From Climate Scepticism

By MIKE DOMBROSKI

A few days ago I posted a John Cadogan video on Open Mic about a ship off the Dutch coast having a purported EV fire. In his inimitable style, he expresses skepticism about the media reports coming out and how it is being downplayed. I haven’t noticed any other reports about this, even at WUWT. The ship (the Fremantle Highway) has 2857 cars on it with 25 known to be EVs. There were 23 crew members who were all evacuated with several suffering injuries and one dying. Seven of them had to jump off the ship to avoid the fire and from the pictures, you can see that his is a tall ship! To Cadogan, this suggests thermal runaway from an EV fire. The ship is expected to burn for a few days. The hull is being sprayed with water to keep it cool. Back in February 2022, another ship (the Felicity Ace) was carrying EVs, had a fire and sunk.

Well, Cadogen has just made an update video and it’s a must see!

The 25 EVs figure has been updated to 500! Cadogan has dubbed the Fremantle Highway, the Dutch Oven and he’s chiding everyone from EV evangelists, the media, dissembling automakers to Australian politicians. He corrects statements such as “difficult to put out” to “impossible to put out”. He notes that EVs are not more likely to catch fire than ICE vehicles, but when they do they are a much more serious situation. They of course can’t be starved of oxygen, because they carry their own supply. He stresses the need not to be downwind of an EV fire because of the toxic fumes. He notes that cobalt compounds can poison you just by getting on your skin. He says there should be more effort to make the public aware of this danger. He particularly warns about such fires happening in parking lots or garages.

He has an earlier video from 4 months ago where he elaborates on EV fires and includes advice for other lithium-ion batteries such as those for phones, laptops and tools. I just upgraded all my NiCad powered tools to Li-ion and I love the lighter weight with no more memory hassles, but I now make sure not to leave Li-ion devices charging unattended.

Since I’ve taken an interest in Li-ion batteries and done research for this and my posts on the Tesla semi and cobalt in batteries, I’m getting the feeling that the EV industry is headed for a significant setback. EV’s are already expensive and significantly subsidized. They may have to compromise on performance and shift to Li-FIP (which appear to be more fire resistant) or the newer Sodium-ion batteries, which should be quite cheaper with a more significant energy density penalty.