Energy. the basic science of its availability, storage and safety

To face the changing climate the world must forgo the medium-and long-term use of fossil fuels and stop deluding itself that renewables controlled by the vagaries of the weather can be a reliable replacement. We have long neglected the provision of the science education that would ensure that everybody trusts the workings of the natural world around them. Consequently, fossil fuel interests still dictate investment decisions that endanger human survival. Only nuclear energy, welcomed by a confident and better-informed population, offers a viable way forward.

An introduction to the safety issues in large-scale Li-ion Battery Energy Storage Systems or BESS

Sources of wind and solar electrical power need large energy storage, most often provided by Lithium-Ion batteries of unprecedented capacity. Incidents of serious fire and explosion suggest that the danger of these to the public, and emergency services, should be properly examined.

Modern society needs large amounts of energy, available at all times and with least impact on the environment. The established principles of natural science describe just four distinct sources of energy in the Universe. Examples of these, in order of increasing potency, are renewables, fossil fuels, nuclear power, gravitational collapse, although the latter is not accessible in the Solar System today. If burning fossil fuels is not environmentally acceptable, that leaves renewables and nuclear to be used instead. Renewables fail all the acceptance criteria that nuclear passes, except one. While the public at large welcomes renewables, it harbours deep misgivings about nuclear, having long been frightened for historical and political reasons. However, there is no objective basis for such a view and, to establish an energy policy to mitigate climate change, deep cultural shifts are required in education and public attitudes around the world. Such an investment will take a generation, similar to the time required to deploy nuclear reactors, large or small, in every country. As the climate becomes more extreme, the failure of renewables and the benefit of nuclear power are likely to become ever more evident. Current realities Science should reduce the risks of future investment by separating real possibilities from what can be excluded on scientific principles. A clear distinction should be understood between natural science, the established rules of the world as we find it, and technology, the human struggle to master it through inventive creation. Science changes slowly and is trustworthy; technology can be fast, exciting-and risky. Too often the two are elided causing unwise investment and predictable disappointment. Mankind gained confidence and supremacy over other animals when he learnt how to augment his own strength with renewables. The energy of moving and falling objects, and also sunshine, is evident to the senses, and Galileo and Newton showed how to improve their use with mathematics and science. In that way humans built mills and sailed the world. By the heat of wood fires they cooked food and refined metals. Yet in those days lives were short and miserable, and the population small. Leisure and human rights were for the few. Only with the Industrial Revolution did mankind learn how to avoid energy dependent on the capricious behaviour of wind and weather. The 24/7 reliability and concentration of fossil fuel energy enabled a doubling of life expectancy and a quadrupling of population. With it came vacations, sport and an end to pervasive slavery. Yet that energy of fossil fuels was mysterious. The sight of a lump of coal shows no sign of its huge hidden energy. Only in the 1920s was the seat of its inner mechanism revealed. Ever since by understanding this new clockwork, the motion of electrons in the outer parts of atoms, great technical advances have been made in chemistry, batteries, explosives, electronics, biology, even food. Significantly, the energy concentrations of these are all remarkably similar and about a thousand times renewables. However, the only large naturally occurring primary deposits of such energy are the fossil fuels. Pre-charged batteries and hydrogen gas are secondary sources not readily available in the environment. But fossil fuels should be replaced. This change will lead to either a new industrial revolution or collapse, depending on the scientific judgement and social maturity shown by mankind. The science of energy is well understood and offers a choice between reverting to renewables and engaging nuclear. The natural science of nuclear energy has changed little in seventy years. Quantum Mechanics, the same clockwork that describes electronics and chemistry, also sets the scale of the energy inside every