by While the clean-up work in the districts of forest fires in Los Angeles are going on, one of the biggest challenges is the large number of lithium-ion batteries that were caught in the flames.
The batteries lower most plug-in hybrid cars and electric vehicles and are used in golf cars, e-bikes, laptops, mobile phones and wireless earphones. They are also found in power banks that offer backup energy in the event of failures that have become increasingly popular in houses.
If you are damaged or overheated, lithium-ion batteries can tern or even explode. The residual thermal acid sets off a chain reaction that means that the batteries burn uncontrollably and spontaneously, a process that can take place for days, weeks or months.
Real estate in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, in which the palisades and Eaton fires have jointly destroyed at least 12,000 structures, had an average number of electric vehicles, according to officials.
“This will … from our assessment, probably the largest lithium-ion battery collection, cleanup that has ever happened in the history of the world,” said Steve Calanog, the incident commander of the environmental protection authority for the Palisades and Eaton Fire Cleanups.
However, this cleaning process is complex and resource -intensive.
The California Office of Emergency Services has already sent Hazmat teams to inspect houses for lithium-ion batteries and flags where they are present. The EPA has what it describes as a battery recovery team that monitors the efforts to collect them. Chris Myers, a technical specialist from Lithium-ion Battery, who is involved in the EPA clearance work, said that the collective process could begin on Monday.
“It is very likely that these batteries were not all consumed in the fire, so they are now damaged, which means they are all dangerous,” he said. Myers explained that the battery systems are well protected in hybrid and electric cars, so that even vehicles that were damaged by the fires may still have batteries that are still charged.
The handling of the batteries requires “a lot of technical sophistication and care,” said Calanog. The EPA team must wear flame-resistant clothing under one-way protective suits. The masks cover their faces and are either delivered with the insertion of cartridges to filter out chemicals or attach them to air tanks. The crew blocks the area where it works and keeps water on site if flames break out.
Before they can be sent to a waste or recycling system, the batteries collected must be increased so that they do not keep a load or very little. For this purpose, the EPA will probably use a process developed in 2023 after the MAUI running fire, which exchanges the batteries in a solution of salt water and baking powder. As soon as the batteries have lost their fees, they can be shredded with a steam system or shipped to a facility in special packaging.
Lithium-ion batteries have become an increasing problem according to forest fires because it has sold increasing sales of hybrid and electric cars, especially in California. It is necessary for the state to have 35% of the new vehicles sold in the state until 2026, and all new vehicles are zero emissions by 2035.
In Los Angeles County, at least 581,000 vehicles with zero emission vehicles in one have been sold in the past 15 years and plug-in hybrids and fully electrical cars, of which around 99,000 were sold according to the California Energy Commission. From 2010 to 2024, more than 5,500 zero emission vehicles were sold in Pacific palisades alone.
“In this area there are a very large number of electric vehicles – probably much more than in other areas,” said Adam Vangerpen, a public information officer from the Los Angeles City fire brigade. “Many of these people also had solar roofs and solarz batteries for the Wall Power banks.”
Yuzhang Li, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering on the UCLA, said that the most risky batteries are those in cars that were partially burned and not completely destroyed.
“If the electric vehicle has already caught fire and burned out, I would say that the risk is relatively minimal, since the entire fire has probably destroyed the battery,” he said.
When the authorities begin the enormous process of cleaning the fires of Southern California, its first priority, which the EPA refers to as “phase one” – is to remove dangerous waste such as asbestos, batteries, oil and color from properties, since the materials are released Can poisonous vapors.
The entire process could take about six months, said Calanog.
Myers said that the battery production process does not slow this timeline, although “the scale is certainly a big challenge here”.
As for the dangerous waste, Calanog said that the EPA has not yet decided and some locations are available.
However, Vangerpen said that many institutions that receive dangerous waste are outside of California, and there can be limits for how much waste they want to accept.
The waste must be deleted before the authorities can go into the next phase of cleaning: remove rubble. Vangerpen asked the residents to avoid being sitting by rubble until their property was considered safe.
“The residents shouldn’t try to remove dangerous debris,” he said. “Only their normal household items can be dangerous and a risk.”
This article was originally published on nbcnews.com
