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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

It's a preview of what other fires with this Tesla hardware will look like, no matter who installs them.

And that preview is that they're not that bad. No deaths, no injuries as far as I can tell, and only 3 days to get under control. You can easily think of dozens of more deadly and environmentally damaging disasters associated with other energy sources. Solar/wind+batteries seem pretty appealing so far.

And to add to the "not that bad", it seems that the fire was quite contained with only one group burning and not propagating to the whole installation.

There has been numerous cases of battery fires with phones, cars, ... it's not uncommon.

This installation seems to have been planned quite well to prevent a massive disaster.

This is not so much a Tesla hardware issue as it is a lithium ion issue. Tesla's packs are not more or less dangerous than other lithium ion battery packs.

This is not true. There are different chemistries. Tesla hardware, as many others, requires an active cooling system because of the KNOWN thermal issues with involving cobalt. There are lithium ion batteries without cobalt, such as Simpliphi, that do not have any runaway heat issues and therefore do not require a any cooling system, but this lithium chemistry increases the cost.

Active cooling in lithium (or any chemistry) batteries exists to allow fast charging and discharging of the battery, as those actions produce heat. Without any cooling system, you're limited by the passive heat dissipation of the battery, which largely depends on the internal resistance. You can lower the internal resistance at the expensive of some other properties (mostly efficiency).

If you don't believe this is a problem in any battery chemistry, I challenge you to find a battery that does not heat up while being charged (they all do, due to thermodynamic inefficiencies). Thermal runaway in Lithium-ion specifically is largely an effect of the lithium decomposing as a result of large heat input (by a short or physical damage). Once this has occured the battery will go through several stages of burning.

The runaway heat issues, with the chemistries applied now, are mainly due to which other elements are involved. Cobalt is a huge factor.

It is true all batteries heat when charging, but this is not what I am talking about here. Simpliphi batteries do not require any cooling system because the chemistry is more thermally stable and does not have a risk of thermal runaway, even charging at high power. Tesla batteries have a cooling system not for the heat generated by charging alone, but because of the runaway thermal reactions involving cobalt.

I’d imagine lessons were learned from the incident though and the next time it happens, responders will be more prepared ?

That's fair, but also it feels like fear mongering by omission, because whatever happens at a battery plant, it's not nearly as bad as the fossil status quo. How many refinery explosions, oil spills, pipeline leaks, tanker fires, drilling mishaps etc etc have we dealt with? They all demonstrate uncontained release of chemicals and energy is ... bad. Batteries are less bad.

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