16 November—On my way home from Torrington a few days ago, I noticed a person heading towards and only about a short distance away from a car parked on the side of the road. The person was carrying a red gasoline can. The inference, therefore, was that the car had run out of gas, the person had trudged to the Cumberland Farms convenience store/filling station on the road, filled a can of gas (either the person’s can or the filling station’s), and was trudging back to get the hungry car on the road again.

It didn’t occur to me until I encountered a traffic jam at the Litchfield Green (doubtless caused by the counterproductive traffic light and ConnDOT ineptitude) that if a battery-powered car—an EV, the alleged solution to global warming and salvation of the earth, world without end, amen—were to run out of fuel and get stuck wherever it may be, the driver would need an awfully long and heavy extension cord (minimum four-gauge?) to get the car running again.

There are portable jump-boxes for EV’s, to be sure, roughly the size and weight of five-gallon gas cans, which provide enough charge to get EVs a few miles to the nearest EV charging points. But since the nearest EV charging points may be—most likely will be—several or many miles away, EV owners would do well to keep at least two portable chargers in their trunks.

Another emergency solution to EVs running out of juice in the middle of nowhere, of course, is good old-fashioned fossil-fuel-powered generators in the trunks. Just plug ’em in the EV charging ports and pull the cords. Problem with that is keeping volatile, flammable fuel in vehicles is definitely hazardous.

But lithium batteries, as well as being considerably less environmentally friendly than they’re made out to be by politicians, also are hazardous. In fact, they’re regulated as a hazardous material by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has determined they “can pose an unreasonable risk to health, safety, and property.” Lithium cells and batteries pose chemical, electrical, and fire hazards.

According to the USDOT, Lithium cells and batteries “can overheat and ignite under certain conditions, such as a short circuit, physical damage, improper design, or assembly. Once ignited, lithium cell and battery fires can be difficult to extinguish. Additional, although infrequent, events can result in lithium cells and batteries experiencing thermal runaway, a chain reaction leading to a violent release of stored energy and flammable gas. This thermal runaway can propagate to other batteries or combustible materials nearby, potentially resulting in large scale thermal events with severe consequences.”

Thermal runaway indeed. And it’s not just Lithium batteries in cars that are hazardous . . .