this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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We really need a better battery technology, one that doesn't trivially become an incendiary device.
trivially it is only when not built or used properly.
We also have gas heating, electricity, cooking with boiling water etc. that all "trivially" become sources of severe injury and death and we manage. Because stuff is built and used according to standards most of the time.
Home gas & electric installations are a lot safer today than they once were. They're actually a great example of how a dangerous power source can be made a lot safer through better choices and engineering.
The first gas ovens and heaters used coal gas, which is carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The monoxide meant that coal gas was highly poisonous to breathe; and both monoxide and hydrogen are odorless — so you might not know the oven was left on unlit and killing your family.
Modern natural gas is mostly methane, with an unpleasant scent added so we can detect leaks. Methane is unbreathable, but still a lot safer to have in your house than monoxide!
(To be clear, the monoxide was not a contaminant; it's a fuel. Coal gas burns into carbon dioxide and water, just like methane.)
So here, we got a better gas technology: in fact, we got a whole different gas; a fundamentally safer-for-humans one — and on top of that, added an extra safety mechanism in the form of an odorizer, making the gas stinky instead of odorless.
Same goes for electricity. Modern home electrical outlets are grounded, greatly reducing the chance of a dangerous shock due to a wiring problem or a defective appliance. And modern circuit breakers are much more reliable than the fuses they replaced; and they don't break, so the homeowner doesn't have an incentive to defeat the safety device the way folks often did with fuses.
And modern kitchen & bathroom outlets have GFCIs, so an appliance shorting out through water (or your body) will break the circuit.
So here, we've gotten better electrical technology too: grounded outlets, circuit breakers, and GFCIs all make electricity much safer than when it was first installed in homes.
To put it morbidly: Coal-gas ovens and ungrounded electrical appliances were both once common means of suicide. Their modern replacements are safe enough that they don't work for that anymore. Same goes for cars, by the way. Modern gasoline cars don't put out enough monoxide to kill a person rapidly by inhaling the exhaust.
So yeah, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say we need a better battery technology, ideally one that doesn't do this sort of thing.
Indeed we certainly need a better technology, or to enforce better regulations, but currently those batteries are the only alternative to gas. So we try and learn from our mistakes, as usual...