Science. It can be fun. (1 Viewer)

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I'm currently limited to EISHTMO and V.
How long did that post take you? Asking for a friend.
 
I'm currently limited to EISHTMO and V.
How long did that post take you? Asking for a friend.
This long.

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Helpful aid for us old codgers to function in this modern world. (Source: shutupandtakemymoney.com)

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That is beautiful. I love steam punk. I saw a laptop that was deconstructed/reconstructed in a wooden box, complete with scroll work and elegant brass fittings. I think it weighed about twenty some odd kilos/ forty some odd pounds.
It required an actual brass key to unlock.
 
Lithium is also a group-1 alkali metal and reacts violently with oxygen just like sodium, in both air and water. Once it is burning, it is difficult to extinguish because water also contains oxygen (H2O) which means it will burn in water and firemen have to use enormous amounts of water to try and cool the metal to the point that it stops combustion. Usually, the firemen have to just let it burn itself up while protecting the surroundings from catching fire. Lithium batteries are everywhere and there are hundreds of stories of them spontaneously catching fire from overheating. I predict that in the next 10-20 years, the number of old phones and other items with Li batteries, sitting in drawers and junk piles in peoples' homes as items they no longer want, will start numerous fires as the items' batteries degrade, short across the layers, and then start combusting. A damaged or overheated lithium battery is essentially a thermite grenade waiting to go off. Old lithium-battery-containing items that are thrown in the trash are already responsible for numerous landfill and garbage fires. I predict that sometime in the future they will be banned as a consumer item and only used in special applications, e.g. large electrical storage farms or military devices, where they can be monitored continuously. In my home, I counted over 30 items containing small or large lithium batteries. Even now, it is recommenced that you "don't leave lithium batteries on chargers unattended", as stated on numerous devices I own. There's a good reason for that.
 
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Did the original cell phones (aka "bricks) have lithium ion batteries? It'd be amusing to wear one of those on a belt clip.
They probably used nickel-metal-hydride batteries. These are heavier (energy stored divided by mass is less) but completely safe. I still have a hand-held mini-vac by Skil that uses them. Lithium-ion batteries have greater energy density, but they are dangerous simply due to the fact that they contain elemental lithium. Here's some info on the two types showing energy density by mass (MJ/kg, 2nd column) and by volume (MJ/L, 3rd column). From Wiki.

NiMH (low power design) 0.40 1.55
Lithium-ion 0.46-0.72 0.83-3.6
 
Lithium is also a group-1 alkali metal and reacts violently with oxygen just like sodium, in both air and water. Once it is burning, it is difficult to extinguish because water also contains oxygen (H2O) which means it will burn in water and firemen have to use enormous amounts of water to try and cool the metal to the point that it stops combustion. Usually, the firemen have to just let it burn itself up while protecting the surroundings from catching fire. Lithium batteries are everywhere and there are hundreds of stories of them spontaneously catching fire from overheating. I predict that in the next 10-20 years, the number of old phones and other items with Li batteries, sitting in drawers and junk piles in peoples' homes as items they no longer want, will start numerous fires as the items' batteries degrade, short across the layers, and then start combusting. A damaged or overheated lithium battery is essentially a thermite grenade waiting to go off. Old lithium-battery-containing items that are thrown in the trash are already responsible for numerous landfill and garbage fires. I predict that sometime in the future they will be banned as a consumer item and only used in special applications, e.g. large electrical storage farms or military devices, where they can be monitored continuously. In my home, I counted over 30 items containing small or large lithium batteries. Even now, it is recommenced that you "don't leave lithium batteries on chargers unattended", as stated on numerous devices I own. There's a good reason for that.

They are the cause of multiple garbage truck fires when the truck compacts the load. The current method of dealing with such fires is for the garbage truck to dump its load on the road and drive away thus minimising the cost of the damage to the truck - "minor" damage instead of total destruction.
 
An incident in a hobby shop:
I had just gone into the hobby shop as it opened. Mike was behind the counter opening the register and Ray was walking around the store turning on the lights. As Ray walked back to the front, he commented to Mike, "I think we have a ballast going bad. I can smell it. But, all the lights are on."
Mike says, "See if you can tell which one." Ray returns and says, "It's smoke coming from the showcase. It's one of the batteries UPS delivered yesterday."
Three lithium R/C battery packs were delivered the previous day and one was smoking. It was quickly thrown out back. There was no obvious physical damage to any of the three batteries.
 
I would like to see the results of other electric vehicles in the same crash tests. I suspect that all go the same way with the possible exception of hybrids.
While I agree with you in general, there may have been a non Tesler EV that didn't get all explodey in the video.
 

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