[ExI] lithium battery fires again

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
Sent: Sunday, 27 September, 2026 2:23 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: spike at rainier66.com
Subject: Re: [ExI] lithium battery fires again

 

>…The SolarSyngas storage method seems like it would be less dangerous than lithium batteries. True, it involves carbon monoxide, but people piped that into their homes for 100 years. As an industrial gas, it is well understood. Besides storing sunlight energy, you can convert the gas to diesel or jet fuel.


Keith

 

 

Hi Keith,

 

The advantage of this scheme is that it can be set up quickly for relatively low investment.  It scales arbitrarily either direction.

 

Is there any advantage in the SolarSyngas process if you have available stored energy available nearby?  If so, this notion could work together well with your idea.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sun, Sep 27, 2026 at 12:24 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

 

 

For those who track this kinda thing, this fire was in the north Los Angeles basin, not the same as the Moss Landing fires:

 

Temperatures begin to stabilize in La Verne lithium battery units, but evacuation orders remain – San Gabriel Valley Tribune <https://www.sgvtribune.com/2026/09/24/authorities-await-experts-to-help-solve-la-verne-battery-fire-as-temperatures-spike/> 

 

They just happened around the same time.

 

As I fully expected, the environmentalists flocked to the Moss Landing site, searching for (and finding) ways to sue:

 

https://theconversation.com/when-the-worlds-largest-battery-power-plant-caught-fire-toxic-metals-rained-down-wetlands-captured-the-fallout-268848

 

Good chance we can agree that solar and wind power become practical if we have a good safe clean way to store energy, and lithium battery storage becomes economically feasible if we rely heavily on retired car batteries.  We get that they are at greater risk of fire, but if we isolate them well enough, the risk of major damage goes way down.

 

Current techniques are clearly insufficient: these plants do catch on fire, and when they do they are hard to put out.  But if we isolate storage units into about a ton of batteries in each unit that can be quickly isolated (detect battery failure, yeet that hot bed out the door and let it down the hill, burn out safely) this notion can work.

 

spike

 

 

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260927/30d86d35/attachment.htm>