Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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The Chevy Volt fire is just one recent example of potential safety risks associated with large-scale energy storage
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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14 Comments
Add CommentThis is an inherently silly and pointless article. Can certain batteries catch fire, yes; can certain batteries explode under harsh conditions, yes; does this need to be planned for in the design, yes, and it already is; will it ever be 100% fool proof, no.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow how about our current fuel, gasoline. Can it catch fire under any and all normal driving conditions, yes, only a single spark and you can say bye bye; Can gasoline explode under harsh conditions, of course, that's how we get the car to move in the first place; Is it possible to make it 100% safe, no, not at all, gasoline explode in an oxygen atmospher [period].
inherently, batteries are far supior to gasoline in regards to safety, INHERENTLY! So, why are you even talking about it? Why not talk about the more massive safety concerns with chemical energy storage systems rather than electrical storage systems?
All good points. But the problem is one of image and consumer acceptance. This has considerable potential to harm the image of the Volt and similar vehicles in the mind of the average consumer, with serious consequences for its greater acceptance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't worry about this problem harming the Volt. When you walk up the vehicle in the showroom and see a sticker price more than $40,000, you won't be thinking about vanishingly unlikely battery fires (you'll be leaving).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that you are missing the big picture. While gasoline is very highly explosive, the risks and means of control are well understood, and in fact are a mature technology. Note that millions of cars around the world last for many years without exploding spontaneously, as has happened with the electric vehicles mentioned. It should also be noted -adventure movies notwithstanding- that explosions in serious accidents are rare as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, please note that the natural response of a battery to an overload or excessive heat is meltdown and self destruction. Control of that requires electronic battery management subsystems that also must be designed to be inherently fault tolerant. The equivalent energy management system for a gasoline powered car is a well designed tank! That this defect is showing up now with a production of only a few thousand vehicles is a disturbing trend, and must be addressed before serious mass production is contemplated.
Yes, it is more about "new" rather than "accepted".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat I found interesting is how the Volt is safer because it is heavier. I hadn't considered that hybrids could and are significantly heavier than gas equivolent vehicles.
Could the problems with the GM/Chevy Volt be a direct result of their becoming Government Motors? Run by the federal government and the unions, what could go wrong? Poor quality and shoddy workmanship is what. Buy a Ford.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, it's disturbing if someone would stay in their car for hours or even weeks after an accident, just waiting for a battery fire to occur. If you mangled your gas tank and it started leaking all over the ground, I don't think you would stick around for any length of time if you could help it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are several electric vehicles coming to market and the Volt seems to be the only one having that problem. The Leaf, all electric, has been on the market longer than the Volt and there has not been a single fire with the Leaf. GM killed the electric car a few decades back, and maybe they are trying to do the same thing again by making people believe that the electric battery is unsafe and will burn down your house while you sleep.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGM is owned and operated by the GOP and everyone knows how the GOP feel about anything that improves or cleans up the environment. I don't believe the American people will allow GM to kill the electric vehicle again because we really do want to get away from fossil fuel forever and clean up our environment.
How do you get that GM is owned by the GOP? It was taken over by the Democrats in charge and given to the UAW, who are 100% dems. I'm not finding any GOP connection at all. Please explain how you came to your conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey, why don't we leave the politics at the doorstep when we come here to discuss scientific issues here at SCIENTIFIC American. That goes for both of you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Postman1
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis has nothing to do with politics. And the Volt has been rated safer than gasoline equivolents. This is just a bad title with a decent article covering battery safety issues. I'd much rather store energy in a lithium car battery than as gasoline in a tank.
Thank you editor, for removing the spam!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe killer consideration is simple! IF I run out of gas, I walk to the station to buy a can. Or the tow truck driver has a can.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith electric -- Tow it a charging station. But, you'll only be 10 miles from home!
This risk can be very real even when relatively small amounts of energy are stores. I'm familiar of cases where ordinary deep-cycle marine batteries hooked together in series to increase voltage have shorted out and burned through an aluminum hull in a few seconds. It's not hard to imagine how a battery with enough energy to power an electric car could be very dangerous under some circumstances, either by poor design or because of an accident. Simply beause a large amount of stored energy is not a flammable liquid like gasoline does not make it automatically safe.
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