There was some very, very bad news that was presented at the Lycoming County Commissioners Meeting on Thursday, February 22nd, by Jason Yorks, Director of the Lycoming County Resource Management Services, and Recycling Coordinator Lauren Strausser. The entire meeting lasted less than forty minutes, but fifteen of those minutes were spent reviewing the danger that we have in our county and country at large over lithium batteries.
Unless you live in a log cabin in the mountains and use virtually no electronic equipment whatsoever, you probably have some equipment that uses lithium batteries. Look around your house for a moment. Do you have a smartphone, a laptop or tablet, a digital camera, a portable gaming device, an electric toothbrush, cordless power tools such as drills or screwdrivers, a powerful flashlight, remote control for your TV or air conditioners, drones or remote-controlled toys, or maybe even medical devices such as hearing aids or insulin pumps? What all these have in common is that they use lithium batteries, and lithium batteries are becoming an American nightmare.
As those who paid attention in chemistry class in high school might remember, lithium is a chemical element (symbol Li), a soft, silvery-white metal that is great for providing electricity as it is highly electrochemically reactive, but it is also highly reactive and flammable. Lithium’s unique properties have made it an extremely valuable element in products as small as hand-held electronics to electric vehicles, from carts to cars. Its capacity for energy storage makes it extremely valuable and practical.
Ahem… except for one not-so-small problem — lithium-fueled equipment can become one of the most dangerous fire threats we have ever seen. It was for exactly this concern that the Lycoming County Commissioners helped fund a special lithium fire training for the county’s fire companies presented by Mike Monaco, a former member of the Fire Department of New York and now a hazmat specialist with the FDNY and Hazmat Guys Production Inc. They know their stuff in New York City, encountering three to four lithium battery fires daily.
I have volunteered with the Clinton Township Volunteer Fire Company for the past twelve years and heard many reports on training activities, but never one like this. Every member who attended that training came away in despair, and those who reported to the County Commissioners on the event noted that the danger of lithium fires seemed like they came straight out of hell. Lithium fires can happen from simply overcharging. They can be underground in a landfill and still overheat and begin to burn.
And when they burn — baby, do they burn.
Lithium fires do not respond to fire extinguishing practices like dousing with water or smothering the oxygen. They create their own oxygen! They re-fire up even after thousands of gallons of water are poured on them. And they do not burn slowly but rather can expand exponentially faster than any other fire source. The reality of the modern world we live in is that lithium batteries are here to stay. Still, the general public must wake up and recognize that these wonderful devices we have on our person, in our homes, and our cars need to be safeguarded much more than we have taken for granted.
So, don’t overcharge a lithium battery. If you use a tool that uses one, be aware of how many hours you have it on the charger and unplug it when it is fully charged. Don’t smother the device if you are recharging it. Some people put their phone under their pillow at night while charging, but this creates more heat on it, and under normal circumstances, this would be OK; however, if it gets overheated in any way, it could explode, and so would your head. Put it on the dresser next to you and sleep in heavenly peace. Don’t recharge transportation devices like skateboards or bikes in areas you use for egress. Large cities, in particular, have seen a number of these overheat in doorways of apartment buildings, and the fires that result are right in the path of the escape route. And for the love of God, if you have a lithium-powered vehicle, be it a bike, scooter, or automobile, and smoke begins to emerge, get as far away as possible, as fast as possible. Report it to 911 after you get away.
Two hundred years ago, the British female author Mary Shelley wrote a gothic novel about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein who created a human being from dead tissue. He succeeded but then discovered that in the process, he also created a powerful monster. Victor Frankenstein learned the lesson we have before us — if you create it, you have to live with it.
