Tough love for the industry's lithium addiction

[VE7DAC]

Wow.

I disagree with the premise that a consumer Lithium powered device that has a thermal runaway doesn't have enough energy to start a major fire. It ignites something like bedding, bunk curtains etc and it will spread quickly. A lithium powered consumer device fire is NOT at all as easy to put out as a cigarette, nor an electrical issue (depending on access) nor a non lithium battery. The chemistry, how they burn and what temperature is quite different, as are the suppressants that will effectively work.

To your "If you can't safely deal with a small fire on your boat, you aren't operating a safe boat" tells me that while you may have academic knowledge and some certifications , you don't have much beyond that, the speed that small can get large is staggering often, and depends on many, many factors. Your blanket statement is naive at best.

Ad hominems don't help your argument. I've seen and dealt with plenty of li-ion and other fires. The mechanism of ignition isn't important, what it lights on fire is.

 

[VE7DAC]

of note, and I'm sure it was brought up, there is actually a dedicated class of fire extinguishers for lithium fires. Fun fact....

Li-ion batteries don't contain metallic lithium, just salts. Normal fire extinguishers, and even water, work just fine.

 

[cerich]

Ad hominems don't help your argument. I've seen and dealt with plenty of li-ion and other fires.

Well..I still disagree. While I have fought fires (yes plural) at sea, and I am even a vol firefighter and have more than a passing understanding of the issues. I won't claim absolute expert, however many experts disagree with the safety of lithium batteries. To your comments on putting out fires on vessels, real life doesn't bear out what you are saying, especially on small vessels

 

[cerich]

Li-ion batteries don't contain metallic lithium, just salts. Normal fire extinguishers, and even water, work just fine.

I suspect the professional engineer you just "educated" will respond

 

[VE7DAC]

I suspect the professional engineer you just "educated" will respond

What are you trying to say? Lithium batteries contain lithium metal, li-ions do not. That is a fact. I don't care what credentials someone has, that doesn't change.

 

[Wookie]

On your boat, you're certainly entitled to enforce your own rules, but that one is a tremendous overreaction.

I work in life safety. Specifically fire safety. Including fire prevention, detection, and extinguishing systems on ships and boats. I operate under regulations laid out by the International Maritime Organization, American Bureau of Shipping, and others.

Any vessel that is at serious risk from a consumer battery in a cabin space is not a safe boat. Period. You can try to justify it any way you please, but no major vessel operator prohibits the use of lithium or lithium ion batteries anywhere except in ammunition storage lockers.

A consumer level battery (barring anything extreme like a DPV) simply doesn't contain enough energy to damage a well constructed vessel in the time it takes the crew to respond to a fire. In an actual incident, it's no worse than any other small fire caused by an electrical issue, cigarette, or shorted non-lithium battery.

If you can't safely deal with a small fire on your boat, you aren't operating a safe boat. If you think you need to ban batteries from passenger cabins to keep people safe, you aren't doing enough to keep them safe in the first place.

I had a boat that could burn with passengers onboard. I'm sure you feel that your life safety design job is very important. My job was to keep my boat from burning with 34 passengers onboard.

My method was extremely successful.

 

[Boiler_81]

These types of batteries are ubiquitous. Banning them is not the solution. Effective processes and procedures for charging and storing them on board is a more realistic solution.

 

[Wookie]

On your boat, you're certainly entitled to enforce your own rules, but that one is a tremendous overreaction.

I work in life safety. Specifically fire safety. Including fire prevention, detection, and extinguishing systems on ships and boats. I operate under regulations laid out by the International Maritime Organization, American Bureau of Shipping, and others.

Any vessel that is at serious risk from a consumer battery in a cabin space is not a safe boat. Period. You can try to justify it any way you please, but no major vessel operator prohibits the use of lithium or lithium ion batteries anywhere except in ammunition storage lockers.

A consumer level battery (barring anything extreme like a DPV) simply doesn't contain enough energy to damage a well constructed vessel in the time it takes the crew to respond to a fire. In an actual incident, it's no worse than any other small fire caused by an electrical issue, cigarette, or shorted non-lithium battery.

If you can't safely deal with a small fire on your boat, you aren't operating a safe boat. If you think you need to ban batteries from passenger cabins to keep people safe, you aren't doing enough to keep them safe in the first place.

And you are wrong. The United States Navy, after having numerous onboard fires, has restricted consumer lithium batteries severely to the point where the D-cell size (3.6 volt, 19,000 mAh) can't be brought on board, nor can any vaping device.

I am a chief engineer on a Navy R&D vessel. We are frantically searching for replacements for our 34615 batteries as they require NAVSEA approval for use.

Button batteries in GMDSS radios etc. will not be effected. But many consumer products (we are removing our lithium battery smoke detectors in favor of a supervised 12V system) are already prohibited by the Navy. Maybe it's overkill, but on our dinky 200 foot research vessel we've had a number of battery pack explosions. Some in 20,000 feet, some on deck.

 

[tarponchik]

It is the consumer's addiction, the industry only follows the demand. Let me add couple more things to explain the success of LIBs, beside already mentioned. LIBs are 3 v batteries, they do not have to be stacked like the alkaline 1.5 v AAs, AAAs etc. This very convenient for electronics. Also, LIBs reduce pollution. Thanks to LIBs, tourists, including divers, save on baggage weight and bring fewer disposable batteries to remote islands.

I understand the shock the recent tragedy caused, but it had nothing to do with how the fire started. This tragedy was caused by how the fire did spread. If you are hiking in Colorado mountains during the dry season, you concentrate your efforts on not starting a fire because there is nothing you can do about fire spreading if it starts. There is ponderosa pine everywhere and it burns like gunpowder. But a boat (a building, etc) is not a given natural environment. It is an engineered and maintained structure, so you can concentrate your efforts not as much on preventing firestarting, but on minimizing the damage if it starts. You can't foresee every cause of fire, including malfunctioning equipment and people directly violating safety rules, but you can select non-combustible materials for construction; you can set the limits on the volumes of flamable liquids stored; you can take care of fire alarms and evacuation routes, etc etc. So while you can only take reasonable precautions against starting a fire, you can take full control in reducing possible fire damage to a minimum.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Lithium battery charging hasn’t been allowed in any passenger compartment of any liveaboard I have been on..just as an FYI.

My recollection of my most recent liveaboard was that they allowed charging in the cabins ONLY while occupied. If you left your cabin, you were supposed to suspend your charging. Charging using any of the many outlets in the salon was permitted, at least during the day; I do not recall whether overnight charging in the salon was permitted.