A lot of lithium batteries are making their way onto both sailboats and yachts. With significant advantages come equal disadvantages, and those disadvantages are the risk of potential battery fires, which only a Class D fire extinguisher can snuff out.
The Dive boat fire in San Diego, where 34-persons perished, is one example.
Class D fire extinguishers are for extinguishing flammable metal fires, involving e.g. lithium, magnesium, titanium, aluminum, and so on. Disposable (primary) lithium batteries contain metallic lithium that can ignite.
Lithium ion batteries contain lithium in an ionic (non-metallic) form. Lithium ion batteries contain flammable electrolytes and polymers, so they can burn, but these are not metal fires calling for a Class D fire extinguisher.
You don't need batteries to run a reverse osmosis desalinator from solar panels; you can run the desalinator when the sun is shining and store the water.
I'm surprised boats are already moving to lithium. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to tow the batteries in a separate buoy behind the boat?
> I'm surprised boats are already moving to lithium.
When the alternative is a bank of lead-acid batteries with effectively ~50% usable capacity and poor charge efficiency, at least for cruisers effectively living at sea off solar power, it's not surprising at all.
WTF! gnaritas's comment has been [dead]ed. This site is turning into a fucking shithole. Here's what he said:
"Lead-acid is still better, it's 1/10 the cost for equivalent usable amp-hours. Most boaters use deep cycle golf cart batteries, they're produced at such scale that they're cheap as hell. Lithium is a waste of money and dangerous to boot. They only make sense if you're extremely space limited, which most bigger boats aren't."
Edit: apparently enough people vouched for the comment, it's back from the dead. But this definitely should not be happening to people like gnaritas who have devoted so much time and effort to making HN better.
The lead-acid batteries still cost a lot less per joule of capacity than the lithium batteries do. They just weigh more. Or maybe charge efficiency is the reason?
Lead-acid is still better, it's 1/10 the cost for equivalent usable amp-hours. Most boaters use deep cycle golf cart batteries, they're produced at such scale that they're cheap as hell. Lithium is a waste of money and dangerous to boot. They only make sense if you're extremely space limited, which most bigger boats aren't.
Most marine lithium batteries are LiFePO, not lithium ion. They're far more stable and safe to have on a boat. Compared to lead acid, they have better charge efficiency, deeper cycles, longer lifespans, higher energy density and specific capacity. Furthermore, I've never found lead acid batteries that come close to 1/10th the price...1/4 is more like it.
Fair point on the LiFePO, but none of those other things really matter as they're easily made up for by a larger bank, what matters is the cost per amp/hour and lithium isn't remotely there yet. The exact fraction varies, but lithium isn't going to touch some Costco golf cart batteries at a $100 a pop. You can buy an entire house bank for the cost of 1 lithium LiFePO battery (nearly 1k on Amazon). Unless you just like wasting money, deep-cycle lead-acid is a far better choice.
Or to put it another way, any device with intermittent power only requires one storage reservoir, not multiple. Water jugs are close to the oldest technology we have.
Most boats (recreational "cruisers" at least, which is what I am most familiar with) are using LiFePO4 chemistries which are much less likely to start fires. ReLiOn, Victron, BattleBorn, and MasterVolt for example as some of the leading vendors.
The Dive boat fire in San Diego, where 34-persons perished, is one example.