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Just Chat! / Is the ever increasing energy density of lithium batteries a major hazard?
« on: 12/06/2024 08:11:34 »
My car holds~20kg of petrol(gasoline). This quantity of hydrocarbon, when combusted stoichiometrically with oxygen, yields the same energy as 200kg of tnt. Now taking the efficiency of the engine as 33% the quantity of fuel actually propelling the vehicle is ~6kg. To replace this with a battery one ends up with a stored energy equivalent of ~60kg of tnt. The destructive power of tnt lies in it's ability to release all it's energy virtually instantaneously and this scenario is unlikely to happen with a hydrocarbon fuel except in an extremely violent collision. A battery can in theory release a large portion of it's energy in a short time. Some of the lithium ion battery failures I have seen are extremely violent. Is this hazard being taken seriously enough, especially with the push for ever higher energy densities?