Lithium battery warehouse goes up in flames
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
The new green technology!
A warehouse in France storing lithium batteries caught fire on Saturday, amid growing fears over their safety.
The fire on Saturday afternoon occurred at a storehouse in the southern town of Viviez, in Aveyron, where 900 tons of lithium batteries were waiting to be recycled.
Authorities ordered residents to stay indoors and keep their windows closed as thick smoke billowed over the town. No injuries or deaths were reported and the cause of the fire has yet to be established.
Lithium batteries, found in electric scooters and vacuum cleaners, are known to spontaneously combust if they overheat or become damaged. Their dangers have raised concerns in countries where e-bikes have been promoted as a climate-friendly mode of transportation.
Questions raised
Jean-Louis Denoit, the mayor of Viviez, called Saturday’s fire “shocking” and told French news channel BFMTV: “Behind all this, there is indeed reason to ask questions about the function of electric vehicles and lithium batteries.”
It took 70 firefighters to put the fire under control, after which air quality tests were conducted and the lockdown order lifted.
France has moved to promote cycling since the pandemic, with e-bikes becoming hugely popular in cities like Paris. However irresponsible behaviour and a rising number of accidents has led to criticism around their use, and how to store their batteries safely.
In the UK, a proposal to build one of Europe’s largest battery storage facilities near the village of Granborough, in Buckinghamshire, was met with fierce opposition by locals who have expressed environmental and safety concerns.
The plan, by the energy company Statera, calls for a 500 MW battery energy storage system that would span 26 acres of land.
Responding to the plans, the Claydon Solar Action Group wrote on social media: “Unacceptable risks of fire, explosion, air and water pollution, a major accident waiting to happen just 500 metres away from residential properties.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/18/lithium-battery-warehouse-flames-recycle-plant/
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Insurance actuaries must be sharpening their pencils on anything to do with lithium batteries or insurers will stop insuring.
Are they allowed to built litium recycling warehouses on Green belt Land?
This is a real surprise. Given the history of lithium batteries who could have possibly predicted such an event?
We have a 300MW Stratera BESS in Devon which when built will have 488 containers of Li-ion batteries. I objected to the proposal, but the planning officer approved it without understanding anything about a BESS or the risks involved.
Whereabouts PB? Your fellow Devon citizen would like to know.
Near Whimple in East Devon (planning application 23/0962/MFUL). There are a few smaller ones in Devon that have also been approved. There is also a massive (400MW in 100 containers) one near the M5/J27 interchange in planning in Mid Devon (planning application 23/01351/MFUL).
Is this a building up of risk policy? Big fires near the M5 have happened before.
Hi Devoncamel, please have a look at my responses to PB. Devon where you are and Kent where I am and prime locations for BESS.
I will, thanks.
I disagree with you Philip that there is a lack of understanding, they know the risks perfectly well.
Regular poster Nigel Sherratt and I live close to Project Fortress (700MWh of BESS originally billed as the world’s largest.) A massive amount of detailed information was supplied by genuine experts. Made no difference. The Local authority were not even allowed to pass judgement as it was decided by Alok Sharma at national government level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Fortress
There is a very real and present danger to urban areas such as Faversham or Whitstable which exceed 25,000. Evil not ignorant.
Having objected to several BESS in Devon, I have seen quite a lot of misunderstanding by planning officers, planning committee members and planning inspectors. Very few of them can understand the technology or their impact on the grid etc and they don’t understand the difference beteween power and energy. They just go with the mantra that BESS are supporting the implementation of more ruinables (wind and solar), (hence contributing to reaching net zero and “tackling” the climate emergency) and are low carbon – even if there is evidence that they are high carbon.
As a secondary point, Devon is destined to be a prime location for BESS. This map can zoomed in and out to the fine details of the National Grid and local District Network. This is the Whimple site.
https://openinframap.org/#16.18/50.766262/-3.403642
There are three main 400kV lines in the county and several substations linking the main grid and the Hinkley Point (somerset) Nuclear site. Linking into the main lines at existing (free) substations is the main driver – the solar farms are a diversionary cover screen. They will claim to be soaking up excess solar power to distribute at other times but the reality is they are picking up revenue from Balancing Mechanism payments and daily arbitrage.
We are well aware of the grid lines and substations in Devon. We have maps showing the locations of solar farms and you can see how they are clustered around the main substations. Now the same is happening with BESS (often in conjunction with a solar farm).
Indeed Ray, they get paid handsomely for smoothing the very instability they create, nice work if you can get it at the expense of ‘widows and orphans’.
In a recent comment on WWWT Idau said the problem BESS in UK were facing was that there was now more capacity on stream than was needed to provide battery based ancillary services and revenues had collapsed.
Burning Lithum Ion batteries produce a host of chemicals, most aggressive and harmful. At elevated temperature the fluorine content of the electrolyte and, to some extent, other parts of the battery such as the polyvinylidene fluoride (PVdF) binder in the electrodes, may form gases such as hydrogen fluoride HF, phosphorus pentafluoride (PF5) and phosphoryl fluoride (POF3).
The toxicity of gases given off from any given lithium-ion battery differ from that of a typical fire and can themselves vary but all remain either poisonous or combustible, or both. They can feature high percentages of hydrogen, and compounds of hydrogen, including hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide, as well as carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and methane among other dangerous chemicals.
In terms of hazards to the wellbeing of those in the vicinity of such an incident, one particularly problematic component is hydrogen fluoride (HF). Although HF is lighter than air and would disperse when released, a cloud of vapor and aerosol that is heavier than air may be formed (EPA 1993). On exposure to skin or by inhaling, HF can result in skin burns and lung damage that can take time (hours to weeks) to develop following exposure. HF will be quickly absorbed by the body via skin and lungs depleting vital calcium and magnesium levels in tissues, which can result in severe and possibly fatal systemic effects. The hydrogen content of the released gases can give rise to vapour cloud explosion risks which have the potential to cause significant damage.
Hmmmm, so apart from being damn difficult to extinguish, they poison not only the air but the people in the surrounding area – a Brave New World, and the Climate Crisis crowd say that this is the Future.
If Sadiq Khan in London and sundry other city mayor’s want the ‘benefits’ of EVs and E-bikes then they should be prepared to accept the infrastructure associated with manufacturing and recycling them, with the attendant risks.
Yup. Hampstead Heath, I suggest, which they can share with the “refugee” tent cities that will occupy the rest of it.
Patrick Moore just Xed this link.
https://database.earth/
He says
Check out this amazing website. Data for nearly everything you can think of globally, regionally and locally.
A monumental effort.
Thanks GA. Looks to be an impressive data collection but is it reliable ?.
I’ve just quickly checked out a few items. The graph of the “Number of Earthquakes per Year” appears to contravene The Common Sense Test.
Depends on what the threshold for ‘earthquake’ is, probably.
Car and boat production identical.
Indeed, such an immediate obvious error does rather cast doubt on the overall accuracy.
Lithium batteries, found in electric scooters and vacuum cleaners, are known to spontaneously combust if they overheat or become damaged.
Then it’s not spontaneous. Dumbass.
fair point, if a little pedantic, since spontaneous combustion implies no external action. However it is a valid term when referring to haystacks, coal mounds etc, and in these cases, it is a similar processes where reactions within the material cause it to heat up to such a level that the flash point of the material is reached (in effect “spontaneous combustion” means heating up and then burning”). For batteries it is a slightly different process and so it may have been better to simply say “catch fire”. However the point is made that these batteries will burn on their own and are dangerous
We had a house fire when a matchbox sized Li battery on charge exploded.
Insurance cost? just under £200,000!
High energy costs are a choice – and an act of national self-harm (telegraph.co.uk)
interest article from last night
February on course to break unprecedented number of heat records | Climate crisis | The Guardian
and more fear porn from the Grauniad …. it is full of it
Yes it has been lovely here in Cheshire . Avoided all the snow and ice. Radishes already growing in the veggy plots. Rhubarb almost ready to pick . The ground warm enough to put in first early potatoes eg Foremost, without risk of rotting and the daffodills – spectacular. I suppose this what its like living in South Devon but without the risk of Li battery farms exploding around you (see previous posts).
Timera has a blog today on National Grid’s efforts to keep the lights on using batteries. We have I think a new record for payments in the Balancing Mechanism as a result:
The Open Balancing Platform (OBP) went live on December 12th 2023 with the launch of the bulk dispatch capability for small BMUs and BESS units through the small BMU and battery zones respectively. This allows ESO control room engineers to simultaneously dispatch multiple units, reducing the need for manual intervention.
On December 15th, 2023, the battery zone was temporarily removed due to manifest errors arising from the inadvertent acceptance of a small number of high priced actions, reaching £99,000/MWh. On January 8th 2024, the battery zone was successfully re-introduced to bulk dispatch and has been up and running since.
Further instances of high price BOAs being accepted in the battery zone have occurred since January 8th due to insufficient warnings given by OBP to control room engineers. A fix for this issue has been implemented as of 6th February. In total 11 instances of high priced BOA acceptance have occurred since OBP launch.
Imagine being charged £350,000 a year for your household electricity. Competence seems to be lacking.
The Timera blog
https://timera-energy.com/our-latest-views-on-bess-value-capture-in-the-bm/
Paul. just flicked on to GB news (i’m usually on Talk) but caught the end of interview with Dr Bing Jones, Just Stop Oil spokesmoron and protester (search him… motorway protests, insulate britain protests etc etc) , initially about the MP homes protests. GB news did take him to task and rebutted many of his rantings. However, he actually blamed the potential death of the 2 year old in the River Soar as being because of climate change (i.e high water due to excess rain due to climate change).
Anyway, here’s a link … the interview starts at 13.13PM
Good Afternoon Britain | Monday 19th February (youtube.com)
There is a 37 acre ESS site due to be constructed near Wrexham that has caused controversy in villages in the locality. It is also close to the A483 trunk road.
https://www.wrexham.com/news/community-speaks-out-over-controversial-plans-for-battery-storage-facility-near-bersham-239796.html
What does BESS stand for?
Battery Energy Storage System
Thank you Ray.
Comments from “Circularonline” – August 2023 – re disposing of lithium batteries
https://www.circularonline.co.uk/news/fire-service-issues-lithium-battery-warning-after-bin-lorry-fires/
“Circular” = for resource and waste professionals.
The article includes such gems as:
Due to the heat generated and the crushing of the batteries during the process, the lithium in the batteries will set fire to the waste in the lorry
and the shocking:
Across the country 48% of waste fires are caused by lithium-ion batteries, which totals more than 200 each year, the fire service said.
Although “country” probably = “county”