dispensing-solutions

[orthoclad]

23. I think we'll be able to buy home

electrolyzers in a few years for a couple thou. The expensive parts would be storage and catalysts for efficiency, imho.

That house, while expensive, is a good demonstration of concept. It CAN be done. Economy of scale would bring the price way down. Plus financial credits for not destroying the world: saving on external costs.

[moniss]

25. Think about the days

and ways when people in rural areas got by without electricity. One of the reasons I mention that is that expectations of what living could bring were way less than today. We need to ween people from the idea that anything and everything is to be at their beck and call in life from a consumerism standpoint. Hyper-consumption driven society will never be sustainable no matter what we do with energy.

[orthoclad]

27. "Live simply, so we can simply live"

Good motto. But it runs up against the momentum of hyper-profit and basic comforts, like good light for reading, not to mention the noise we're all addicted to.

One of my favorite songs is Spirit's "Fresh Garbage": "...those things you didn't quite consume..."

I try to show kids the wonders of little things that live under rocks and logs. They love it.

I've spent a fair bit of time without electricity. Worth experiencing. We should all do it for pleasure, if we can, occasionally. The stars come out.

[moniss]

28. Right you are

and I used to spend afternoons on a weekend just driving the most remote back roads I could find and just barely rolling along while I looked at the birds on the fence, the patterns the wind had made in the grass and how the colors of things always seemed just about right with each other. It's not to say I don't miss special things like real honest to goodness supper clubs and a blues joint because I do. They were special because I didn't make them an almost daily thing. But I've never seen a time when people had so much entertainment, distractions, facts, opinions, TV, movies, internet, social media and all the rest but seem so unhappy, on edge and claiming to be bored. Claiming they can't find people to be friends and lovers but they won't stop staring at their phone long enough to start a conversation when they're in a group of strangers some place.

[NNadir]

7. Good luck with that "solar electric vehicle" fantasy.

I started hearing that clownish fantasy way back when the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide was around 335 ppm, back in the late 1970's.

Today it's, as of yesterday, well over 422 ppm.

The car CULTure has always been dangerous, inasmuch as air pollution and climate change kill people. What the car CULTure is not and never will be is sustainable.

The entire planet is in flames, people are dying all over the world from extreme heat, crops are failing, vast ecosystems are collapsing at sea and on land.

This, thus, would be a perfect time to talk about burning cars.

[Think. Again.]

8. Yes...

This very young industry does need to go through it's growing pains much faster than it would if we didn't have the very urgent need to stop CO2 emission as quickly as possible.

Luckily, there are other battery technologies and improvements constantly in the works but it's impossible at this point to say how soon the best possible iteration will become standard, and we have yet to see how H2 for smaller vehicles will pan out.

In the meantime, perhaps shipping and storage of new vehicles could be done with un-charged batteries?

Have we figured out if there is some aspect of the shipping conditions that may increase the risk of fire such as the salt air or constant rocking?

Or were these fires just the result of the average percentage of defective batteries? Can we eliminate those defects?

Developing a non-CO2 energy industry, under such an accelerated timeframe is bound to have difficulties along the way but we simply don't have any other choice...

(EXCEPT ENERGY CONSUMPTION REDUCTION!!!).

[orthoclad]

9. one of our biggest energy hogs

is air conditioning. I've lived through a period of time where it was a luxury available only at the local movie palace, to near-universal use, to recent summers where it was a survival resource.

After the 70s energy crisis we started designing buildings to hold heat in better. Now we'll have to redesign to work summer and winter: reflective roofs, reducing heat island effects, etc. Solar panels help cool a roof.

[Think. Again.]

11. I read somewhere that...

...65% of our electricity is actually "wasted", by that I mean used but not serving any purpose... Lights burning in empty buildings, machines running on idle for long stretches, various electronic features that could be eliminated with no affect, water heaters in weekend homes, things like that.

I'd consider that, and wastes of other energy, our biggest hogs.

[orthoclad]

12. Wall warts, usb plugs, lots of

"vampire" energy waste. If it has a transformer and is plugged in, it's drawing current, even if there's no load attached. But for an actively occupied building, AC is the biggest load. I lived totally without it for half my life, so I've seen the difference.

There's lots of money made in gadgets with plugs or chargers. At least they don't use vacuum tubes.

[Think. Again.]

13. All of these "wastes"....

...can and should be targeted by a massive and ongoing public engagement campaign, along the lines of the WW2 war effort, moon race, etc, as part of the national energy transition effort.

When Biden ran on "ending fossil fuels", a lot of expected to see a lot more activity toward that effort.

[orthoclad]

14. Not to mention

No More Drilling. How many times did he repeat that?

[Think. Again.]

15. Yeah, about that...

I understand he is faced with court orders to lease oil land and allow pipelines, but at this point in time it might have been wiser to keep fighting those battles in court long enough to (hopefully) make the leases and pipelines economically un-feasible to the CO2 industry.

[orthoclad]

16. Why do Dems

follow courts when Rs never do? They never stop fighting. Appeal after appeal and every delaying tactic possible. They never give up. We roll over.

We also have record Gulf acreage OKed for fossil leasing now, and an act of Congress to force the Mountain Valley Pipeline through the courts when we surrendered to the debt ceiling terrorists' ransom demands. All we got out of that was a "promise" they won't do it again for two more years. We could have passed an act removing their ability to extort when we had Congress, citing the Constitution, or we could have called their extra-constitutional bluff. Promises from Greene and Gaetz? Fossil is steaming full ahead. Drill, baby, drill.

Rant over. (grin)

[Think. Again.]

17. I feel your pain....

And agree.

Sometimes we need to put results before ...everything.

This is one of those time.

[orthoclad]

18. But the result is more drilling...

[moniss]

20. Thank you for mentioning

energy conservation. I have watched in awe at the stupidity of states over the last 20 years constantly raising the speed limits which results in increased consumption and emissions while at the same time we struggle to produce more efficient/lower emission fossil fuel vehicles. Like drilling holes in the bottom of the bucket while you're pouring in water and then wondering why you can't get it full.

Conservation measures, i.e. don't do it in the first place, are a critical leg of the stool. But as usual our media is not up to the task of covering this issue. Video footage, for example, of adding insulation in your attic and walls and driving slower is not something you will see much of compared to shiny flashy video of the latest EV, alternative propulsion technology and/or the latest huckster BS from people like Musk.

Engineers can make great strides in efficiency if that is where their energies (no pun) are directed. As you rightly point out we need to reduce what we do consume because the overnight magic bullet is not going to happen. Even with solid state batteries we are going to go through a development/implementation/evolution curve that is not projected to be only a couple of years. Adopting the alternatives for transportation and daily living in our homes and workplaces is wonderful and necessary but it will not be enough without conservation measures/efficiency improvements. A comprehensive approach but as I said the media wants the next flashy shiny toy to put in a video clip and to shove a microphone in the face of someone they want to anoint as a savior. Both of those things are gross failures by the media in helping society come to grips with reality and what needs to be done.

[orthoclad]

24. Conservation...

I grew up with one or two outlets in every room. Our "gadgets" were cardboard boxes and board games, meaning we were creative and didn't spend a fortune on toys. That said, I got a "science kit" every xmas and bday. Simple does not mean ignorant.

(We evil Boomers also made our pocket money by scavenging for deposit bottles and rags to recycle.)

In the 70s we were urged to wear sweaters instead of turning the thermostat up. Energy issues were the Moral Equivalent Of War, which the media turned into MEOW and ridiculed. They literally called people pussies for not wasting energy. Their insult, not mine.

Conservation needs to be a MAJOR part of our strategy. However, there's more profit to be made from waste. Which one will get favorable press, do you think?

[moniss]

26. I remember growing up that way

and we didn't expect to have a mortgage and buy a house by the time we were 21 either. Let alone a new car. I may be cast as some sort of heathen hillbilly but I was in my late 30's before I paid more than $1500 for a vehicle. I bought them cheap and fixed whatever was wrong with them by myself as time and mileage moved on. I didn't expect much materialism wise. I was more Beat and Hippie at heart. It was about people. But like you said the media and Reagan came along and the Yuppies were the new thing along with a Rolex, fancy cars, big 4 wheel drives to drive around on dry pavement and McMansion houses with McMansion mortgages. I pretty much stayed the same as I was.