When encountering a fire with a lithium-metal battery, only use a Class D extinguisher as water reacts with the lithium metal and makes the fire worse.
http://spectrumfx.net/blog/lithium-battery-fires-why-not-water
Yep. And if your truck isn’t carrying Class D extinguishers …. wait for it.
Oh, and if the vehicle has a magnesium engine block or wheels …. oboy.
Add the cost of appropriate fire suppression equipment to the equation.
I doubt many of us have a Class D extinguisher handy — or the right variety, since that’s a category not a unique type.
I sure don’t. Probably ought to.
https://smile.amazon.com/s/?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=class+D+extinguisher
Cars catch fire daily but don’t carry them.
Last night saw the report on the pipe line break in Alabama. We are dependent on the flow of oil for the convenience of the auto. Whatever form(s) of energy we end up relying on in the future, the more diverse the source(s) the less vulnerable we are. The news is portraying communities with long lines at the pump or no gas at all, is this accurate or is the story overblown? Of course, anyone with an EV would not have to deal with that in order to make their daily commute.
Also the EV charging infrastructure is already present in most homes, we already live with the dangers of electricity
There is no ‘free lunch’ most power plants for electricity are powered by fossil fuels.
Yea, most. Because of our history. But with EV we have options, and our children have options. There’s only one material that makes gasoline.
+1
Solar technology if developed and widely used can reduce the carbon footprint too.
+1 on that
People often forget about where all this electricity is coming from, not to mention no one seems to mention who is going to foot the very large bill to update the already outdated electrical grid and power generating infrastructure need for this change from gasoline to electric vehicles
That tax will make the tax on gasoline seem small change
And a few others, I used to run my car/boat on fuel 100% oil free fuel
Lots do you can buy it at the pump in many places.
Plus lots of people working on fully synthetic gas, even car manufacturers.
http://blog.caranddriver.com/audi-makes-synthetic-gasoline-using-zero-petroleum/
Just to add, my comments may seem anti electric vehicle, not at all, It just seems that a lot of people think killing off the gas vehicle and replacing them with electric is the only way to go, to me that’s just short sighted and just a reverse of what happened 100+ years ago, when we dropped electric vehicles in favour of the internal combustion engine , so why not now put our amazing skills technology and creative energy in to improving both forms, otherwise we’re just repeating the mistakes of the past, think where we would be now if 100+ years ago we’d put the same creative energy into both the internal combustion engine vehicle and the electric vehicle
The power plants of today weren’t cheap either. I don’t think the best idea is to take a wrecking ball to a perfectly good power plant. All power plants have a lifetime, and then they need to be replaced. Hopefully power companies start replacing them with solar farms instead of (literally) dinosaur-powered generators… when they are end-of-life.
Synthetic gas is possible, but it is very expensive to make. And it doesn’t solve any tailpipe problems.
[quote=Joshk]
Indeed, now that solar and wind are cheaper then fossil fuel plants the only reason to replace with dino fuel is corporate interests. And its the public who pays for that, even if we are trained to believe otherwise
This comment was not made by me.
The Grid wastes half the power generated in transmitting it over long distances. Reducing the current load by half will dramatically reduce power losses. To do that we need more localized power generation. Other ways to power transportation will undoubtedly evolve as technology improves and we obviously can’t just stop using fossil fuels in an instant either for power generation or for transportation but using it is a dead end since it’s a fixed and limited supply. Our needs grow with the population and the negative effects of its use accelerate with it as well. We need to get behind these alternatives and support them rather than fight them, criticize them, and denigrate them. Since fossil fuels are a vast but not endless resource the use of which is causing harm it makes no sense to pretend we can continue as we are. The incredibly vast arrays of pipelines, tankers, refineries, and fueling stations moving, processing and delivering crude were developed, built, and backed by the oil companies and governments of the world and took a hundred years to reach its present state. We will need the same level of commitment, investment, and time to replace them with something we won’t run out of and isn’t as damaging.
something has gone wrong with the quoting system, even on my post the name of the person i’m quoting seems to have extra characters in it
Transmission losses are unfortunate, but I don’t think the average homeowner can or wants to dabble in running his own power plant. Daily operations and maintenance is best left to a power company in my opinion.
Is this what Edward Snowden was warning us about? 
In Europe there are already community solar farms. For every problem there’s a solution. solutions are easy, it’s the negative mindset that’s harder to overcome.
If he is concerned with the BLF quoting system then we should probably feel honoured 
Transmission losses are based upon economics. You can dramatically reduce the transmission losses (increased transmission voltages, increased effective conductor size), but doing so requires a huge investment. The long and the short of the problem is that at the moment the Return on that additional investment (ROI) is less than the reduction of the cost of the losses that would result. BTW, it takes a very long, and poorly designed transmission system to lose half the power. The problem with much of the distribution network is that it is very old and is running at close to capacity, and just try to build a new EHV transmission line in this country. Remember that doubling the power through the transmission network, quadruples the losses unless you can increase the voltage along the way. That generally isn’t an option on a 345KV transmission line. Much of the transmission network in the USA is now operating at far higher average power levels than they were 20 years ago, and that translates directly into bigger losses.
OTOH, the thermodynamic efficiency of thermal generating operations (Coal, Oil and Natural Gas) is considerably less than 50%. There is far more ‘gold’ available to be mined from more overall efficiency in the generation process than there is from improving the distribution network. In general fuel cells are far more efficient than thermal generation, unfortunately the feed stocks for fuel cells are at present, much more expensive.