
As Batteries Keep Catching Fire, U.S. Safety Agency Prepares For Change - kawera
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/27/503132072/as-batteries-keep-catching-fire-u-s-safety-agency-prepares-for-change
======
Animats
We need to convert over to lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery
technology. Stores slightly less energy. More recharge cycles. Slightly more
expensive. No thermal runaway problems. Does not blow up or catch fire even if
a nail is driven through it.

Anything bigger than a phone should go this route. Boosted skateboards and the
new generation of UL-approved hoverboards already have. Electric bicycles,
which have a tendency to catch fire, need to.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
That's a good heads up, thanks. Went in and read the intros in a couple of
Wikipedia pages:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery)
\- has the numbers specific to LiFePO4

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-
ion_battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery) \- discusses
the various variations of Li batteries. Mentions that "Handheld electronics
mostly use LIBs based on lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2), which offers high
energy density, but presents safety risks, especially when damaged." and goes
on about the alternatives.

~~~
Animats
Many Black and Decker and DeWalt pro power tools use lithium iron phosphate
batteries, and have since about 2008. Neither manufacturer advertises this.
We're not seeing reports of power drill fires, which are devices that get hard
use and many recharge cycles.

DeWalt had a recall about back in 2000 due to battery fires triggered by a
charger that didn't turn off properly [1]. They apparently decided to switch
to lithium iron phosphate, and no further problems were reported. If power
tools were still catching fire, there would be Youtube videos. There are some
videos of fires of early DeWalt models.[2]

[1] [http://www.dewalt.com/support/safety-notices-and-
recalls/201...](http://www.dewalt.com/support/safety-notices-and-
recalls/2016/04/08/14/45/2000-cpsc-dewalt-industrial-tool-co-announce-recall-
of-battery-chargers) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JJZfjzwuvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JJZfjzwuvM)

------
Slackwise
Can we please just bring back removable batteries?

~~~
manicdee
That will not prevent batteries spontaneously combusting.

Replaceable batteries will only address the pain of safety recalls and
increase the risk of fires due to consumers choosing to buy cheaper off-brand
batteries.

~~~
nradov
Actually removable batteries should be less likely to spontaneously combust.
Most battery failures seem to be caused by short circuits due to compression
or flexing. Removable batteries are mechanically stronger because they have
integral cases instead of just relying on the device casing for protection.

Personally I would never buy a cell phone with a built in battery. I always
have spare batteries for my phones and frequently swap them out. It sure beats
being tied to a charger, or plugging an external battery to an awkward and
fragile USB connector.

~~~
gruturo
You state absolutely valid facts, but removable batteries carry one huge
additional risk: You can now go purchase a no-name cheap explosion-prone
chinese one, which your phone manufacturer (barring recent incidents) most
likely would have protected you from, with their QA.

Granted, you can do that anyway today if you go to an unauthorized shop for a
replacement, or even get it yourself via Amazon/Ebay & co., but the general
availability of shitty batteries for retail purchase would increase the size
of the problem by an order of magnitude.

~~~
kbart
You can still purchase and connect "shitty batteries" (aka power banks) to
your phone's USB plug with, potentially, same consequences. The only
difference is that responsibility using external batteries shifts from a phone
manufacturer to the user. I'm yet to see valid pro irremovable battery
arguments from the _perspective of a user_ , not manufacturer.

~~~
gruturo
Actually I had completely forgotten about battery packs.

Point taken, absolutely. Hopefully the crappy ones are simply overstating
their capacity instead of actually trying to reach it within volume/safety
constraints (and cutting corners to do so), so they won't be as explosion
prone - but indeed, valid point.

------
simplexion
Failure rates for rechargeable Li-ion batteries are on the order of one in 10
million cells.

[http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i6/Assessing-Safety-
Lithium-I...](http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i6/Assessing-Safety-Lithium-Ion-
Batteries.html)

~~~
userbinator
"Failure" including everything from fire and explosion to peaceful, boring
death.

At a rough guess, the number of cells that fail excitingly are probably a
fraction of those that fail overall.

~~~
hinkley
One in a million odds breaks down when you're talking about a population size
of billions. A couple hundred cellphones every year catching on fire is still
pretty noteworthy.

~~~
ericd
If that's noteworthy, what does one call a class of product that causes >1.25
million deaths per year?
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-
related_death_rate))

Definitely worth fixing if it's not too hard/expensive, but probably not worth
spending much time worrying about it.

------
kumarski
The unfortunate reality is that battery and solar panel manufacturing
processes are dirty chemical affairs, even with exploding batteries aside.
Just look at the process for solar panel manufacturing......

\------------

1\. Solar panels are made in China, Malaysia, the Phllippines, and Taiwan. (I
think around 40% comes from China)

2\. Solar panels are made from Quartz.

3\. Quartz comes from mines, is abundant, can be found everywhere, and causes
silicosis for miners.

4\. Quartz is turned into silicon. —metallic grade silicon. We use this to
harden steel. (requires a lot of heat) output = CO2 and Sulfur Dioxide. — not
too bad. ;)

5\. To purify the silicon into polysilicon you end up mixing hydrochloric acid
with metalic-grade silicon = trichlorosilanes.

6\. The trichlorosilanes mix with hydrogen that you add to the process.

7\. Then bam, you get your polysilicon, and as well some nasty stuff called
silicon tetrachloride.

8\. For every 1 pound of polysilicon you make, you make 4 pounds of the nasty
stuff-silicon tetrachloride.

10\. Okay, so some green fanatics might tell you that you can just recycle
this silicon tetrachloride stuff into new polysilicon because it requires less
energy, but that’s unlikely because it costs a lot to do so.

11\. If you’re a prudent manufacturer, you say “Fuck it.” and you just dump
the silicon tetrachloride in an oil well.

12\. It acidifies the soil and demolishes any water nearby.

13\. Maybe one day we’ll manufacture the solar panels with ethanol instead of
chlorine-compounds. — this would forego the nasty stuff — silicon
tetrachloride.

14\. That’s just the process to get polysilicon, there’s still a ton more to
do and a ton of risks afterwards. But anyhow, let’s progress.

15\. There’s got to be a better way, right?

16\. Well there is, or so the hippies will proclaim.

17\. There’s thin-film solar cells.

18\. Most thin film cells are made from cadmium telluride and copper indium
gallium selenide — often called CIGS

19\. Usually you’ll layer these and splice in some cadmium sulfide.

20\. Cadmium is carcinogenic.

21\. You don’t want to be dumping cadmium all over junk yards, but that’s what
happens to post-consumer waste.

\----------- I'd even go as far as to say the nuclear disposal waste risks are
an order of magnitude safer than a Solar future marked by silicon
tetrachloride toxicity.

If there are any ChemE's in here, I'd love to hear their take on it. I'm
polymer & Systems engr, so I don't go deep enough into the mfg process.

~~~
ars
> Quartz comes from mines ... and causes silicosis for miners.

Quartz is not mined in a way that causes silicosis. It's so abundant that you
can literally just pick it up off the ground, you don't need to go
underground.

Silicosis comes from mining other things, and crushing rock in order to do so.
Also from manufacturing that grinds or crushes rock.

> some nasty stuff called silicon tetrachloride.

Which if you simply mix with water makes hydrochloric acid and silicic acid,
both of which are harmless in the environment, and are only a very short term
problem when in high concentration. You could mix them with some water and
drink it and it would not hurt anyone.

~~~
kumarski
The market dumps today.

------
PhantomGremlin
The Galaxy Note 7 recall is reported to cost "at least $5.3 billion"[1]. Even
at a chaebol as large as Samsung's, that's big enough to get people to notice.

That cost, more than the recent election, will bring about change for the
better.

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-
samsung-...](http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-samsung-
recall-20161014-snap-story.html)

~~~
simplexion
Change for something that occurred in less than .01% of the devices? It is
incredible the kind of irrationality that is brought about by fear. It's the
same reason that, here in Australia, there is talk of culling sharks after a
single person is attacked.

~~~
kharms
Would you fly to Seoul from Australia if there was a .01% chance of your plane
catching fire? That's assuming just one phone on your flight.

.01% is crazy high.

~~~
morsch
You just went from "the risk for any given Note 7 to catch fire is 0.01%" to
"the risk for any given Note 7 to catch fire _in the time it takes to fly from
Seoul to Australia_ is 0.01%". Those are very different numbers.

------
good_dog
So the takeaway is, batteries will continue exploding because Trump won the
election. The whole "Trump is responsible for everything bad" thing is getting
ridiculous.

~~~
jsight
The article barely mentioned Trump at all, and basically just said that things
"might change". That is self-evident with a new administration coming in.

Regardless of that, the article describing the organization's role and
approach was interesting.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_The article barely mentioned Trump at all_

Oh come on, the spin in the story was much worse than that. The direct quote
from the chairman of the CPSC was: "My hope is now with the election and
potential leadership change here, that that work is not scuttled".

Using loaded words like "scuttled" makes it quite clear that he's throwing
shade at Trump.

~~~
grzm
Does quoting a person relevant to the article who has an opinion spin the
story? I'd think that's the journalist doing their job: reporting what those
related to the topic said.

There can be bias in the choice of story, or the choice of quotes, but
sometimes the story _is_ that there are opinions that disagree, which seems
relevant in this case.

There have been a lot of concerns with changes that Trump might make. He
himself has been very clear that he's going to make changes. In particular,
Trump has been vocal about reducing regulations, and as I understand it, the
CPSC is a regulatory agency. Seems pretty straight up to me.

------
burfog
This (the CPSC) is the agency that should focus on lead painted baby toys and
BPA-tainted toothbrushes, but instead mostly takes away well-loved toys like
lawn darts and little magnet balls. Things have gotten to the point that I
reflexively feel the urge to quickly buy anything they ban. The batteries
might be worth banning, but I sure don't trust the CPSC to determine this.

