Tough love for the industry's lithium addiction

[martincohn]

We don’t have to wait for the CG to issue new directives, recommendations and policy white papers regarding HAZMAT on commercial vessels with passengers.
Boat owners and captains could just throw the breakers to all 120V outlets and lock up the panels. (sic) or remove all the wiring to all outlets. Tough love.

Profit margins are small in the dive industry. A boat owner has a LONG list of gotta haves that they need to maintain. To have the ability to cut the 120v outlets would require cost to do some rewiring. Then the related changes to the wiring has to meet all of the USCG requirements (in the US).

And there are plenty of LOB that cater to divers that could care less what the USCG has to say.

 

[personaljesus]

Problem isn't the batteries. Airplanes have LI batteries on them too and you don't see them going up in flames. What's different? Well the pilot and flight attendants don't work for tips and don't give a **** if you're happy or not. So they don't let you skirt safety so they get their bribe for doing their job. The passengers who participate in this are just as much to blame as the owners who don't properly compensate their crews. How about we have professionals out there instead of glorified busboys.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Small profit margins may sink that part of the industry, if charter boats have soldiered on running a narrow path between being eligible for that service and lacking any further stretch in their capacity to deal with new and arising problems then they will disappear in their present form. The escape routes are going to have to comply with new regulations that will come into play as a result of this disaster.

 

[george_austin]

In a past life I worked for RC modelers at their events down in Arizona. Every weekend and some weeknights. This was 1990’s and there were plenty of horror stories from those guys and Li- Io and Li-Po battery fires. I suppose QC / QA and tech has gotten better with these mfg’s.
There’s one thing even worse than the fire many times and it’s the poison gas event when they do pop and burn.
These people weighing in about “ well it doesn’t happen that often so why worry about it?” I figure they have no background in engineering. It’s like the guy that’s always bleating on about “ that’s the way we’ve always done it” - nonsense from an individual not to be taken seriously

 

[george_austin]

Small profit margins may sink that part of the industry, if charter boats have soldiered on running a narrow path between being eligible for that service and lacking any further stretch in their capacity to deal with new and arising problems then they will disappear in their present form. The escape routes are going to have to comply with new regulations that will come into play as a result of this disaster.

The dive boat industry has already all but evaporated in Southern California - we had many more commercial dive and fishing charters 20 years ago. It can’t get much more gone.

 

[Brian G]

These people weighing in about “ well it doesn’t happen that often so why worry about it?” I figure they have no background in engineering. It’s like the guy that’s always bleating on about “ that’s the way we’ve always done it” - nonsense from an individual not to be taken seriously

Well, I do have a background in engineering, which is why I look at numbers before I start to get excited about an incident. RC modelers were often trying to charge batteries as fast as possible (10-15 minutes), then discharging them even faster. The early battery chargers did not have balancing connectors so it was inevitable that batteries would get out of balance resulting in overcharging of one of the cells. Even then the response was to charge in a metal enclosure rather than to slow down the charging.

Even if it is determined that the Conception fire started via a charging lithium-ion battery, it seems like there are other factors that combined to make this fire deadly. Better escape routes, less flammable material, and better warning systems might have resulted in this being merely an expensive accident rather than a deadly one. Boats often have other fuels aboard but we have developed protocols to mitigate their risk. I am confident that we could do the same for lithium-ion batteries.

 

[dmaziuk]

It’s like the guy that’s always bleating on about “ that’s the way we’ve always done it” - nonsense from an individual not to be taken seriously

Yeah, well... There might just be a reason we've always done it this way. You not knowing what that is, is on you.

 

[DiveFlyDive]

The Lithium battery issue should be approached like airlines do. All battery charging is monitored one way or another. On a boat all you'd need a a charging station where all battery charging takes place. It could be semi enclosed with smoke and heat detectors that shut off power to all charging stations if trouble develops. The station needs to be equipped with a water extinguisher (yes water) and a fire sock to place a hot or burning battery in after it is cooled. Heat resistant gloves should be stored nearby. All battery charging should be stopped or trickle charged when batteries are full.
It should also be mandatory to have human supervision 24/7 of not only the boat but the charging. That may be the watch on the boat would need to closely monitor the charging as he monitors the rest of the boat.

 

[george_austin]

Well, I do have a background in engineering, which is why I look at numbers before I start to get excited about an incident. RC modelers were often trying to charge batteries as fast as possible (10-15 minutes), then discharging them even faster. The early battery chargers did not have balancing connectors so it was inevitable that batteries would get out of balance resulting in overcharging of one of the cells. Even then the response was to charge in a metal enclosure rather than to slow down the charging.

Even if it is determined that the Conception fire started via a charging lithium-ion battery, it seems like there are other factors that combined to make this fire deadly. Better escape routes, less flammable material, and better warning systems might have resulted in this being merely an expensive accident rather than a deadly one. Boats often have other fuels aboard but we have developed protocols to mitigate their risk. I am confident that we could do the same for lithium-ion batteries.

Wrong again. The accidents all happened at home and while charging overnight. Where did you see me say they were charging on site during the races?

 

[Popgun Pete]

When the cells get burnin' after the wheels stop turnin' Richard Hammond crashed a $1 million Rimac Concept_One all-electric supercar - Electrek