Posted on 12/27/2023 7:51:54 AM PST by Red Badger
The batteries generate their own oxygen from the metal oxides so that won’t work. Only way to stop them from burning is to cool them enough to stop the thermal runaway. For now, that seems to mean flooding the zone with water but I guess it only works if you can get enough water to the right spot.
“And how should they be fought?
Don’t buy them!
Minutes....................
“And how should they be fought?
Don’t buy them!
In the Navy, everyone has to go through firefighting and in the case of air wings, flight deck firefighting. If a magnesium flare is ever accidentally ever lit off on deck, the proper response is to simply wash the flare overboard with a high pressure fire hose. Which is of course impossible with a car.
“When insurance companies unite to refuse to insure electric vehicles, the market will collapse.”
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My son bought a Tesla, and he gets his insurance through Tesla. So it’s unlikely Tesla would refuse to insure its own vehicles.
I don’t know what the insurance policy (!) of other EV manufacturers is.
I have a lithium ion battery that I use to power a CPAP machine in the event of a power outage.
I have been aware of the incendiary characteristics of these batteries long enough to store it inside a fireproof century safe when not in use in the event that it decided to self immolate.
“Only way to stop them from burning is to cool them enough to stop the thermal runaway.”
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Just for the intellectual exercise, could an EV battery fire be cooled enough to suppress it with dry ice or even liquid nitrogen? How much of each would it take?
I got a chemistry set one Christmas.
Had a similar outcome..................😉
450-600 AA batteries ought be enough to power a Tesla with much less risk of catching fire.
“sodium chloride powder or pressurised argon,”
NO PROBLEM. Now we just need another two tons of salt to smother the fire or two tons of argon bottles to suffocate the fire. It is going to be great when we are all forced in to these. Insurance rates, electricity rates, brownouts.
Quiz: find one sentence in the article that explains what causes EV fires and why they are so intense.
The article says don’t overcharge the batteries. No EV charger is going to overcharge a battery.
Making the batteries self-quenching when a fire starts seems within the realm of possibility to me but is above my pay grade to even speculate about. Something worth mentioning is that they have formulations now that are much less prone to thermal runaway. In particular there’s one called LFP (lithium ferrous phosphate) that Tesla has started using in most of their vehicles. It also has the advantage of not using cobalt so it’s easier to source.
That will include pleasure craft (boats) once the actuaries have the data (sooner than later).
What about a truckload of baking soda?
Liquid hydrogen if you have some handy.
The idea of making cars that used radioactive material, radium, for fuel dates back to at least 1903. Analysis of the concept in 1937 indicated that the driver of such a vehicle might need a 50-ton lead barrier to shield them from radiation.[21]
In 1941 Dr R M Langer, a Caltech physicist, espoused the idea of a car powered by uranium-235 in the January edition of Popular Mechanics. He was followed by William Bushnell Stout, designer of the Stout Scarab and former Society of Engineers president, on 7 August 1945 in The New York Times. The problem of shielding the reactor continued to render the idea impractical.[22] In December 1945, a John Wilson of London, announced he had created an atomic car. This created considerable interest. The Minister of Fuel and Power along with a large press contingent turned out to view it. The car did not show and Wilson claimed that it had been sabotaged. A later court case found that he was a fraud and there was no nuclear-powered car.[23][24]
Despite the shielding problem, through the late 1940s and early 1950s debate continued around the possibility of nuclear-powered cars. The development of nuclear-powered submarines and ships, and experiments to develop a nuclear-powered aircraft at that time kept the idea alive.[25] Russian papers in the mid-1950s reported the development of a nuclear-powered car by Professor V P Romadin, but again shielding proved to be a problem.[26] It was claimed that its laboratories had overcome the shielding problem with a new alloy that absorbed the rays.[27]
In 1958 at the height of the 1950s American automobile culture there were at least four theoretical nuclear-powered concept cars proposed, the American Ford Nucleon and Studebaker Packard Astral, as well as the French Simca Fulgur designed by Robert Opron[28][29] and the Arbel Symétric. Apart from these concept models, none were built and no automotive nuclear power plants ever made. Chrysler engineer C R Lewis had discounted the idea in 1957 because of estimates that an 80,000 lb (36,000 kg) engine would be required by a 3,000 lb (1,400 kg) car. His view was that an efficient means of storing energy was required for nuclear power to be practical.[30] Despite this, Chrysler's stylists in 1958 drew up some possible designs.
In 1959 it was reported that Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company had developed a new rubber compound that was light and absorbed radiation, obviating the need for heavy shielding. A reporter at the time considered it might make nuclear-powered cars and aircraft a possibility.[31]
Ford made another potentially nuclear-powered model in 1962 for the Seattle World's Fair, the Ford Seattle-ite XXI.[32][33] This also never went beyond the initial concept.
In 2009, for the hundredth anniversary of General Motors' acquisition of Cadillac, Loren Kulesus created concept art depicting a car powered by thorium.[34]
The Chrysler TV-8 was an experimental concept tank designed by Chrysler in the 1950s.[1] The tank was intended to be a nuclear-powered medium tank capable of land and amphibious warfare. The design was never mass-produced.[35] The Mars rover Curiosity is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), like the successful Viking 1 and Viking 2 Mars landers in 1976.[36][37]s="Z3988"> - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_propulsion#Nuclear_pulse_propulsion
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