Electric cars.

We could with nuclear reactors but getting them built is a challenge

 

On my BMW i3 the cable was locked so no one else could interfere until I returned and opened the car. I wouldn't want a car where a passerby could unplug it.

The car's sat nav displayed all the charging points nearby along with their status, e.g. available or in-use so I could choose appropriately. Actually I rarely used a public charger as I plugged in at home or work, so for that commuting scenario it was a time saver. It was good not having to visit a filling station.

 

It's a horrendous solution but one that does get the job done. There's never enough long term thinking by a government as they're always looking at the next election. The US has got past this by limiting to two terms (do what you like in 2nd term), some other countries just do what they like...

 

And all because they are essentially being asked to be the underwriters for the grid(s) across Europe. Ours is not the only government that failed miserably on energy policy.

 

This is the problem with lithium - I watched a documentary on it once, where one of the guys that invented it basically said that it shouldn't exist as it is so unstable when exposed to air. If it is kept in it's happy zone in terms of charge, then it behaves, but anything over or under and it wants to turn into a candle.

As I have mentioned before on this thread, it is not the frequency of them catching fire that is the issue - it is what happens when they do.

 

I spoke to the owner of a shop that sells mobiles and repairs them. He said that the most frequent problem brought to him is batteries having swollen after the phone has been dropped. Apparently they can be quite dangerous and exploded in flames. He has a special armoured bin out the back of his shop to put the batteries in and they are collected twice a day (don't know by whom). The other mobile shops (the big boys) in the same town centre send all their customers with swollen batteries to him as they won't touch them. He makes a good business out of new batteries.

I've never actually heard of the batteries exploding but that may be because the phone batteries cause problems for the phone so it is noticed almost immediately.

 

The thing that has to be remembered about any battery, be it lithium, lead acid or anything else is that they are essentially a fairly substantial amount of energy being constrained/contained purely by the construction of the battery itself -- that energy wants to get out, all of it, and as fast as it can, so when the thing is compromised, the consequences can be vast. Think of it like a dam, basically, except when the dam wall goes - it goes completely.

The difference comes from the chemistry involved.... a 12v lead acid car battery is a nasty piece of work if handled wrongly (as @Jiffy found out) - they can cause fires too, as the gas that causes the explosion is hydrogen, therefore explosive. The difference with lithium-ion technology is that it creates it's own oxygen as it burns, so whereas dousing a lead acid battery with foam or powder would put the fire out by starving it of oxygen, lithium just carries on as it feeds itself.

EDIT - as a society, we have become very, very blasé about electrical power. For example, many people carry small power banks in case their tech runs out of power... I have one at work that is used to charge a tablet when we are doing mobile assessment work and it is 10,000mAh and can be held in the palm of your hand. That little thing has sufficient power to run a car headlight for over 2 hours... 4 if it is a halogen at 21w.

Ovens and heaters at 3kW, showers at 7kW, car chargers at 7kW... that is a hell of a lot of power, make no mistake. That 21" TV we all used to have in our home... 3kW runs 12 of those - modern LED TV's you are getting nearer to 18 for 3kW.

Electrical power is a wonderful thing and for the vast majority of time it is perfectly safe when handled properly - but it is not, and never will be, a benign thing. Get it wrong, it bites.. and bites hard and fast.

 

I remember the 9" televisions with a magnifying glass on the front.