Let’s Speak About Lithium-Ion Cell Transportation

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For those who’ve tried to drive between the LA metro space and Las Vegas within the final couple of days, you in all probability didn’t have an excellent time. A truck carrying a 75,000 lb container with lithium-ion battery cells inside obtained into an accident and the cells went into thermal runaway. The ensuing hearth wasn’t simply extinguished, and makes an attempt to tug it away from the roadway have been unsuccessful. This left drivers caught on Interstate 15 close to Baker, California, for hours.

#Baker #California I-15 closed close to #Baker after a semi-truck carrying lithium batteries caught hearth Friday morning. The hearth was reported at approx 6:30am. I-15 was closed in each instructions by 8:30am.#CaliforniaHighwayPatrol and the #SanBernadinoFireDept suggested the… pic.twitter.com/ea0ec6iHRz

— SLCScanner (@SLCScanner) July 27, 2024

The standard disinformation in regards to the hazard of lithium-ion batteries is already pouring out on social media. They’re supposedly little bombs or hearth makers sitting there in your automotive, and also you by no means know after they may go off. So, we should always all return to burning fossil fuels for all the pieces, and possibly even connect little gasoline engines to all the pieces like within the previous Nissan LEAF business, proper?

However, the truth is that fires of this kind in electrical vehicles, telephones, and laptops are very uncommon. Often, a poorly designed gadget/car or faulty batch of cells will go up and trigger a streak of fires earlier than a recall cures them, however aside from that, battery cells have confirmed to be very protected — safer than gasoline tanks in vehicles.

This security isn’t any accident. The battery cells themselves are alleged to be constructed with a sure tolerance for harm earlier than they’d go into thermal overload. The gadgets themselves have automated battery administration techniques that forestall an excessive amount of energy from being pulled or an excessive amount of warmth from increase. Then, electrical automobiles have strong containers round them designed to resist a really critical accident with out exposing the cells to wreck.

These techniques can fail underneath excessive circumstances, although. For instance, some badly sealed electrical automobiles in Florida obtained flooded after a hurricane, leading to a number of fires when saltwater intruded and shorted the cells out. Often, an excessive accident or one thing uncommon like an fool negligently firing a pistol into the battery pack could cause a hearth. However, total, gadgets and automobiles utilizing lithium batteries are nonetheless safer than the options.

However what about cells that aren’t but connected to a battery administration system and aren’t packaged in a protecting shell to maintain water and mechanical harm away? That’s a query this accident goes to drive us to consider.

Secure Storage & Carry Of Free Cells

Earlier than I get into this, I need to make it clear that I don’t know how this container of battery cells was packed. For all I do know, precautions in opposition to hearth have been taken at each step and one thing extremely uncommon occurred throughout this crash to trigger them to go up in flames. That info goes to have to come back out because the investigation continues.

That having been stated, there are some fairly critical questions of safety within the trucking business proper now. There are just too many trucking firms participating in poor driver hiring and coaching, unhealthy loading and securing of hundreds, uncared for car upkeep, and different issues that we count on skilled haulers to do higher. There are rules for all of this, after all, however the sheer quantity of cargo that must be hauled round the US each day signifies that it will be price prohibitive to test on everyone and ensure they’re all doing the appropriate factor.

Whereas almost all trucking firms, drivers, and folks loading trailers are good folks doing their greatest, there’s a small minority of firms who lower corners, rent drivers with suspended CDLs, use unlawful medication, and many others. Many firms which are thought of protected push drivers to do dumb issues like drive drained, too.

Along with regular truck and cargo security, there are particular guidelines and tips for the protected transport of lithium-ion batteries. They’re thought of hazardous supplies (hazmat), and are topic to all of these guidelines. Guidelines differ for unfastened cells vs full batteries and gadgets which have security techniques working. Earlier than being shipped, the cells themselves have to satisfy relevant security requirements for issues like influence, brief circuit resistance, overcharge, and vibration. Smaller battery cells and packs are topic to completely different hazmat guidelines than bigger ones, as bigger ones are probably extra harmful.

These security requirements are far too complicated to completely tackle right here (however you may learn all about them right here), however in brief, cells and batteries need to be cared for at each stage. The cells themselves, the packaging they’re in, the temperatures, and the general load of batteries are all regulated. On high of that, there are particular guidelines for any cells which are used, broken, or topic to remembers to make these hundreds even safer.

A Lot Of Failure Factors

While you stack all of those rules, there are loads of issues that may go fallacious. Basic items, like a drugged out or unhealthy driver, or an unsecured load can go fallacious. Extra complicated errors, like faulty battery cells, badly packed hundreds, and such may all be accountable for the hearth. Absent some actual look after ensuring everybody does it proper, these accidents may turn into extra widespread as increasingly more batteries go into commerce.

The rules appear to be well-crafted, and most of the people get it proper, however there are solely so many regulators and inspectors to go round and we will’t delay too many hundreds for inspection or we’d gum up the entire economic system.

Response Is A Huge Half Of The Equation

One other essential factor to consider is how hearth departments and different public security personnel reply to those incidents. If one thing like this occurs close to a hearth hydrant, it’s fairly simple to simply drown the crap out of the burning cells till the chemical response will get retarded sufficient to get the flames underneath management. It’s a fancier model of this joke:

However when the accident occurs in the midst of the desert and 1000’s upon 1000’s of gallons of water aren’t available, it’s robust to take that method. So, improved strategies for coping with these sorts of rural fires are going to must be developed.

Featured picture by the San Bernardino Hearth Division (Public Area).