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   simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 10-Sep-2023 07:43:13 JST simsa03
   Gregory Barber, "Big Batteries Are Booming. So Are Fears They'll Catch Fire" https://www.wired.com/story/big-grid-batteries-are-booming-so-are-fears-fire/
   
   « But grid batteries do have their own risks, which some experts say should be better explained to would-be neighbors. Guillermo Rein, a professor of fire science at Imperial College London, says that the industry has done an excellent job making fires rare despite the inherent volatility of lithium-ion technology. But safety measures are still evolving, he adds, and there are significant gaps in our understanding of how to prevent and lessen the impact of the most catastrophic blazes. “We’re playing catch-up,” he says. “The risk is unknown, and it has to be measured.”
   
   SPARKS, ARCS, AND flames are a risk in any electrical system. When they occur in or around a battery, the outcome can be disastrous. When flames warm a battery cell, one of the repeating components of a larger battery, beyond a certain temperature, a chemical reaction begins that produces more heat, triggering the same process in neighboring cells. Thermal runaway can take off in just milliseconds, before smoke or heat can be detected by an alarm system. The fire spreads first within a cluster of surrounding cells that share electronics, known as a module, and then onto others, until a whole rack of batteries is ablaze.
   
   The first layer of fire safety is preventing that initial spark from happening. Most fire testing involves ferreting out faults in individual battery cells—something the industry, which makes millions of those cells each year for all kinds of energy applications, does well, explains Rein. But as they are packed into larger groups for grid-scale systems, testing becomes more complex, and the pathways to ignition multiply: coolant leaks, shorting electronics, faulty installation. Not every pathway is reproducible in the lab, says Rein, who authored a 2020 review of battery safety standards, which he describes as “chaotic.” »
   
   #infrastructure #batteries #renewables #peakrenwables
   • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} repeated this.
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     LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw48a1@nu.federati.net)'s status on Monday, 11-Sep-2023 07:02:00 JST LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     in reply to
     @simsa03 What I don’t see in this article is any plans to locate these batteries 🔋 away from populated areas and important resources. A fire 🔥 is rare, but when it happens, people in nearby communities are told to “shelter in place” as chemical laden smoke 💨 swirls around and in their homes, as if the building will magically detoxify the air they breathe; completely ignoring any danger of residual compounds getting into the lakes, rivers, and groundwater. No wonder people are spooked.
     
     Even anti NIMBYs would oppose it under such circumstances.
     
     Good article. Looks like they did lots of research.
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     simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 11-Sep-2023 07:59:55 JST simsa03

     in reply to

     • LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
     I guess there are various reasons such battery utilities are set up in the vicinity of where they are supposed to provide back-up and storage.
     
     Reasons may include:
     
     a) They can easily use already existing local grid systems (power stations and transformers);
     
     b) They can locally stabilize local grid (sub-) systems in case of fluctuations in power, thus alleviating cascading burdens on the whole grid system;
     
     c) They may lower anciliary services and their costs (less power is needed to overcome larger distances of distribution).
     
     OTOH: If there is an emergency and a fire breaks out and the utility is let burn down, toxic chemicals will spread via wind regardless. So putting them 20 miles away may simply not be enough to protect people's health to outweigh the negative impacts on supply and grid stability. (Remember how the Flint water poisoning couldn't be contained to a local area.)
     LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} likes this.