Free Republic

A cargo ship carrying 3,000 cars, including 800 electric vehicles, caught fire off the coast of Alaska and continues to burn. The Coast Guard says that all 22 crew members escaped the ship and were picked up by two nearby freighters. The ship, a Liberian-registered car-carrier named "Morning Midas," was on its way to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico, from Yantai, China.. ... the Coast Guard is going to let the ship burn, since trying to put out a lithium-ion fire is nearly futile. ... In 2022, the Felicity Ace, a car carrier slightly larger than Morning Midas, sank in the Atlantic...

If fire departments on land have problems unleashing the torrent of water needed to extinguish a single burning EV, the crew of a ship doesn't stand a chance against hundreds of flaming lithium-ion batteries. A cargo ship carrying around 3,000 vehicles across the Pacific Ocean caught fire on Tuesday. The Morning Midas, a 600-foot cargo ship, was in the middle of a voyage from Yantai, China to Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico when the fire broke out. Zodiac Maritime, the ship's London-based operator, noted that smoke was first spotted on a deck carrying 800 electric vehicles. Once the blaze got out of...

Radio luminescence produced by beta-emitting carbon-14 atoms in an artificial diamond film and captured by a low light intensity camera. Image credit: University of Bristol The first battery made from carbon-14 encased within a diamond that can replace a standard lithium-ion battery has been produced, culminating from years of research. As the original, the battery might fetch a price far above a conventional gemstone from collectors, but its makers have bigger goals than the jewelry market. Instruments powered by such a device could last millennia. Of more immediate relevance, they could last a lifetime when powering devices like pacemakers, avoiding...

A semi-truck carrying large lithium-ion batteries overturned Thursday in San Pedro, sparking a fire and hazardous materials concerns while also forcing a closure of the 47 Freeway and the Vincent Thomas Bridge

An exploding electric bike battery was behind the fire last week at an Auburn inn. According to the Auburn Fire Department, the fire happened just before 6:00p on August 15 at the Cayuga Inn at the Finger Lakes (formerly the Days Inn) at 37 William St. Crews quickly made their way to the second-floor room where there were multiple fires were found. After extinguishing the fires, investigators determined an e-bike battery exploded, causing individual cells to scatter around the room. Damage was largely contained to the room with minor water damage on the first floor room below. There were no...

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found that pedestrians are twice as likely to be hit by an electric or hybrid car than by a gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicle. The scientists have hypothesized that the relatively quiet operations of an electric vehicle as well as high pedestrian density in noisy urban areas could be major reasons. The study uncovered a pedestrian casualty rate of 5.16 per 100 million miles driven for electric and hybrid vehicles, more than double the 2.4 per 100 million miles recorded for traditional gasoline-powered cars.

It's not a laptop in first class or a cheap Chinese scooter smoking ominously in the plane's cargo hold. Nor is it a massive commercial ship packed to the gills with cars being transported across an ocean that has had one of the EVs parked onboard light off, and now the whole vessel is hopelessly ablaze. It's not another fiery EV in a driveway or garage or the solar panels on a rooftop, even though I have covered all of those. Comments regular Global Traveler turned me on to an ongoing drama in, of all places, San Diego County that...

In my self-designated role critiquing various schemes for total transformation of the world energy system, I get to review large amounts of poor, shoddy, and incompetent work. When people get into advocating for this “energy transition,” the stars regularly align to bring forth the most extreme levels of ineptitude. Start with the fact that the “smartest” people are filled with arrogance and hubris, but are not actually very smart. Add that many innumerate Politics and English majors have flooded into a field that cries out for engineering calculations. Add too that groupthink and orthodoxy enforcement prevent anyone from pointing out...

Lithium-ion batteries used in E-bikes and other electronic mobility devices are now a leading cause of fires in New York City following their popularity surged during the pandemic’s delivery boom, FDNY officials say. FDNY Chief Fire Marshal Daniel Flynn told The Post that fires related to lithium-ion batteries have gone up nearly nine-fold since the pandemic, with more blazes related to the batteries happening in the last two months than in all of 2019. “It’s the prevalence of these e-devices on our streets, there’s way more of them now than ever before,” Flynn said.

Since 2017, hospitalizations due to e-bike injuries have risen 43-fold, ... Over 45,000 Americans were injured as a result of e-bike injuries between 2017 and 2022, indicating a 30-fold rise in the number of injuries caused by the popular mode of transportation. Nearly one in 10 of those injuries required hospitalization. ... 2022, e-bikes accounted for 4 percent of the bike market in the United States, up from 0.06 percent in 2015. ... between 2017 and 2022, the number of injuries rose from 751 to 23,493—over a 108 percent annual increase. Men were those most often injured, receiving between 69...

A video posted by the FDNY shockingly reveals how a charging lithium-ion battery sparked a raging fire in a Queens e-bike shop this month. The video, from King Electronic Hub in Richmond Hill, shows a charging lithium-ion battery surrounded by scooters and boxes shooting up a thick cloud of gray smoke, followed by sparks ... “It only took two and a half minutes for this exploding lithium-ion battery to fully engulf this e-bike shop in fire,” the text accompanying the video warns. “When we tell you illegal lithium-ion batteries can be dangerous, WE MEAN IT,” .. The two-alarm fire on...

A large cargo ship with a fire in its hold is being kept 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) offshore of an Alaska port as a precaution while efforts are undertaken to extinguish the flames, the U.S. Coast Guard said Saturday. There were no injuries to the 19 crew members aboard the Genius Star XI, which was carrying a load of lithium-ion batteries across the Pacific Ocean, from Vietnam to San Diego, the guard's Alaska district said in a release.

**SNIP** “It’s getting to the point where [the car] is almost like a consumable, like a TV,” Benoit said. Benoit’s experience heralds a problem that early adopters of EVs, as well as electric micromobility devices like e-bikes and e-scooters, are beginning to face: These vehicles contain big, expensive batteries that will inevitably degrade or stop working over time. Repairing these batteries can have sustainability benefits, saving energy and resources that would otherwise be used to manufacture a new one. That’s particularly important for EVs, which contain very large batteries that must be used for years to offset the carbon emissions...

Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority has issued a domestic commercial vessel safety alert on the risks of ferrying battery powered cars (EVs), download it here. Each ferry operator must conduct a risk assessment for their vessel to ensure that they are capable of dealing with potential EV fires. They list the risks of carrying EVs as follows: High voltage shocks. Direct jet flames. Fires develop in intensity quickly and rapidly reach their maximum intensity (typically within 2-3 minutes). Toxic gases. Gas explosion (if the released gas accumulates for a while before being ignited). Long lasting re-ignition risk (can ignite or re-ignite...

Five cars have been destroyed after a lithium-ion battery exploded at Sydney Airport on Monday night. Key points: A detached EV battery has been confirmed as the source of the fire Fire and rescue crews attended the scene under the control tower at Sydney Airport Authorities have monitored the battery overnight in case of a spark-up Fire and Rescue NSW and the Aviation Rescue Firefighting Service battled the blaze which broke out under the control tower on the southern end of Airport Drive in Mascot. Firefighters confirmed sparks spread from a detached lithium-ion battery from a luxury car to four...

American materials scientist and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery John B Goodenough died yesterday, according to reports. He was 100. The Nobel laureate and professor of mechanical, material science, and electrical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, enjoyed a long and prestigious career in chemistry but is best known for his significant contribution to the development of lithium-ion batteries which shaped the landscape of mobile telecommunications and computing. UT Austin president Jay Hartzell said: "John's legacy as a brilliant scientist is immeasurable — his discoveries improved the lives of billions of people around the world. "He was a leader...

In the past year, lithium-ion battery fires in electric vehicles have led to blazing wrecks along highways that take firefighters hours to extinguish and buildings that go up like a torch from fires that cannot be swiftly brought under control. And now, a plant that uses lithium to make components for batteries for electric vehicles has gone up in flames. A plant belonging to the Livent Corp. was on fire early Monday in the North Carolina town of Bessemer City, according to WCNC-TV in Charlotte. The company said there were no reports of injuries and that all employees were accounted...

Four people died in a fire at an e-bike repair shop in lower Manhattan on Tuesday, with another two people reportedly in critical condition under hospital care. Lithium-ion battery storage has been blamed for the tragedy. The fire broke out overnight in a maintenance shop for electric bicycles and scooters, on the ground floor of a building in Chinatown. “It’s very clear that this was caused by lithium-ion batteries e-bikes,” Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanaugh told a press conference Tuesday, UPI reports.

President Joe Biden’s administration canceled a $200 million grant it previously planned to award to a Chinese Communist Party-linked lithium-ion battery maker after Republican lawmakers criticized the deal. Last year, Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) selected Microvast to receive a $200 million federal grant from a fund created under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. Those funds were intended to help America become less reliant on China for critical supplies like lithium-ion batteries.

Oxygen Ion Battery - A prototype of the battery at TU Wien. Credit: TU Wien Researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have developed a groundbreaking oxygen-ion battery, which boasts exceptional durability, eliminates the need for rare elements, and solves the problem of fire hazards. Lithium-ion batteries, while commonplace in today’s world – powering everything from electric vehicles to smartphones – aren’t necessarily the optimal solution for all applications. Researchers at TU Wien have made a breakthrough by creating an oxygen-ion battery that offers several significant advantages. While it may not match the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, its storage capacity doesn’t...