Medical science is in very sorry shape in part due to the things you mention. Since the advent of COVID, these issues have become much more obvious to anyone in the general public that is paying attention and is willing to perform a bit of due diligence.
Most people, myself included, would rather not be their own doctor, but speaking for myself, my trust in the medical establishment has plummeted due to COVID and the accompanying incessant propaganda, to the point that I now feel I need to do the best I can on my own. Sometimes it feels like I could hardly do worse.
This problem has been around for much longer than most suspect, and understandably is a much more complex issue than any blog entry can do proper justice so (your post is welcome nonetheless!). A book that does an excellent job explaining all the complexities of this issue (as part of its subject) is the 1996 book "Inventing the AIDS Virus" by Dr. Peter Duesberg, which I read not too long ago. Dr. Duesberg ends his book on a somewhat hopeful note, but I found that he is still vilified in Wikipedia as an "AIDS denier" (something I never knew existed before reading his entry). Conversely, one of his chief opponents, Dr. Robert Gallo, is still held up as some kind of hero, despite his demonstrated malfeasance. Now with COVID we have seen it all happen yet again, only worse.
Dr. Duesberg's book is out of print, but PDF copies can be found online.
BTW, although I don't know about the relative probabilities of ICE car fires and EV car fires (my guess would be that the latter are far less flammable than a tank of gas), I think another reason EV car fires get so much attention is that when they do happen, they are much harder to put out. Most fire departments are not properly equipped to handle that kind of fire. Putting out flammable liquid fires, on the other hand, is a common and well-established skill.
Regarding electric cars and fires (and yes, I know the post was not about that, of course), some searches do indeed give extremely low rate of fires for them, but on the other hand, it seems the seriousness of those fires is much bigger: take longer to extinguish, generate heat for a MUCH longer time, extremely dangerous and toxic gases, etc... And of course, because of all the problems you identified with "the science", it is hard to shake off the sensation that maybe, just maybe, the statistics may be skewed in favor of EVs, maybe there is a strong "propaganda" effect here also. So I am not surprised your interlocutor was skeptical.
On the one hand:
"A recent study by US insurer, AutoinsuranceEZ found that hybrid cars had the worst fire record, while EVs were the least likely type of car to catch fire. Hybrid cars had 3474.5 fires per 100,000 sale; petrol cars had 1,529.9 fires per 100,000 sales and EVs had just 25.1 fires per 100,000 sales."
"Maritime safety equipment manufacturer Survitec is raising the alarm about the unique challenges of battery fires, which are distinct and often poorly understood.
Thanks to their chemical makeup, lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries release oxygen when they heat up and, should they catch fire, it is impossible to smother the flames with water or foam.
Worse, however, is that while some are taught to fight battery fires using CO2 foam, spraying CO2 onto a battery fire will make the situation far worse, warned Finn Lende-Harung, commercial director of Survitec Group
“A lot of the regulation says you can use CO2, but if you disperse CO2 into a lithium-based fire at a high temperature, it actually splits the CO2 atom and you end up with pure oxygen.”"
I think when people see this, there is a legitimate right to worry, LOL. And reversing a well-known saying, "quality may have a quantity of its own".
José, hi. I studied this subject in some detail. Not only fires are rarer in EVs, but the "quality" is also less dangerous than gasoline and diesel fires. There is a host of reasons for that, the main one is that batteries do not really "catch fire" in the sense that they react with oxygen. This is why, as you mention, it is not a good idea to try to use CO2 to quell a battery fire. The idea of using CO2 or water is to starve the fire of oxygen, but that has no effect on glowing hot batteries. Apart from that, a gasoline fire typically occurs when the tank ruptures; the liquids spreads around, and if you happen to be in the path, you are toast (literally). A battery fire (actually not a fire) means that the batteries heat up to red and burn the insulators. BUt they stay where they are and if you are inside the vehicle, you are protected by the steel plate that separates the battery space and you have time to run away. Also, lithium batteries go up in flames not because of having hit something, but because of a short circuit, somewhere. It means that, on the average, when that happens, the occupants of the car are not stunned or unconscious, and they have the time to run away. So, way better than gasoline/diesel cars in nearly all circumnstances
Ah... by the way, of course hybrid cars may be worse than the standard ones, because they still carry a fuel tank. But they are an obslolete technology anyway
Thank you for your considerate answer. I was not aware of all those points, simply that these fires are harder and take a longer time to extinguish, so I am now clearer on the issues. Best regards from Portugal!
Medical science is in very sorry shape in part due to the things you mention. Since the advent of COVID, these issues have become much more obvious to anyone in the general public that is paying attention and is willing to perform a bit of due diligence.
Most people, myself included, would rather not be their own doctor, but speaking for myself, my trust in the medical establishment has plummeted due to COVID and the accompanying incessant propaganda, to the point that I now feel I need to do the best I can on my own. Sometimes it feels like I could hardly do worse.
This problem has been around for much longer than most suspect, and understandably is a much more complex issue than any blog entry can do proper justice so (your post is welcome nonetheless!). A book that does an excellent job explaining all the complexities of this issue (as part of its subject) is the 1996 book "Inventing the AIDS Virus" by Dr. Peter Duesberg, which I read not too long ago. Dr. Duesberg ends his book on a somewhat hopeful note, but I found that he is still vilified in Wikipedia as an "AIDS denier" (something I never knew existed before reading his entry). Conversely, one of his chief opponents, Dr. Robert Gallo, is still held up as some kind of hero, despite his demonstrated malfeasance. Now with COVID we have seen it all happen yet again, only worse.
Dr. Duesberg's book is out of print, but PDF copies can be found online.
BTW, although I don't know about the relative probabilities of ICE car fires and EV car fires (my guess would be that the latter are far less flammable than a tank of gas), I think another reason EV car fires get so much attention is that when they do happen, they are much harder to put out. Most fire departments are not properly equipped to handle that kind of fire. Putting out flammable liquid fires, on the other hand, is a common and well-established skill.
Regarding electric cars and fires (and yes, I know the post was not about that, of course), some searches do indeed give extremely low rate of fires for them, but on the other hand, it seems the seriousness of those fires is much bigger: take longer to extinguish, generate heat for a MUCH longer time, extremely dangerous and toxic gases, etc... And of course, because of all the problems you identified with "the science", it is hard to shake off the sensation that maybe, just maybe, the statistics may be skewed in favor of EVs, maybe there is a strong "propaganda" effect here also. So I am not surprised your interlocutor was skeptical.
On the one hand:
"A recent study by US insurer, AutoinsuranceEZ found that hybrid cars had the worst fire record, while EVs were the least likely type of car to catch fire. Hybrid cars had 3474.5 fires per 100,000 sale; petrol cars had 1,529.9 fires per 100,000 sales and EVs had just 25.1 fires per 100,000 sales."
On the other:
https://www.euronews.com/2022/03/01/massive-cargo-ship-carrying-electric-cars-sinks-in-atlantic-ocean-after-fire
With the added problem that the batteries continued burning under water.
https://theloadstar.com/lithium-battery-fires-require-different-firefighting-techniques-says-safety-oem/#
"Maritime safety equipment manufacturer Survitec is raising the alarm about the unique challenges of battery fires, which are distinct and often poorly understood.
Thanks to their chemical makeup, lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries release oxygen when they heat up and, should they catch fire, it is impossible to smother the flames with water or foam.
Worse, however, is that while some are taught to fight battery fires using CO2 foam, spraying CO2 onto a battery fire will make the situation far worse, warned Finn Lende-Harung, commercial director of Survitec Group
“A lot of the regulation says you can use CO2, but if you disperse CO2 into a lithium-based fire at a high temperature, it actually splits the CO2 atom and you end up with pure oxygen.”"
I think when people see this, there is a legitimate right to worry, LOL. And reversing a well-known saying, "quality may have a quantity of its own".
José, hi. I studied this subject in some detail. Not only fires are rarer in EVs, but the "quality" is also less dangerous than gasoline and diesel fires. There is a host of reasons for that, the main one is that batteries do not really "catch fire" in the sense that they react with oxygen. This is why, as you mention, it is not a good idea to try to use CO2 to quell a battery fire. The idea of using CO2 or water is to starve the fire of oxygen, but that has no effect on glowing hot batteries. Apart from that, a gasoline fire typically occurs when the tank ruptures; the liquids spreads around, and if you happen to be in the path, you are toast (literally). A battery fire (actually not a fire) means that the batteries heat up to red and burn the insulators. BUt they stay where they are and if you are inside the vehicle, you are protected by the steel plate that separates the battery space and you have time to run away. Also, lithium batteries go up in flames not because of having hit something, but because of a short circuit, somewhere. It means that, on the average, when that happens, the occupants of the car are not stunned or unconscious, and they have the time to run away. So, way better than gasoline/diesel cars in nearly all circumnstances
Ah... by the way, of course hybrid cars may be worse than the standard ones, because they still carry a fuel tank. But they are an obslolete technology anyway
Thank you for your considerate answer. I was not aware of all those points, simply that these fires are harder and take a longer time to extinguish, so I am now clearer on the issues. Best regards from Portugal!
Cool. To young people everywhere I have one word: shaman. Shamanic healing is a career with a future.
I'm kidding, of course. Kind of.