Trash From the ISS May Have Hit a House In Florida (arstechnica.com) 135
A nearly two-pound piece of trash from the International Space Station may have hit a house in Florida. Alejandro Otero said it "tore through the roof and both floors of his two-story house in Naples, Florida," reports Ars Technica. "Otero wasn't home at the time, but his son was there." From the report: A Nest home security camera captured the sound of the crash at 2:34 pm local time (19:34 UTC) on March 8. That's an important piece of information because it is a close match for the time -- 2:29 pm EST (19:29 UTC) -- that US Space Command recorded the reentry of a piece of space debris from the space station. At that time, the object was on a path over the Gulf of Mexico, heading toward southwest Florida. This space junk consisted of depleted batteries from the ISS, attached to a cargo pallet that was originally supposed to come back to Earth in a controlled manner. But a series of delays meant this cargo pallet missed its ride back to Earth, so NASA jettisoned the batteries from the space station in 2021 to head for an unguided reentry.
Otero's likely encounter with space debris was first reported by WINK News, the CBS affiliate for southwest Florida. Since then, NASA has recovered the debris from the homeowner, according to Josh Finch, an agency spokesperson. Engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center will analyze the object "as soon as possible to determine its origin," Finch told Ars. "More information will be available once the analysis is complete." [...] In a post on X, Otero said he is waiting for communication from "the responsible agencies" to resolve the cost of damages to his home.
If the object is owned by NASA, Otero or his insurance company could make a claim against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, according to Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi. "It gets more interesting if this material is discovered to be not originally from the United States," she told Ars. "If it is a human-made space object which was launched into space by another country, which caused damage on Earth, that country would be absolutely liable to the homeowner for the damage caused." This could be an issue in this case. The batteries were owned by NASA, but they were attached to a pallet structure launched by Japan's space agency.
Otero's likely encounter with space debris was first reported by WINK News, the CBS affiliate for southwest Florida. Since then, NASA has recovered the debris from the homeowner, according to Josh Finch, an agency spokesperson. Engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center will analyze the object "as soon as possible to determine its origin," Finch told Ars. "More information will be available once the analysis is complete." [...] In a post on X, Otero said he is waiting for communication from "the responsible agencies" to resolve the cost of damages to his home.
If the object is owned by NASA, Otero or his insurance company could make a claim against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, according to Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi. "It gets more interesting if this material is discovered to be not originally from the United States," she told Ars. "If it is a human-made space object which was launched into space by another country, which caused damage on Earth, that country would be absolutely liable to the homeowner for the damage caused." This could be an issue in this case. The batteries were owned by NASA, but they were attached to a pallet structure launched by Japan's space agency.
And the contents separated, itemized, ... (Score:5, Funny)
Trash From the ISS May Have Hit a House In Florida
And the contents separated, itemized, and on eBay. Florida Man may soon have a new truck.
Re:And the contents separated, itemized, ... (Score:5, Funny)
Sold as "batteries, space grade, condition unknown, slightly used".
Re:And the contents separated, itemized, ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, you could probably sell them as what they actually are and earn more.
I suspect there's a significant market from space program fans that would love a souvenir like that, and would gladly pay a couple of hundred for a battery from ISS that (mostly) survived actual re-entry.
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I'd wager you get a few 1000 even.
Probably even enough to cover the repairs.
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Definitely. I have a friend in that category. A meteorite fell near where he lives and hit someone else's house. He offered to pay for roof repairs if he could have the meteorite -- and the section of roof that it hit. He's now the very proud owner of a space rock and about a 2 foot square section of residential roof with a hole in it. He has both mounted in a nice display.
I'm sure the batteries are worth more than just the salvage value, and probably worth more than the purchase price when new. (Not sur
Re:And the contents separated, itemized, ... (Score:4, Informative)
In A.D. 2024 War was beginning. (Score:2)
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As long as it was safe (which being batteries there may be chemicals involved, but perhaps they could be removed?) I'd certainly be at least asking about the possibility of getting it back if it hit my house. Not to sell, I'd stick it in a shadowbox and have it prominently on my mantle. Hell of a story to tell, not many people can claim their house was hit by space junk.
Shocked I tell you (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shocked I tell you (Score:5, Funny)
Jeez, buddy, do you think Elon Musk is now in control of the US government?
Re:Shocked I tell you (Score:5, Informative)
Well, we ARE talking about the US government, the best government money can buy...
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Excellent point!
Whoever moderated this post (Score:5, Interesting)
never had to deal with an insurance company after their unoccupied car had been side swiped in a public parking lot.
I am still curious about the poor working stiff whose Corolla got smashed up in the employee lot at San Francisco International. A tire fell off a Boeing 777 overflying this parking lot on takeoff. Everyone is worried about the scare put into the passengers, but what about the person left without a way to get to his job?
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toilet seat (Score:4)
We already know what happens if it had been a toilet seat. With a battery, we'll see, still has to be written.
Re:toilet seat (Score:4)
I enjoyed that series!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
Only £2? (Score:2)
That's an underestimate, imo. You'd get more than that for it on Ebay, for sure.
Casual thought: imagine the hoo-ha if this was from a Chinese satellite.
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Imagine the hoo-ha if that piece of junk landed in China. Or Russia.
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Russia is mostly vast open wasteland. China is mostly vast industrial wasteland. No one would notice. Although there would be dozens of clones available on Ali Express within a month.
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Knowing Ali Express, they'd just sell that hunk of molten metal as "pre-owned, slightly used, refurbished".
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And ship you the wrong thing.
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...within the next 2-8 months.
I'm not saying it was aliens... (Score:2)
But it was aliens.
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Ron DeSantis: "It's from trashy transgender space aliens! We must retaliate before they corrupt our children! I've asked MTG to activate the Jewish Space Lasers!"
Likely outcome (Score:2)
Florida (Score:4, Funny)
Where trash naturally gravitates to.
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gravitates
So apropos.
I can't wait (Score:2)
This is dumb (Score:3)
Instead of worrying about who manufactured the space junk, why wouldn't you go after the agency or individual who made the decision to jettison it?
I should check my homeowners insurance agreement and see if they cover me for damages from space debris, meteor, etc. It's rare enough that it ought to be incredibly cheap.
His son "Donnie"? (Score:2)
Ah, hell, I hate it when a tangent universe happens.
Have fun I guess?
But they get upset ... (Score:2)
RFG (Score:2)
Better that than a RFG (Rod From God) -- one of Pournelle's fun weapons.
We're sure it didn't fall off a Boeing aircraft? (Score:3)
Or maybe the actual target was at Mar-a-Lago.
Assume another country is at fault, so what? (Score:2)
Make this a federal case, compensate the guy, and use diplomatic relations to recover the funds. At least in that approach, the homeowner doesn't have to deal with unreasonable delays.
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trash from the ISS may have hit what ? (Score:2)
another pile of trash in Florida ?
but how would they tell (Score:2)
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ISS treats the US like the US treats the world. Comes in, destroys everything and leaves its trash behind.
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Yeah we trashed up Japan and Europe and just walked away.
Bastards!
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Still milking the last good thing you did which was almost a century ago?
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- Vietnam
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- every
- damn
- country
- in
- south
- and
- central
- America
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Vietnam: poorly fought and after we lost we should have fixed it? They won. They can fix it.
Iraq: fixed it as much as a third world mentality culture can accept.
Afghanistan: see Vietnam. Talk to Joe about why we ran away like that.
Still waiting to have my other question answered. What good things has anyone in Europe ever done? Fuck up all of Africa, the Middle East, most of Asia, a good part of the islands between Australia and the Asian continent. And that's without going back further to what Europ
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What good things has anyone in Europe ever done? Fuck up all of Africa, the Middle East, most of Asia, a good part of the islands between Australia and the Asian continent. And that's without going back further to what Europeans did tooth north and South America.
Europeans make Americans look like bottom end amateurs when it comes to fucking up other places.
One of the base human attributes is domination and submission.
People with rageboners about the USA seem to forget that there will always be someone ready to fill the domination role. If the USA were to fulfill some people's greatest wish and be totally eliminated some other nation will happily fill that role.
If I may use the World Wars of the last century as an example, one of the causes of World War Two was the treatment of Germany after losing WW1.
France in its umbrage decided that Germany must
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> I'd love to hear what country would be both dominant, yet a perfect replacement for the hated USA.
My vote would be for any of the Scandinavian countries, or perhaps Switzerland.
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> I'd love to hear what country would be both dominant, yet a perfect replacement for the hated USA.
My vote would be for any of the Scandinavian countries, or perhaps Switzerland.
There we go. Names. Yes, those countries have some pretty decent governance. It would be difficult for them to be dominant, but I like the answer.
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> It would be difficult for them to be dominant
Depends what you mean by dominant. All of their militaries have proven themselves and deserve significant respect. Also I'd hardly describe the US as dominant by most metrics.
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> I'd love to hear what country would be both dominant, yet a perfect replacement for the hated USA.
My vote would be for any of the Scandinavian countries, or perhaps Switzerland.
There we go. Names. Yes, those countries have some pretty decent governance. It would be difficult for them to be dominant, but I like the answer.
The Scandinavians are just nice Lake Wobegon / St. Olaf Lutherans with an orgy-borgy accent.
You're proposing what's essentially the Dark Forest theory of galactic politics.
Scandinavia is the kind of civilization that cheerfully pipes up to say "Hello Galaxy!" and then gets dimensionally de-rezzed into a hyper-entropic Flatland by the Milky Way edition of Stalin.
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Apparently like most US Americans, you have been brainwashed your entire life with a ton of pro-US bullshit propaganda rather than a given an informed education.
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Argentina is already doing a much better job of fucking itself up than Biden could ever achieve.
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2) what have we trashed since then that we didn't fix?
Iraq too. ...and don't forget that time ISIS killed the Kurds, fighting on the ground with our air power, ...and then MAGA Trump left Turkey to slaughter the our former allies the Kurds.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/s... [pbs.org]
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/1... [cnn.com]
Turkey is without agency (Score:2)
The people running what they identify as Turkiye are without moral responsibility and everything their armed forces do is the responsibility of outside powers.
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So it was our place to get involved in an internal fight in another NATO country against our NATO ally? Are you fucking nuts?
I feel bad for the Kurds but helping them fight our NATO ally is the height of fucking insanity.
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KnowItAll, this citation also might inform you of the events at the time. No one was killing our allies as we were providing stability in the region while the Kurds fought and killed ISIS as our partners on the ground.
Jim Mattis, Defense Secretary, Resigns in Rebuke [archive.is] of Trump’s Worldview
US Generals and the military in general don't take well to trashing our allies like we did to the Kurds under Trump.
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Yes no one was killing our allies because as I said that would have been fucking nuts.
As our allies we should not be fucking around with their internal issues in any way. If Native Americans started an armed uprising would it be ok if Britain got involved in any way? Jfc... the arrogance is astounding. It's not our business what Turkey does inside their borders with what is basically a rebellion.
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Uh, no. The US was not helping anyone fight against a NATO partner. That would have been a major article 5 [nato.int] issue. But our sudden, erratic withdrawal unilaterally under then commander-in-chief Trump, against the advice of his cabinet, left a vacuum with Turkey, the 4th largest military in the world able to slaughter their long-time enemy the Kurds. It was as predictable as day and night.
Trump didn't/doesn't care about our allies or American in
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Yes! That is exactly what I was saying. But genius up there wants us to get involved in an internal issue with a NATO ally.
If we had a group of people internal to the US who started an armed rebellion would it be ok if Germany got involved in ANY way?
Jesus F Christ on a stick! Nooooooo!
The same way their internal business is theirs. The astounding arrogance required to say it was our business in Turkey is just shocking. We are not the world's police.
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But let us all play a game. Since some of us want to end the US as superpower (therefore getting involved in what is going on around the world)
And since by the nature of humans Some country will fill that role.
Ground rules:
Name the country who will replace the USA as the superpower. Consider the US as bringing home all of it's troops, shiutting down all it's installations worldwide, and pulling out of all military actions, and becoming 100
geopolitics is very fragile (Score:2)
China has made it clear that they intend to fill that role by the end of the 21st. Something Xi has mentioned multiple times over the years. The US can theoretically withdraw and isolate itself if the politics play out that way. Spending a massive chunk of their GDP on the military is a serious commitment, and people can quickly lose their taste for military might especially as WW2 and the Cold War slips from living memory. If all we have left is a War on Terror, then simply closing the borders will seem li
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China has made it clear that they intend to fill that role by the end of the 21st. Something Xi has mentioned multiple times over the years. The US can theoretically withdraw and isolate itself if the politics play out that way. Spending a massive chunk of their GDP on the military is a serious commitment, and people can quickly lose their taste for military might especially as WW2 and the Cold War slips from living memory. If all we have left is a War on Terror, then simply closing the borders will seem like an effective solution to the average rube/voter. Everything depends on politicians' ability to sell one policy over another to the American people.
To make certain - in the game, you want China and its governmental system to be the dominant group - replacing the USA?
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Oh what I want isn't relevant at all. I don't get to pick the winner. But for the record, I would prefer a country that has democratic aspects to it running the world than a cabal in a single-party state. Especially one moving so quickly towards an autocracy. As autocracies and authoritarianism are an incredibly unstable form of government and can't be counted on to deal with long-term issues that we face in the world.
As for the US's performance on international cooperation. There is much to criticize, but
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Oh what I want isn't relevant at all. I don't get to pick the winner.
Brappp! You not only did not answer, you put in yet another diss on the USA. If you answer this - and I'm pretty sure you won't. Give me the country you want to become the next superpower.
Name it, We know you hate the USA - but if we are out of the loop, someone will take over - Name the country. There's hundreds, and you can't name one.
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Brappp! You not only did not answer,
Au contraire mon frère! I did answer, and even opened up with the most direct way of answering, by stating that I am on the record.
Me:
But for the record, I would prefer a country that has democratic aspects to it running the world than a cabal in a single-party state.
You:
you put in yet another diss on the USA
I'm not interested in jingoism. I prefer rational discourse.
If you answer this - and I'm pretty sure you won't.
I did. I don't believe it is desirable to have a single superpower. But barring that I prefer to maintain the status quo. That's not what you asked.
But America is already a superpower, so making them the "next superpower" one isn't a logical question. Try again! (or not, it's a free country)
Name it, We know you hate the USA
Please don't put
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Brappp! You not only did not answer,
Au contraire mon frère! I did answer, and even opened up with the most direct way of answering, by stating that I am on the record.
Me:
But for the record, I would prefer a country that has democratic aspects to it running the world than a cabal in a single-party state.
What is the country's name? The name is what I am asking for, not what someone wants. Some country that is not the USA is the question, and you spout sentences about what you would like I f you can't give an actual name - you fail at the game. My game, my rules. You could said the PRC, or Russian Federation or Finland or Papua New Guinea. Any country.
Thank you for playing long enough to prove my point and that you can't provide any name.
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Some country that is not the USA is the question
I completely misunderstood your question. Thank you for making it clear.
you fail at the game. My game, my rules
Fair enough. Have fun with your game. I'm glad you're open to taking non-serious answers like "Papua New Guinea". But disappointed you're not open to serious answers like "None".
So much winning.
I have a simple question, I hope you can answer. What is the point of this game?
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Consider the US as bringing home all of it's troops, shutting down all it's installations worldwide, and pulling out of all military actions, and becoming 100 percent isolationist Whatever military actions take place around the world are settled with zero intervention.
Have you been watching 'Messiah' on Netflix?
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Consider the US as bringing home all of it's troops, shutting down all it's installations worldwide, and pulling out of all military actions, and becoming 100 percent isolationist Whatever military actions take place around the world are settled with zero intervention.
Have you been watching 'Messiah' on Netflix?
Nope. But I am pointing out that all of the people who hate the USA and wish we were gone of had no dealings outside our borders might not like what happens afterwards.
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Umm... care to inform us how to power the ISS without?
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Premium 93. Or maybe 95. It's expensive so put the good stuff in.
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I hope you're kidding because ... well, you DO know what an ICE requires. Hint: Fuel is only one component.
Re:I tried to tell everybody here... (Score:5, Funny)
Of course I'm joking. Everyone knows you'd use dilithium.
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Umm... care to inform us how to power the ISS without?
If we would have listened to Trump, we'd be powering the Space Station with clean and safe coal.
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Oh. Sorry, I wasn't aware that it's ok to make shit up. In this case I propose Elerium-115.
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Oh. Sorry, I wasn't aware that it's ok to make shit up. In this case I propose Elerium-115.
That's old school stuff. Illudium Q-38 is the trendy new energy source.
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I was about to reply "Oh you kids and your newfangled tech" 'til I looked it up.
Dude. You ARE old.
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I was about to reply "Oh you kids and your newfangled tech" 'til I looked it up.
Dude. You ARE old.
Marvin is my guy.
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Man, I got to admit that Illudium Q-38 is from well before my time. I actually didn't realize that Marvin the Martian is that old either.
We need to bring back the old Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny Universe. Somepeople find them stressful, but damn, they were funny.
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The bigger issue is that more and more stuff is going to be de-orbiting as more and more satellites go up. The cost of getting to orbit is falling, and we are now seeing mega-constellations of tens of thousands of satellites, all of which are planned to be de-orbited.
Little effort has gone into modelling how much of that stuff will reach the surface, or perhaps more importantly what the effect of burning up all that material in the upper atmosphere will be. It doesn't just vanish, it breaks down into gasses
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I wouldn't class the effort as 'little'. There are multiple modelling packages, backed up by experimental validation tests. There's still work to be done, but 'little' is a bit unfair. An example paper:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
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Re: I tried to tell everybody here... (Score:3)
Chemical batteries are not nearly as nasty as nuclear batteries. Aerospace fuels are also not something a layperson should handle. What alternative do you offer? It's not like you can pull start a trusty 2 stoke while in orbit.
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You know what stuff we currently use to fuel our cars?
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Hah, nice job getting baited into a troll thread. Funny you should mention gasoline, though. Yeah it burns, but it doesn't leave much behind when it does, and it's not that hard for fire crews to deal with gasoline fires. Lithium ion batteries are a hazmat situation if they start leaking or burning. Seriously, you do not want to have to clean that crap up. And they tend to provide their own oxygen source when burning, so good luck putting one out. Sometimes all you can do is suppress the fire until th
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You very obviously never tried to clean a gasoline spill. You actually should hope it burns off...
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We're talking fires, not spills. And I would still rather deal with a gasoline spill than a leaking lithium ion car battery. Not that either situation is desirable.
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Battery composition is changing rapidly.
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Now apply that logic to EVs already on the road for several years.
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You do understand we're not talking about nuclear fuel here where increasing the mass may make it supercritical, yes? More batteries just mean more batteries. What exactly would you expect if we "scale this up"?
Re: I tried to tell everybody here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not enough scale, we have actually no idea at all what will happen if we scale this up.
The scale: There were 26 million electric vehicles on the roads in 2022, increasing by 10 million per year https://www.iea.org/reports/gl... [iea.org] and the sales are larger every year in an exponential fashion https://www.statista.com/chart... [statista.com]
What will happen: We know nothing special happens, Norway has 88% EV market share for new cars, and 27% total cars in the streets are EV as of in 2022, in constant growth 5 percentage points per year https://ourworldindata.org/ele... [ourworldindata.org]
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jumping on the batteries band wagon too quickly
A hundred years is "too quickly"!?
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Well, lots of them are already on the road. Are they exploding?
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I figured it was something like that. "Explosive batteries" sounds like FUD.
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Well, lots of them are already on the road. Are they exploding?
Very few.
While it is true that if an EV does catch fire, it has to be handled differently than a petrofueled vehicle. But that fact being used by anti-EV people is kind of silly. Different burning substances require different firefighting techniques. Wood vs gasoline vs battery fires are different.
But the humor is in whenever an EV does have a fire, the petro peo-ple go reee with "Those things are dangrous! EV's catch fire! Who knew? We gotta get the news out that EV's are dangerous - Get back to safe
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"Lithium based batteries can combust like an incendiary bomb"
Unlike a tank full of gasoline, which will never, ever catch fire.