Thermal Runaway & Battery Fires
May 1, 2022
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Talking of lithium battery fires, this presentation by one of the UK’s leading experts on battery safety is well worth a watch.
It starts at 1:01:50 in.
It lasts about 20 minutes, but if you want to skip the middle bit, you should definitely watch the last bit at 1:18:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The big problem with Li-ion batteries and al the hazardous substances that can be emitted in a thermal runaway event leading to fire and/or explosion is that the Health & Safety Executive refuses to consider them as a major hazard. Consequently Fire and Rescue Services do not understand thermal runaway events and do not know how to deal with them. Has the HSE been told by the government to ignore battery hazards, as their policies would be in tatters if people knew how dangerous these things are?
See below. I’ve been in correspondence on this with my LA and MP, who may well be a contributor to this site. If she is I hope she reads all the comments.
Perfect timing, Paul. I’ve just submitted an objection to a charging station and this isdamning evidence. It’s time it was addressed nationally by fire and safety experts and suitable rules developed. It should also impact on BRE and planning rules.
A truly shocking, detailed exposition of the hazards of these devices —but a little puzzling that professor Paul Christensen, whilst explaining and illustrating the dangers, should announce that he is a “great fan” of lithium-ion batteries (LiBs).
Certainly, they are of tremendous utility in our everyday devices. But the proliferation of larger-scale installations —e.g. home packs, vehicles, industrial and grid scale— as a predictable outcome of net-zero hysteria, bodes ill for the future.
And, delinquent energy policy will result in more battery packs being installed in homes to combat inevitable electricity blackouts. As an architect (retired now) I see no safe way to install these things in the home without major constructional adaptation. The advice is even to avoid parking your EV in the built-in garage!
Oh, and remember not to crash your BEV.
Or let someone else crash into you!
Wow that is scary, I worked in circuit protection (fuses) for 25 years, and generally the simple wire fuse correctly selected in series with the load would interrupt the current flow before thermal runaway. Banging a nail through the battery is an extreme test and not likely to happen in the real world. If you short out a 33 kilovolt line (with no protection) you also get a spectacular bang and cascades of arc products. However I do share Paul Christensen’s concern about in home batteries, particularly second hand ones from EVs. that should be discouraged. As usual with this alleged climate emergency, we are ahead of the development curve, rushing in with vast investments in underdeveloped and unproven technology, it will end badly.
There’s an armco barrier at a junction of the M40 near me that, because of poor junction design (probably), gets rammed on average, about three times a year. I wouldn’t want to test an EV against it.
As for MPs needing to seek advice, Paul Christensen is in Newcastle and hardly a difficult person to get hold of, I would guess.
” Banging a nail through the battery is an extreme test and not likely to happen in the real world”
Maybe not, however with EV batteries invariably being mounted under the vehicle floor, there is still the risk of damage if (for example) the car runs up and over roadside metal furniture during a crash. It wouldn’t need direct penetration of a cell, just crushing sufficient to break the dielectric in one cell, and thermal runaway is almost certain.
Did not some German cities ban E/Vs from public car parks for this reason? Maybe the politicos have over-ridden that now.
GeoffB makes a good point about rushing into unproven solutions like batteries, hydrogen and even windmills. The Law of Unintended Consequences is very valid.
The Law of Unintended Consquences is the only law that can be guaranteed to come into effect when it will cause the greatest embarrassment. It’s a corollary of Murphy’s Law.
I wonder when we will see multistory car parks banning evs
Slightly OT, but the first part of the webcast was a big sell on grid-scale battery systems. Admittedly Australia has a different climate to the UK, but the speakers were claiming that because they’ve got so high a renewables content (mainly solar) that there’s no longer a base load scenario and thus coal is dead (or soon will be) They made a big thing about batteries being used not for storage but frequency control, lots of $$$s to be made. Could it translate to our situation?
And another thing – Professor Christensen made a big issue of the danger of using second life batteries in fixed installations, shooting a hole in the economics of EVs?
Australia is in the midst of a federal election and Labor and the Greens (with their allies in the media) are flat out promoting the wonders coming. A lot of Australians are immune to political promises but they hope to swing the balance, so repeated claims that “coal is dying” and the new paradise of Net Zero are made.
Australia’s generation depends on coal and gas. WA is distinct and uses gas, and with generally sunny weather solar is popular as a way of reducing electricity bills. Household solar is popular elsewhere for the same reason (although less so in Victoria & Tasmania).
South Australia is the only State where solar is prominent, having dumped coal except for that imported from Victoria (and plans to do so from NSW). On a sunny WE day the supply from solar can meet demand for nearly one hour, much heralded, but the truth is that SA depends on gas and diesel and imports, and has the highest retail electricity cost in the country.
The various governments have done their best to eliminate coal, by subsidies + preferences for renewables. The result has been no new coal burners for 15? years, and the number of stations has dwindled and been shut down owing to poorer economics, but coal still provides 68-70% of electricity. 2 big plants are due to shut down in the next 2 years which will be a disaster, but the resulting blackouts will catch most politicians and all greenies by surprise.
Wind output generally has been poor.
And yes, the BIG Batteries are only good for some frequency control (when renewables drop and until coal & gas can fire up. SA always runs some gas fired even when the sun is shining for the same reason, as the BIG Battery has only enough capacity to supply about 6 minutes (theoretically) and maybe 40 seconds. There is a bigger battery in Victoria and I think the fire damage has been repaired, but as their demand is much higher that battery won’t keep the lights on once coal starts to stop.
Thanks Graeme.
This is a must view Barrie. The Professor is from Newcastle University. I just wonder if the likes of Stark, Deben, Bunter and Kwarteng are taking any notice.
Michael
Sent from my iPhone
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The latest issue of “Computer Active ” magazine has an excellent article on Uninterruptible power supplies for home users of computers, given the present concern about blackouts. There is no mention of safety concerns , probably because the battery maintained supplies only produce about 700W for no more that 1/2 hour . However at the end there is mention of more powerful units , permanently attached to the power supply, for use in offices.
I doubt if the businesses using them do a risk assessment , and I am sure that the relevant Govt Depts have no interest in suggesting these batterties may have a problem , but insurance companies faced with compensation in the event of an unquenchable fire halfway up the Shard may take a differeent view.
“The latest issue of “Computer Active ” magazine has an excellent article on Uninterruptible power supplies for home users of computers”
And soon to be a necessity for anyone still using a landline, if BT/Openreach push on with replacing the traditional copper network with fibre and VOIP. When that happens people with poor/non existent mobile coverage won’t even be able call the power company when the lights go out! There is a short article in the latest “Boundless” (former CSMA) magazine saying those at risk can request a backup for their phones, but completely fails to mention these will still be useless unless the router (which provides the broadband for VOIP) is also powered up! And even those with good coverage are at risk if the power cut is extended, since most of the base stations will run out of battery power, whereas simple landline phones are connected to telephone exchanges with diesel gensets, and several days worth of fuel…
Dave W: good point…..and how many homes still have one of the old, plug-in handsets which will still work when the power goes off, unlike cordless kit?
There’s a lot of focus on 100% EVs with respect to these issues. We rather overlook the fact that the various forms of hybrid all use the same battery tech (afaik), just in varying sizes.
“Mild hybrids” have a small battery – a few kWh – which gives slight boost to performance and efficiency.
“Self-charging hybrids” generally have bigger batteries to allow some electric-only driving: these can be 10 – 15 kWh.
“Plug-in hybrids” are much the same as self-chargers but with the added gubbins to allow for external charging.
Hybrid sales outnumber pure EVs. From the SMMT sales report for 2021:
“190,727 new BEVs joined Britain’s roads, along with 114,554 plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), meaning 18.5% of all new cars registered in 2021 can be plugged in. This is in addition to the 147,246 hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) registered which took a further 8.9% market share in a bumper year for electrified car registrations, with 27.5% of the total market now electrified in some form.”
So there are a lot more of these batteries on the roads than the EV-only numbers, albeit many of them are relatively small.
A secondary issue is battery warranties. Aiui most full BEVs have long warranties on their batteries but hybrids have only the manufacturer’s standard. In many hybrids the battery is linked to a starter/generator integrated into the transmission. If the battery fails the car cannot be started. A new battery can be horrendously expensive, as this recent story shows:
https://garagewire.co.uk/news/must-read/mercedes-owner-horrified-at-15k-cost-of-new-hybrid-battery/