Stories like the following are becoming so common that it is clear that there is no safe way to store used lithium batteries:
Every news story I read about this fire at the Fenix Battery Recycling plant in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland carefully avoided using the words “lithium,” “electric,” and “EV” so as not to allow readers to understand the actual cause of the inferno. In some online forums, people were arguing that this might have been a fire involving traditional lead-acid car batteries.
No, it was a massive conflagration of rechargeable lithium batteries from electric vehicles. This is from an article in May of 2021 when the Kilwinning battery recycling plant was opening for business:
As lithium ion battery use surges with the growth in the electric vehicle market, a new multi-chemistry battery recycling facility has been opened in Kilwinning near Glasgow. The site will play an important part in Fenix Battery Recycling’s plans to develop facilities to offer on-site recycling for multiple battery types, with this site specialising in recycling Electric Vehicle Batteries.
That 2021 article went on to state that this EV recycling plant was the result of “significant grant funding to develop an innovative technology to make lithium ion battery recycling cleaner and more sustainable.”
Comrade Arthur originally sent this story to me, and I took the occasion to seek clarity as to whether burning a city down with exploding EV batteries is the “clean” part of green energy or the “renewable” part.
On the North River 
Science spends a lot of time, money and effort on how to make things that use Lithium energy but nowhere near enough on how to keep these energy sources safe.
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Science can’t do anything about the basic chemistry of lithium, that’s what makes it dangerous.
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My cell phone is scary enough. I’ll take a hard pass on an EV car.
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Agreed. I’d like to get an bike with electric assist, but I’d always be worried about the battery.
I’ll wait until the atomic batteries are here. BTW, second knee replacement next week! Glad I’m not a horse, two knees and done.
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Both knees? Ugh. Good luck with that. I’ve had rotator cuff surgery on both shoulders and now have arthritis in the left. I’m pretty much in the camp that any invasive surgery will have long-term effects.
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Both knees were at the “bone on bone” stage.
I couldn’t sleep at night after being on my feet from the pain.
First knee was a relief, I’m getting used to the damn clicking when I walk.
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