Posted on 08/02/2021 7:21:11 AM PDT by Mariner
A huge Tesla battery pack was on fire for four days until firefighters managed to put it out.
The "Megapack," at an upcoming Australian power project, caught fire in a trial, authorities said.
It took 150 firefighters and more than 30 fire trucks to extinguish the fire, they said.
A Tesla "Megapack" battery pack caught fire during testing on Friday, and it took firefighters four days to extinguish the blaze, Australian local authorities said on Monday.
A Megapack is Tesla's largest battery product, and can store energy generated by solar panels or wind turbines. The Victorian Big Battery project, where the fire started on Friday morning, is made up of 210 Megapacks.
The fire at the project in Victoria, Australia, was under control as of Monday afternoon local time, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
The green weenies in CA propose such insanity in CA too.
I believe lithium smoke is very toxic and it burns hot enough to melt steel.
But SCIENCE!!!!
All that heat, is there any way to harness all of that energy?
Ironically, it’s not as much energy as went into building it.
My company installs lithium batteries every single day
Lithium ion battery thermal runaway is certainly no joke
We’ve had multiple training sessions on proper labeling and shipping and containment of the batteries when they fail
They may have more kilowatt hours but the old lead acid batteries didn’t have any of these problems
We used some in forktrucks, till the company decided the risk was to great.
Had one go “poof” in another plant.
Here is video of just a TWO POUND PC battery lighting off...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V482lvMRXUg
I was at the scene of a lithium battery fire in AFG in 2008. An “unnamed” government agency was stacking their used lithium batteries in the vehicle storage area, using pieces of plywood on the first group to stack the next group. They did this without informing the DoD activities on the post, nor did they notify anybody.
They did not realize that the batteries were not totally dead, just dead enough to not be usable. The batteries at the bottom of the pile began to overheat without anyone’s knowledge, and after several months, set the whole pile ablaze. It took a bulldozer dumping several loads of sand on top of the pile to finally put it out. And then the DoD activities were notified, in an attempt to get the pile removed.
That is when the SHTF, because the DoD safety officers had no idea what this idiot OGA (Other Government Agency) was doing.
Now imagine a field of several hundred, 13 ton LI batteries...
So, is that considered a failure?
What about the water runoff from the fire? I would imagine that would contain toxic lithium salts plus likely some other rare earth metals. Consider the consequences if more of these mega packs had caught fire…Australia could be looking at their own Chernobyl.
I really do not want to. That fire was the most terrible thing I have ever seen, fire wise. It started melting vehicle tires at ten feet, the smoke was horrible smelling and all of us had to officially record the date due to possible health consequences, and it threatened the whole compound as the heat rose.
I used to do experiments like this in my reckless youth. Potassium is a lot nastier.
A class “D” Fire extinguisher.
Sssssh.
Does that void the warranty? :)
Whatever safety protections to prevent this from happening failed.
This was a small cell phone battery. Imagine what might happen with one of these huge Tesla batteries.... sitting in your neighbor's basement (the neighbor with the solar panels on his roof).
Yeah. Pouring water on a lithium fire doesn't help much...
It makes some awesome gravy
Firefighters have a bad time dealing with house fires when there are solar panels on the roof.
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