A one room fire at SpaceX
A fire broke out in a battery room at SpaceX’s California facility yesterday, injuring no one.
Though the article suggests the fire was not significant, it is also gives no details.
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A fire broke out in a battery room at SpaceX’s California facility yesterday, injuring no one.
Though the article suggests the fire was not significant, it is also gives no details.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Mmm, the absence of details is indeed a little annoying. Also, don’t get me wrong, I like what SpaceX is doing, but I feel this is once again a good time to point out that just because Lithium is the flashy new thing in battery technology, doesn’t make it the best. Given the lack of details I can’t say if this was an electrical fire or a battery fire. If they are indeed using lithium ion batteries at their plant, which I assume they would given SpaceX likes to deal only with the new and flashy, this fire was likely a battery fire and could have been very dangerous as lithium is highly flammable and the electrolyte used in Lion batteries is an oxidzer.
Battery fires with older older/less energy dense technologies such as Nickel Iron, Lead Acid or even Litium Iron Phosphate are virtually unheard of, especially with LiFe batteries as they are designed for safety. Again, it’s all an assumption on my part as to what fire might have been given the lack of details, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to alert people to the safer battery chemistries out there. Just because Lithium Ion is one of the most energy dense, does not make it the best in all applications.
Gealon–
Thanks for the clarification on ‘batteries.’ –I have trouble keeping track of which versions are subject to “spontaneous combustion.”
slight tangent–
Are those solar-panels on top of the factory?
(Musk is having trouble convincing his Board, to go forth with the takeover of his cousin’s solar-panel company.)
I worked at a place that had a couple of electrical fires in the course of a month. The first was ground support cabling near the connectors at the spacecraft (fire did not reach the spacecraft); they had been mishandled, arced, and the insulation caught fire. Later, an electrical rack caught fire. That was a bad month, but we got the fires out using fire extinguishers only (and cutting power), no one was injured, and no hazardous materials response was required.