Lithium Batteries Reignited Tuesday at the Moss Landing Power Plant Fire Site (sfgate.com) 34
Remember that battery plant fire last month in Moss Landing, California? Tuesday night local firefighters "determined that a group of lithium batteries in an area that had previously burned during the January 16 fire had smoldered and reignited," reports SFGate.
Fire Chief Joel Mendoza said the flames burned at varying intensities throughout Tuesday night before the fire burned itself out at about 8 a.m. on Wednesday. Additional flare-ups at the site are expected due to weather exposure and damage to the remaining batteries. "Rekindling is very, very likely — almost a certainty," said EPA onsite coordinator Eric Sandusky, adding that rain and humidity can interact with the damaged batteries, leading to short circuits and reignition. To further reduce fire risk, Sandusky said the EPA is working with Vistra to begin "de-linking the batteries," a process that disconnects them to lower the risk of propagation and prevent a large-scale fire...
"Vistra said that since the January 16 fire, they have brought in a private fire crew that is on-site at all times to monitor the Moss 300 building," according to a local news site.
Fire Chief Joel Mendoza shared more details with the digital newspaper Lookout Santa Cruz. "We've been saying all along that batteries exposed to heat that didn't burn can ignite. We were hoping that it wouldn't happen, but it did."
Fire Chief Joel Mendoza said the flames burned at varying intensities throughout Tuesday night before the fire burned itself out at about 8 a.m. on Wednesday. Additional flare-ups at the site are expected due to weather exposure and damage to the remaining batteries. "Rekindling is very, very likely — almost a certainty," said EPA onsite coordinator Eric Sandusky, adding that rain and humidity can interact with the damaged batteries, leading to short circuits and reignition. To further reduce fire risk, Sandusky said the EPA is working with Vistra to begin "de-linking the batteries," a process that disconnects them to lower the risk of propagation and prevent a large-scale fire...
"Vistra said that since the January 16 fire, they have brought in a private fire crew that is on-site at all times to monitor the Moss 300 building," according to a local news site.
Fire Chief Joel Mendoza shared more details with the digital newspaper Lookout Santa Cruz. "We've been saying all along that batteries exposed to heat that didn't burn can ignite. We were hoping that it wouldn't happen, but it did."
The fire is out? De-link the damn batteries! (Score:1, Troll)
What were they thinking? "Oh, just leave it all there and pray." Idjits.
Seems like incompetence caused the fire, and incompetence restarted the fire.
Re: (Score:3)
Delinking here just removes the escalation and propagation of the fire, it has nothing to do with preventing it from restarting. For that you need to remove all charge from the batteries.
Re:The fire is out? De-link the damn batteries! (Score:4, Informative)
The incompetence was using Lithium NMC batteries in the first place for a stationary application.
Companies in the US and Japan developed NMC batteries because they had higher power to weight. And power to weight makes sense in vehicles to boost range, but in stationary applications that power to weight really does not matter. Because they focused on the NMC batteries, they did not develop the safer (but lower density) LiFePO4 batteries (but Chinese companies did). Because the US/Japan only has good NMC batteries they use said NMC batteries for everything even when the density is not needed and ignoring the fact that once they catch on fire they are almost impossible to put out, unlike the LiFePO4 cells.
China uses LiFePO4 in vehicles, and even Tesla used to put them in one model but because the batteries were not domestic the vehicles did not qualify for as many tax credits.
One wrong step of we need high density and ignore the fire risk, and don't develop anything else. Given enough installations of NMC batteries a fire WILL happen simply because any manufacturing issue and/or accident will start a fire, and once started it will be very difficult to put out.
Re: The fire is out? De-link the damn batteries! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
This facility is one of the first large sites built in the US.
All the more reason for caution. Even if they don't care about the ecologically sensitive region surrounding the plant, they should care about their reputation as a corporation. Whoops! Nobody gives a shit about that any more, either.
It was built before the lithium phosphate chemistry became widely used in battery sites.
Irrelevant. It was available and the benefits over NMC were already well known.
The section with the fire was also built within the old turbine hall at the existing site. It seemed like a good idea back then but we now know that is a very bad idea.
If they had use LFP batteries or put sufficient firewalls with proper venting between compartments of them, then this would not have happened.
When it was designed we didn't know what we know now.
That NMC batteries have electrolyte which is very toxic w
Re: The fire is out? De-link the damn batteries! (Score:3)
Re: The fire is out? De-link the damn batteries! (Score:2)
China developed? A123 Systems was an American company using technology developed by MIT. They ran into financial problems and now theyâ(TM)re Chinese owned.
Re: Seems like incompetence caused the fire (Score:1)
Well, it IS california.
Maybe they should change the name to caliFIREnia.
Re: (Score:3)
This site uses old LG batteries which powered the notorious EV Bolt fires.
They are dangerous unreliable batteries. I'm sure they got a good deal on them if you don't count the cost of them catching fire.
Re: The fire is out? De-link the damn batteries! (Score:2)
Re: The fire is out? De-link the damn batteries! (Score:3)
Job safe for now (Score:3, Interesting)
"Rekindling is very, very likely — almost a certainty," said EPA onsite coordinator Eric Sandusky, adding that rain and humidity can interact with the damaged batteries, leading to short circuits and reignition. To further reduce fire risk, Sandusky said the EPA is working with Vistra to begin "de-linking the batteries," a process that disconnects them to lower the risk of propagation and prevent a large-scale fire...
Well, at least this guy probably won't have a hard time composing his "Justify what I did last week or else I'm fired" email by tomorrow night's deadline.
(BTW, is there any business school outside of the 8th ring of hell that teaches this particular management tactic?)
Making the rounds on Reddit (Score:1, Interesting)
Fulfilled the statutory mandates set forth in 5 U.S.C. 301 and related provisions, I diligently executed duties essential to the operational integrity of the agency.
Under the framework of executive directives and regulatory guidance, a series of critical tasks were undertaken to ensure compliance with federal mandates.
Coordinated with interagency partners in accordance with the principles of 31 U,S.C. 1341, efforts were made to optimize resource allocation while maintaining strict adherence to fiscal respon
Re: Making the rounds on Reddit (Score:1)
Re: Making the rounds on Reddit (Score:2)
Bingo!
Re:Job safe for now (Score:4, Insightful)
"Justify what I did last week or else I'm fired" email by tomorrow night's deadline. (BTW, is there any business school outside of the 8th ring of hell that teaches this particular management tactic?)
That's nothing. Wait until six months from now, when they ask "What have you been doing for the last six months? I have no idea" because they haven't been reading your weekly reports and forgot that they asked you to send them. (true story)
they already have the technical terms for these (Score:3)
LSF - Large Scale Fire
VLSG - Very Large Scale Fire
SGB.-.She's Gonna Blow
FIH Fire.in the Hole
KYAG Kiss Your A$$ Goodbye
NUK - Nucular
TDF Tierra del Fuego (import from South of the border)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a chemistry/physics thing, probably not appropriate to go into that level of detail here. Go watch any of a dozen educational videos on YT.
The tl:dr of it just comes down to thousands of hours of testing done by hundreds of scientists over decades and this is the best compromise in performance/cost/risk that humans have been able to discover thus far. Like why were we using dangerous steam locomotives in the 1800s? Because it was by far the best option at the time.
(and if you don't like where we are
Re:Lithium is Nirvana's only good song. (Score:4, Informative)
Sodium might be a better option for fixed installations. It's heavier, but it's also super cheap and no region has a monopoly on the market.
ixnay on the odium-say (Score:2)
But my blood pressure goes through the roof!
Re: Lithium is Nirvana's only good song. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not a chemist but I'm assuming the high reactivity of cadmium, lithium, and sodium producing high capacity batteries isn't a coincidence, and that their high reactivity is the basis of their high capacity.
One of the most efficient energy storage methods we know of currently is hydrogen/oxygen converting to water in a rocket. Two highly reactive gasses combining to create a very stable molecule releases A LOT of energy, and takes that same amount of energy to "recharge". (split the H and O back apart)
If
Re: (Score:2)
the current darling is LiFePO4, which seem to be safer? But I suspect that's because they're hard-cased cells, combined inside ANOTHER hard case. If those ever wind up in soft mylar pouches they might just be a bigger problem than LIPO. Has anyone seen any research on that?
What you are saying is both provably false and also not based on the reasoning for why NCM is more hazardous than LFP: the electrolyte emits oxygen when heated.
There are plenty of pouch LFPs, like these transmitter batteries. People mostly don't use them as primary batteries because they don't have quite the same current handling abilities as LiPo, and they aren't as cheap either.
I have a LFP jump starter pack from Harbor Freight, the big bulky red one that they don't have any more. I had to open it to reat
Lithium isn't the problem, troll (Score:1, Troll)
The problem isn't the lithium, it's everything else about the plant.
Vistra used rackable batteries assembled from LG NMC cells and installed with insufficient compartmentalization.
They should have used batteries made from LFP cells, and also had more firewalls, although if they were using LFP this almost certainly would never have happened.
But if it did happen anyway, then it would have been a lot less toxic, not least because LFP batteries don't contain cobalt.
Only uneducated chuds act like all lithium bat
Anti-Battery trolls with modpoints (Score:3)
Trying to bury the fact that all lithium batteries don't have these problems by downmodding comments on slashdot won't work. Why waste the time? The person I replied to was obviously pushing an agenda based on falsehood. Defending them is defending disinformation.
Re: Lithium is Nirvana's only good song. (Score:2)
Re: Lithium is Nirvana's only good song. (Score:2)
It didn't help their lead singer.
Didn't know Tuesday was flammable. (Score:2)
Yup (Score:3)