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At which point does this become a huge fire hazard?
by elric 1y ago
At which point does this become a huge fire hazard?
- hdgvhicv 1y agoA friend has his own battery setup in a shed. He has a ton of sand above it which would collapse in the event of a fire. I have 1000 litres of heating oil in my back garden which is hardly unflamable. 10MWh of fuel.
- SoftTalker 1y agoHeating oil in a tank is quite safe. It doesn't evaporate rapidly, and will not burn unless atomized or spread out. It won't explode unless provided with a much richer source of oxygen than normal atmospheric pressure air.
- mr_toad 1y agoCan LION battery fires be smothered? Online articles are contradictory. Some say they can be smothered, but others say that they generate their own oxygen, and you need to cool the fire, some say to do both.
- GaggiX 1y agoLFP cells are used in these batteries, they are not the same chemistry as the li-po you find in smartphones.
- bob1029 1y agoPretty quickly. There's also a point where it becomes a serious explosion risk too. Every other fire you can stop if you're right there and you catch it. If a battery pack starts to go, you might have a few seconds before the local environment is incompatible with life.
- pjc50 1y agoPeople are used to having 25MWh of heating oil tanks in rural locations, although those are supposed to be stored away from the house.
- elric 1y agoAssuming heating oil is diesel, it's not very flammable and not a huge fire hazard. Soil pollution from leaks and spills seems like a bigger concern there. But I guess some people have large tanks of LPG which might be a bigger danger?
- pjc50 1y agoEvery now and again there's a black swan event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire
- stoobs 1y agoNot all battery technology is as volatile as Lithium-Ion or Lithium Polymer, LiFePO4 for example isn't subject to thermal runaway, nor are some of the Sodium-Ion batteries (although it's dependent on the exact chemistry being used).
- destitude 1y agoNobody seems to think twice about storing gasoline, heating oil, diesel, and/or propane around their place.
- fdsfdsfdsaasd 1y agoNone of those release hydrogen flouride when they burn (among other things).
- epistasis 1y agoThe cars in people's garages are far bigger fire risks. For example it's not uncommon to have a 70kWh+ EV battery, and the chemistries used to get the extra energy density for cars are far more unstable. LFP (rarely used for cars) is fairly stable. And sodium batteries are even more stable.