Vancouver Island Fire Chief Feels Lithium's Sting

Well, it turns out that the Second Amendment has some unanticipated benefits — one of them being that you don’t have to resort to owning toys to protect your property and loved ones. 

Nick Acciavatti, Chief of the Dashwood Volunteer Fire Department in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island knows this all too well now, as last week the lithium ion battery (similar but not identical to the one pictured below) that had been powering his brand new airsoft rifle caught fire and exploded after being removed from the ‘weapon’. 

His account of the incident is spine-tingling:

“My spouse was out in the garage, walked out of the garage, you could hear the smoke alarm going off and went into the house and the house was full of smoke,” Acciavatti said. 

“She went into the boys’ bedroom and on the floor is this battery, self-detonating, not charging, not plugged in with a small scarf beside it, which was touching the battery (and) was catching the scarf on fire, which was trying to catch the closet on fire.”

Even if the story failed to capture your attention, the point at its heart is clear:

Lithium batteries are not safe. They’re not safe as a power source for your phone, and they’re not safe to power your toys.

Maybe Your Spouse Would Be Safer With A Lithium Alternative?

The problem with the batteries, typically, is substandard manufacturing practices. 

Given that more than ⅔ of the lithium batteries in circulation on planet Earth were made in China, where manufacturing standards are standards in name only, the chances of a faulty unit getting into the mix here and there are more like certainties. 

Poorly made batteries operate with less efficiency. Less efficiency means more resistance during charging and discharging, which means more heat. 

More heat means an unstable electrolyte which, when pushed far enough, will boil, release gases, and leak from its casing. 

At that point, a fire or explosion is all but garuanteed. 

Now, I started this article off with a bit of levity, but the issue here is no laughing matter at all. 

The Chinese manufacture a huge chunk of the world’s consumer goods, including 70% of smartphones, 90% of personal computers, and the lion’s share of the components that go into them. 

Lithium batteries are a universal part of all devices which are not permanently plugged into the wall. 

All Lithium Batteries Suffer From The Same Problem…

Making matters worse, even those batteries which are manufactured to the tightest of tolerances are prone to failure given enough age. 

If you’ve ever noticed your smartphone heating up every time you charge it, that’s the reason. 

The aging cells take on charge with less and less efficiency, which begins the process of thermal buildup every time you plug in. 

Eventually, if the battery isn’t replaced, something called thermal runaway takes place, which boils the oxygen and organic compound laden electrolyte out of its casing, and towards likely calamity. 

There are a lot of competing approaches to solving this problem, but almost all of them stick with lithium as the primary anode/cathode material. 

Sticking with lithium means sticking with the Chinese battery industry, which has all but swallowed up the lithium sector from mining to refinement to final product manufacture. 

Today, however, there is one alternative. 

It comes from Australia, it uses no lithium, and it’s all but fireproof. 

If Lithium Is Coal, This is Jet Fuel

The magic material taking place of lithium here is graphene, and the new battery’s properties are in a completely different class. 

Put these batteries into an EV, and we’re talking 1000 or better mile ranges between charges, with a service life expectancy of beyond a million miles.

And get this: Charging up to 70x faster than current lithium ion battery packs. 

Today, it takes about 45 minutes to charge a Tesla Model 3 from 10%-100%. 

The same Tesla, with a Graphene battery pack, would take less than 40 seconds. 

And the batteries, lacking the standard liquid electrolyte, would never present a risk of catastrophic failure. 

It’s a huge step forward for the battery industry and if you think it’s all science fiction, you’re wrong. 

They’re Coming Off The Assembly Line As You Read This

These batteries are already being produced, albeit in very small quantities, and only in the smaller battery formats. 

For now, that is. 

Very soon, with commercialization approaching, we’re going to start seeing them appear in all classes of consumer goods. 

Wireless devices, e-bikes, and eventually, the holy grail of the rechargeable battery market — electric vehicles. 

Once that happens, you can expect the prognosis for the lithium battery sector to shift dramatically, and with it, the global balance of power for distributed energy as a whole. 

That’s bad news for the Chinese… But very good news for shareholders of the company pioneering this still covert technology today. 

Want to learn more about it?

Check out my presentation, right here.