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Fisker Hybrids Get Bad Karma From Superstorm Sandy
New submitter slas6654 writes with this excerpt from Jalopnik: "Approximately 16 of the $100,000+ Fisker Karma extended-range luxury hybrids were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey last night when water from Hurricane Sandy's storm surge apparently breached the port and submerged the vehicles. As Jalopnik has exclusively learned, the cars then caught fire and burned to the ground.' Apparently Fiskar super-duty lithium ion batteries are neither water-proof or water soluble."
Come on, editors, get your act together already.
Pretty basic chemistry going on here....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxhW7TtXIAM
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Because they could have been parked in someone's garage and gotten flooded. And that would be the difference between some clean up work and a house burned to the ground (or water line).
Have gnu, will travel.
Actually lots of houses burn down due to floods. A gas line ruptures or electric power issues light the house up and then the fire Dept can't make it there due to the water.
DO NOT DRIVE in a foot of water.
A single foot of water moving sideways is more than enough to take your car off the road. If you cannot see the bottom do not drive through it.
Actually lots of houses burn down due to floods. A gas line ruptures or electric power issues light the house up and then the fire Dept can't make it there due to the water.
Exactly. The houses in Breezy Point are a good example of this.
The article has four pictures.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
If these batteries are partially exposed from below, they won't do too well in northern states in spring. Melting snow and ice combined with leftover salt used to try to melt winter snow and ice could easily splash up onto the batteries, and if it's been a heavy precipitation winter that could do a number on the batteries.
http://www.dmv.org/how-to-guides/road-salt.php
Hydro works just fine, some mitigation needs to be done but otherwise they work.
- the problem is that there simply aren't enough suitable locations to make it grid scale nationwide.
Nuclear
- No argument, but for the next 100 years or so it will be necessary.
Windmills don't kill birds hardly at all. The newer models are geared to be much slower and still provide the same power. Bats however are still at risk due to the pressure changes at the edges.
Solar - uh, who said we can't mine stuff? China just shut down it's production so US production can at least for a bit start back up (obviously not immediately)
And of course, coal has it's own numerous problems, not the least of which is global warming. Nothing's perfect but we should try to find things that don't have the long term side effects that fossil fuels do.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
He was correct in his usage. He was saying the 'damn rivers' meaning we can't build DAMS because of the DAMNED rivers; i.e. DAMS hurt the ecosystem of the DAMN rivers ;-)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The batteries used in the Tesla don't suffer from this problem. Each individual battery has independent internal circuitry to disconnect the battery if a short is detected or if the voltage goes too high or too low. Additionally, the battery carrier is designed to direct the gases safely away from the car in the event that runaway battery failure does occur to protect the vehicle and any occupants.
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We have natural gas (methane), of which we have so much we literally burn it off because we don't use it up fast enough. And China, etc. haven't developed their natural gas wells yet (we export natural gas to Asia).
In fact, I'm guessing that once oil gets hard enough, we'll see a rise in natural gas vehicles as part of the mix. We can either burn it directly in an ICE, or use a fuel cell. Not as green since we still have CO2 emissions but it seems like a reasonable stopgap.
One more addendum - if all you want is power, you can do it without making a massive reservoir behind a dam. By far dams are built for irrigation and flood control, hydroelectric power is a side effect.
+1 Disagree
That's pure lithium. Li-ion batteries use Lithium cobalt oxide or similar salts, which don't react with water like that.
This is likely just a case of the water shorting the battery, causing it to overheat, and ignite something flammable (e.g. upholstery).
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