Throughout my career, I have been called “crazy,” “certifiable,” “unreasonable,” etc. I have worn those insults as a badge of honor, as in my professional opinion, there is nothing too crazy to protect the men and women doing the dirty and dangerous work! So buckle up, as this thought process may push you over the edge in how we could manage these high-energy batteries…
With all the news stories and research reports about the hazards these new high-energy (Li Metal and Ion) batteries present, I can not understand why we have not considered some older and traditional fire safety designs and practices for the “storage” of these batteries. I am talking about how we manage flammable liquids and gases in storage. Suppose we exceed a certain volume of flammable liquids or gases. In that case, we must have a special storage room, and these storage rooms come with specific design requirements, depending on whether they are “inside” or “outside” our main building.
Why not take this same approach with these high-energy batteries?
Essentially, we build a structure(s) within a structure or a lesser structure when it is inside a “detached” building so that we can accept its loss in a battery event.
I am talking about a 2, 3, or 4-hour-rated construction structure with either flooding foam or an N2 inerting/extinguishing system. But even if we can not extinguish the fire, we contain it for 2, 3, or 4 hours to allow protection and mitigation measures to be deployed, namely, personnel evacuation, as well as reduce damages to other contents in the area and the main structure (loss prevention pure and simple).
Thinking outside the box, maybe even put these “fire-rated” structure(s) on a track and winch system so that they can be pulled outside the building approximately 50′ if the extinguishing system fails to work. This would have to be a major track and winch system, as this structure would likely be heavy because of its fire-rated construction and the batteries stored inside. However, we would also limit each structure’s size(s) to reduce the fire load from within and the weight of its contents.
The fire suppression connections could be in a “break-away” hose style so that when pulling it out while it’s on fire, the hose connections for the extinguishing system stay intact until the structure reaches the outside wall. Then they pop off/break away, much like the fuel hoses at gas stations do. I would also require these “pods” to be positioned on a “Blank Wall” so that nothing could be stored in the way of their removal and the track system would be minimized. The building would have “blow out panels” sized so that the winch could be started remotely and the pod pulled through the “break way wall” opening.
Once outside, the FD would have a hose connection to flood the structure with water, and if they did not work, we would lose ONLY the single pod(s) and its contents.
Does this sound crazy? I would have thought so five years ago, but today, I think it is doable, especially for buildings where these batteries are being stored temporarily, such as transit warehouses.
It is an investment to save the main building and all its contents, but more importantly, it provides TIME to evacuate and to slow the damage these fast fires can do. Again, it is the same concept we apply to our “indoor flammable gas/liquid storage” that exceeds the MAQ for said class of flammable gas/liquid. Envision a “pod” like system within the warehouse, but these pods would be like the nuclear waste pods, not the wooden/plastic pods we use to move household goods.
It is an old and proven concept of “compartmentalizing” our risks, which allows us to relocate those risks safely when our risk control schemes fail.