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CA County Warn People to Shelter in Place Because of Tesla Megapack Battery Fire
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- retrocryptid 4y ago
- parker_mountain 4y agoI was living in Albany when the Chevron plant went up in 2012. I had just moved their from the Millbrae hills a year prior (to get closer to bart, and my friends) - where I was down wind of San Bruno in 2010. So, I have bad luck. I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold Tesla accountable, but the gently implied premise that somehow this is a battery-exclusive problem is distasteful me.
- retrocryptid 4y agoIt's not the Chevron plant that was burning.
- parker_mountain 4y agoMissing the point. Horrible, toxic fires are not exclusive to batteries. I have personally lived through two horrible gas-based fires, which is anecdotal. However, there are tons of examples. This current fire is a disaster, yes. And it should be investigated rigorously. And we should learn from it, and if willful negligence was involved, prosecute accordingly.
- smadge 4y agoI wonder if the hazards from chemical batteries tips the scales in favor of otherwise less economical flywheel energy storage.
- Panzer04 4y agoStoring battery-tier volumes of energy in spinning flywheels sounds terrifying on scale - a cursory search indicates 1kWh ~ 1 KG of TNT. I guess it depends on the risk of an exploding flywheel, but batteries seem likely to fail in a much less explosive manner as opposed to a failed flywheel.
- rad_gruchalski 4y agoWhat’s “KG” in this context? As in, serious question because I can’t parse that sentence. Is it supposed to be “kg”?
- function_seven 4y agoYes it’s a kilogram.
- Commodore63 4y agoThermal runaway is a contagious failure mode.
- smadge 4y agoMy thought was that a failed flywheel would be locally catastrophic but as long as you are not building homes right next to them, it would be safe for the surrounding community and not inconvenience or put civilians danger.
- 20after4 4y agoTypical flywheel energy storage relies on enormous mass rather than high rotational speed. I don't think that flywheel storage is necessarily hazardous.
- dingosity 4y agoSure. Other types of energy plants burn. This might be the only one for which Elon Musk has culpability, though.
- dingosity 4y agoThis may not be Elon's fault. Maybe Li-Ion batteries for grid storage just aren't there yet. The facility next door to the PG&E/Tesla one had problems several months ago. https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypw5x/largest-lithium-ion-battery-in-the-world-meltdown-moss-landing https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypw5x/largest-lithium-ion-b...
- mistrial9 4y agowell, first off I am sorry to hear bad news and wish everyone affected well. Nobody wins in a real emergency and this is a hard job. However, the quote about the California Highway Patrol at the bottom is not accidental or naive. There is a security response in California that is being implemented, whereby homeowners and private property owners are geofenced via their phones and other means, and the State of California has broad discretion on how far, and for how long, these emergency responses go on. In other words, road closure was the old tool of the old Calif. Highway Patrol. But the new tools of individual GPS tracking via phone and vehicle, banning entrance and exit to very large areas, for broadly varying amounts of time, is being seized by emergency response agencies in the new times. What is the proof of this? Two things from public sources.. One is the Mayor of a California town near Monterey actually, at a CalFIRE public briefing during an emergency, asking sheepishly how long the road closure to his entire town will be in effect, and the abrupt reply of the Highway Patrol officer on camera "it could be six months" .. Secondly, a website that shows new safety perimeters with status, that are very large (portions of a county) and did not exist as such previously. ask Charlie Crocker at ZoneHaven and see what he says, on the public record
- actually_a_dog 4y agoWhat's your point? Are you claiming this is good, bad, or neither? What does any of this have to do with literally anything in the article?
- mistrial9 4y agoWhere are the checks and balances here? How much capacity for tracking in real time is appropriate with private citizens in the USA during emergency response? What is the budget for ZoneHaven and its disclosed or otherwise partners ? public money in emergency response means accountability and lawful transparency, particularly if you want to run for President of the United States, Governor Newsom.
- actually_a_dog 4y agoI don't know the answers to any of those questions, and you haven't shown me anything but rants. Not that this would detract from any argument you made (if you had made one), but you sound like a goddamn lunatic. And again: what does any of this have to do with the article?
- yalogin 4y agoThe article doesn’t talk about how the battery pack caught fire. I would expect a lot of engineering to go into the safety of these packs. Details of what happened would be fascinating
- Commodore63 4y agoI'm surprised they don't use LiFePO4? Safer, vastly more charge cycles, and it's not like packaging is a big deal.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bryanlarsen 4y agoThe next generation of Megapack uses LiFePO4, but older ones don't. https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-has-released-a-new-megapack-xl-with-lfp-batteries-50-more-powerful-than-the-previous-one https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-has-rel...
- egberts1 4y agoAt the Elkhorn Battery facility, the 182.5-megawatt energy storage facility went online in April 2022. The system includes 256 Tesla Megapack battery units on 33 concrete slabs. So, it’s PG&E now trying to boost their base (non-cyclic) power supply but I suspect that it is not extreme charge/discharge cycle to be the culprit but probably the consumer load as being too excessive and overbearing on this facility.