[Rhodes22-list] An Ongoing Lithium Battery Fire At Sea?

[ROGER PIHLAJA]

Hi All,

Speaking of not considering the consequences of failure, the lawyer handling the class action law suit against Boyce Hydro and the State of Michigan, regarding the May, 2020 dam failures and flooding, recently gave us an update.  Boyce Hydro has declared bankruptcy and the State of Michigan has condemned and seized all their property under eminent domain.  It seems Boyce Hydro only carried $3 million liability insurance!  That’s too small an amount of coverage by a factor of ~1000 X!  Our lawyer claims there are no State or Federal regulations regarding how much liability insurance an owner of a piece of private infrastructure must carry.  So, we let this private company build and operate a network of hydroelectric dams for almost a hundred years, fail to maintain them, and then walk away when the dams failed forcing ~11,000 people to evacuate, and billions of $ in property damage.  It’s just a miracle no one was killed.  Parts of my home town of Sanford, MI still look like a lunar landscape almost 2 years later.  If we get any compensation at all, it will be pennies on the dollar lost.

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 21, 2022, at 12:58 PM, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> 
> Wow, the picture says it all. What a mess! At least, all souls were
> evacuated.
> 
> I'll bring the marshmallows. Not much else to do other than watch.
> 
> This reminds me of the BP Gulf oil wellhead failure and the Fukushima
> (TepCo) nuclear disaster, not to mention Chernobil.
> 
> It seems that we, as engineers, have always been quick to create designs
> that make wonderful use of alternative energy sources but have not properly
> considered the various failure modes. Just think about the benefits of
> nuclear energy and the associated consequences resulting from human or
> environmental related disasters.
> 
> Once again, we have assembled an energy system that is burning so hot and
> giving of toxic gases that it cannot be safely extinguished with existing
> tools. When it burns through the hull, it will just continue to burn as it
> settles to the sea floor, vaguely reminiscient of the nuclear subs lost
> (https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FList_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines&data=04%7C01%7C%7Cce87d8e2a2a84b6c9e8f08d9f563d189%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637810631363311010%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=VY1LVXmAL8jjbhgDVne9INaHH%2BMnSfGkUjIkdK5PX6c%3D&reserved=0).
> 
> I wonder if proper crash failure analysis has been performed for electric
> vehicles ... Obviously, the delivery system failure scenario wasn't fully
> evaluated.
> 
> I may begin charging my cell phone, laptop, video camera, drone and any
> other Li based energy storage products, outside my home instead of on my
> nightstand or kitchen table. I really never considered the reactivity of
> such systems.
> 
> Mike
> s/v Wind Lass ('91)
> Nissequogue River, NY
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rhodes22-list <rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org> On Behalf Of ROGER
> PIHLAJA
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2022 8:33 AM
> To: The Rhodes 22 Email List <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] An Ongoing Lithium Battery Fire At Sea?
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> Almost 6 days after the fire started, the M/V Felicity Ace is still ablaze,
> unmanned, and adrift in the Atlantic Ocean.  Lithium battery fires burn much
> hotter vs "ordinary" hydrocarbon fires.  In the attached picture, you can
> see a fire fighting ship attempting to cool the hull by spraying water on
> it.  But, ~1/4 of the exterior steel skin, just aft of amidships, has been
> already been burned away leaving only the underlying steel substructure and
> you can see lots of other steel skin plating blackened and ready to fail.
> Firefighters cannot go on board because of the heat and toxic fumes given
> off by the burning Lithium batteries.  All they can do is spray water on the
> outside of the ship in the hope of cooling it off.  The only way I can think
> of extinguishing this fire would be to pump massive amounts of dry chemical
> fire extinguishing media through out the ship and smother the flames.  Then,
> you might have to wait weeks for the whole mess to cool off.  I think they
> are rushing an ocean tug to the scene.  But, the M/V Felicity Ace is too big
> to put in to any port in Azores Islands.  So, they would have to tow it
> someplace like Portugal?  There might be an issue getting any port to accept
> a burning ship!
> 
> Frankly, it's a miracle the fuel tanks haven't gone up yet!
> 
> With so much of the skin of the hull burned away, it's only a matter of time
> before a storm swamps and sinks her.
> 
> Remember, these are the supposedly "safer" batteries installed in EV's.
> There are starting to be more and more media stories about the role of the
> Lithium batteries in this fire.
> 
> [cid:image003.jpg at 01D826FD.9A2384B0]
> 
> Roger Pihlaja
> S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
>