The fire that swept Los Angeles County in January left over more than a million pounds of damaged lithium-ion batteries, ranging from slim capsules inside the iPhone to brick-like blocks operating electric vehicles.
Cheap and reliable lithium-ion batteries have helped the world move towards green energy, but there is one major risk. If damaged, the battery will heat up very quickly, bursting with a puff of toxic, flammable gases, erupting into a flame that is difficult to disappear.
That level of risk provided new urgency in cleaning fire debris in LA. Thousands of lithium-ion batteries left in ruins in more than 13,500 homes and garages could have exploded or set fire to them at any time after being exposed to temperatures above 2,000 degrees.
Keith Glenn, a scene coordinator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said lithium-ion batteries with fire damage were “highly unpredictable.” Workers who handled them sometimes questioned: “Is it set on fire? Will it become a projectile?”
EPA scene coordinator Keith Glenn holds a handful of fine lithium-ion batteries on March 15 in the parking lot at Will Rogers State Beach in Pacific Palisades.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Lithium-ion batteries were the leading cause of deaths from a fire in New York City last year, and are now half the country’s loaded trash truck fires. A fire from a portable battery caught a plane on a South Korean runway in January, and US safety regulators say lithium-ion battery fires occur almost twice a week.
Federal environmental officials are on the last day of months’ efforts to stop them from finding the battery and grabbing the fire. This involves sieve fire fragments with your hands, pounding the batteries with a special salt solution, crushing them for transportation and recycling. It is an ugly ending to the power behind some of our best designed and beloved devices.
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Environmental workers have recovered more than 16 times more batteries from the wreckage of the LA fire than the wildfire that swept Maui in 2023.
This volume reflects not only the extent of the damages here, but also the role of California as a passionate early adoption of green technology, such as solar panels, electric vehicles and the enormous wall-mounted battery panels that come with them.
All lithium-ion batteries work almost the same. Cells cluster inside the battery casing, and lithium ions move between the electrodes of each cell, generating current.
Battery is a risk if it goes into thermal out of control. This is a condition caused by physical damage that can lead to overcharge, manufacturing errors, or fire.
Keith Glenn walks through the EPA staging area where lithium-ion batteries collected from the fires of Parisades are shredded in a parking lot at Will Rogers State Beach.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“Like that first domino pushing up… it could spread,” said Chris Myers, co-chair of the EPA’s National Li-Ion Battery Emergency Response Task Force. If the batteries are not properly treated, the fire can rekindle “days, weeks, months, months,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to prevent.”
In California, the biggest risk is often in the garage or street. The strength of electric vehicle fires can close the highway for several hours, and sometimes prevent firefighters from saving victims of car crashes.
They can also have a major financial impact. Last fall, a large number of lithium-ion batteries carrying lithium-ion batteries were overturned, causing a fire in San Pedro, forcing several port terminals to close. About 1,200 people were ordered to evacuate in Monterey County earlier this year after one of the world’s largest battery storage facilities at Moss Landing Power Station broke out in a fire.
The island’s geography sparked problems when the Biden administration left the EPA to clean up lithium-ion battery waste from the Lahaina fire. Maui does not have a battery recycling centre, and the captain and insurance company were aware of the risk of fire and did not want goods damaged to the cargo.
“We were pushed into a situation where we had to understand that,” Myers said.
Therefore, EPA has developed a current one called “Maui Method,” a two-part process for removing stored power from batteries and grinding it for safe transportation and recycling.
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In Los Angeles County, the labor-intensive process began by mapping potential locations of over 5,000 batteries, including around 2,000 in Pallisade and Malibu and 3,000 in Altadena. This list has compiled information from the Automobile and Solar Panel Companies, Utilities, Homeowners and Automobile Divisions.
Hundreds of environmental workers then went to the burn zone, sifting through the wreckage, blocking them at home, block by block.
The crew working on the electric vehicle cut the voltage cable into airbags and seatbelts, detached it from the top of the car, and flipped the vehicle over to access the battery pack below. If you remove the thousands of cells below and load the batteries into a metal drum, it can take up to two hours per vehicle.
According to Glenn, Los Angeles has much larger electric cars than Maui, and each make and model is a little different.
Lithium-ion batteries are poured into shredders in staging areas operated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The crew also looked for wall mounted battery energy storage systems that connect solar panels and electric vehicles. Weighing over 200 pounds, these devices were wrapped in fire blankets and disassembled by trucking into EPA’s temporary processing sites.
The EPA’s choice of property, including beachfront parking and open spaces in Irwindale, has sparked a fierce backlash from residents who don’t want toxic batteries carved near homes and sensitive waterways.
Westside Councillor Traci Park surprised the battery wasn’t too far from the water at one public meeting earlier this year that it was crushed as “just open.”
The EPA increased the thick plastic barriers and layers to prevent groundwater runoff, and used air quality monitors to ensure that the precious, semi-precious metal-containing battery dust did not contaminate the air. The agency tested the air and soil again before and afterwards.
On the Beach, Wil Rogers site, workers submerged batteries recovered in salt water, made with table salt and baking soda. Batteries can release bubbles and rusty emissions to reduce stored energy and reduce the risk of fire.
In the first few weeks of LA cleanup, the battery was crushed between the steel plate and the drum roller. Flattening the contents of a 55-gallon drum took one engineer 30-45 minutes compared to grinding the peanuts into peanut butter.
When you break the anode and cathode of a battery, the battery will decrease to what EPA workers call it, and become semi-vigorously “not the battery.” This makes metal transport easier and prevents the battery from re-ignition.
The EPA ditched the roller method in late March and made it a simpler solution: two bright blue machines that look like a giant sausage grinder. The machine was made in New Jersey by an industrial manufacturer making crushers for automatic yards and 1-800-Gott junk.
Will Rogers’ team was called the smaller machine “Pork Roll” after the popular processed meat in Garden State. Bind the battery about 8 barrels per hour, the size of a riding lawnmower, and chew it 8 times faster than the drum roller method.
The bigger machines were even faster. On the first day of operation, ocean waves crashed behind him, and EPA contractors used bobcats with front claws to pick up a metal drum and hold it over the machine’s chute.
The barrels were on hand due to the possibility of storage of shredded lithium-ion batteries at Will Rogers State Beach.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Another worker used a long pole to scrape the battery down the machine. The battery fell from inside the teeth and tumbled from the bottom as a pile of metal scraping from the bottom.
The batteries are shoveled into a massive metal container with a soft top and trucks into the lawn pile, Utah’s Great Salt Lake Dessert waste disposal facility, officials said. The liquid covering the battery is also hazardous waste, and is made from trucks in another specialized facility, the agency said.
According to Glenn, EPA’s Maui method is increasingly used because it relies more heavily on cordless devices. “We love portability.
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