Lithium Batteries

Right throughout the world we get a single statement that we need to change how we do energy so that it is clean energy; if this was the path, we are on I would cheer from the mountain tops, but the new path is just a different type of dirty.

• We are getting rid of the internial combustion engine and replace it with electric vehicles
• We are going to get rid of coal power stations that have delivered baseline power and replaced it with big batteries
• Our houses are encouraged to have solar panels and to store backup power at our homes in batteries.

What do we know about these batteries?

The batteries are lithium based; so, the question how safe are they?

Note the issues: Lithium batteries cause explosive fires, will contaminate ground water if put into landfill, there has been fires in electric vehicles, mobile phones, houses caused by faulty batteries. It is clear that the lithium in these batteries can be quite dangerous, yet very little is being done to mitigate this danger.

The spiralling environmental cost of our lithium battery addiction

After a careful examination of a lot of the details related to the winning of the Lithium salt and extracting the Lithium to a battery grade and then the potential explosive fires that can be caused by faults in the batteries or by poor disposal of the batteries; we must have huge concerns since the safety of this product is certainly below the expectation that we would have for any other product that is released onto the market. There needs to be a lot more work done on this product before we have the energy future of Australia to depend upon this very dangerous product!