No more lithium batteries on board
Flying well-equipped for business and pleasure gets a bit more complicated with new U.S. Department of Transportation rules that bar travelers from packing loose lithium batteries in checked luggage. The move, which went into effect yesterday, is designed to help minimize the risk that batteries could overheat and catch fire on board, the agency’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration says. The new rules say travelers can bring a laptop computer, digital camera, cellphone and other equipment on board or in checked luggage if their lithium batteries are installed in the items. And passengers can bring spare batteries in carry-on luggage if they are stored in plastic bags or if they are in the original retail packaging. But travelers can bring only two such spare batteries, and each must be packed separately.
Additional points about lithium content: Passengers can fly with lithium-ion batteries containing no more than the equivalent of eight grams of lithium content. All lithium-ion batteries in cellphones and almost all laptop-computer batteries meet this rule, the agency says. As for spares, fliers can bring as many as two, but the batteries’ total lithium content must be less than 25 grams. And for lithium-metal batteries, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the maximum lithium content is two grams per battery. Almost all consumer-type lithium-metal batteries meet this rule, the agency says. I guess this shouldn’t be such a problem as recent fluid limitation, but still, it will only slowdown already painful security checks…
Source: WSJ, Reuters
Comments(37)
WTF!!!!!!!!!! I hate airports! Damn! Just another thing to slow everything down!!!! OMG!
Well…
Travel agencies have been met with a downfall in profit, since 9/11. This is yet another “c’mon… it’s safe to fly”-things.
What a freaking headache.
I’m a pilot myself (frozen ATPL) and it is just getting more absurd each day. First we had to put all the liquids in transparant bags not more than the predescribed mL. And now we got to check every battery operated device which may contain Lithium and check it for its grams. This won’t increase safety that much but will just be another annoyity for passengers who are allready aggovated with all protocols which exist allready. I agree that onboard safety rather starts on the ground than in the air, thank god they’ve got new X-ray gates at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, this saves alot of time. Biometric passports, optic iris-scans. Technology will keep things safe up there, not time consuming protocols. It’s just another dent in the passengers trust for aviation.
i remember back in the day when people flew from southafrica with handguns in their handluggage and noone made a sound about it. this is just absurd? have regular lithium batteries ever overheated and caused a fire? never heard of it…
you would think that they would want to worry more about terrorist being able to bring “stuff” on board. you always hear about reporters or govt inspectors testing security by sneaking stuff through and most of the time they get it through. so, instead of worrying how much hair gel and batteries people have maybe they should worry about the real probs.
i … dont… get … it
Hey my daddy is McGyver and he told me how to build a bomb out of bootstraps, soap and cheesecrackers.
I guess those things get banned now too?
This get’s a big WTF. I was suspecting a terrorist argument. But catching fire? How many times has that happened since batteries are used? Now? Just like it’s saver to go by plane then by bus.
Is there a single case of a battery that has caused such a fire or is this one of those urban myths?
Can we please have PROPER LINKS to the SOURCE of RLSLog news stories please?
There have been too many ill-informed news posts. If you want to play journalist, provide your SOURCES.
Thanks.
good point… otherwise how do we know which bit is the true news and which bit is RLSLog commentary and opinion?
Hyperlinks to source articles please! If you’re gonna do something, do it properly.
Well at least I fail to see how these “restrictions” (laptop is ok, 2 spare batteries max) equates to:
“No more lithium batteries on board”
What is this, tech news or tabloid newspaper?
and yeah, sources would be good.
Its true im afraid, because lithium batteries can deliver a lot of current in a short period, and they have caught on fire ..in Dell notebooks and some cell phones.
There is supposed to a circuit built in to protect against short circuit and over current ..how well these work i dont know.
Even alkaline batteries can get very hot i noticed when using them to test an RF amp.
Hey Guys, Basically they cant provide a source unless they are gona photocopy the Newspapar [SAD]
Because the wall street journal is a newspaper from Belgium u hav 2 buy or subscribe to it lol!!
there is no internet page
tbh they may hav misread it and posted nonsense but not my prob. ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_battery#Safety_issues_and_regulation
Rapid-discharge issues
Lithium batteries can provide extremely high currents and can discharge very rapidly when short-circuited. Although this is useful in applications where high currents are required, a too-rapid discharge of a lithium battery can result in overheating of the battery, rupture, and even explosion. Lithium-thionyl chloride batteries are particularly capable of this type of discharge. Consumer batteries usually incorporate overcurrent or thermal protection or vents in order to prevent explosion.
Because of the above risks, shipping and carriage of lithium batteries is restricted in some situations, particularly transport of lithium batteries by air.
The computer industry’s drive to increase battery capacity can test the limits of sensitive components such as the membrane separator, a polyethylene or polypropylene film that is only 20-25 µm thick. The energy density of lithium-ion batteries has more than doubled since they were introduced in 1991. When the battery has more and more material, the separator can undergo stress.
this news could go right with the boy in london who got killed.
this news has absolutely no value to me.
Lithium-ion batteries can rupture, ignite, or explode when exposed to high temperature environments, for example in an area that is prone to prolonged direct sunlight. [40]. Short-circuiting a Li-ion battery can cause it to ignite or explode, and as such, any attempt to open or modify a Li-ion battery’s casing or circuitry is dangerous. Li-ion batteries contain safety devices that protect the cells inside from abuse, and, if damaged, can cause the battery to ignite or explode.
Contaminants inside the cells can defeat these safety devices. For example, the mid-2006 recall of approximately 10 million Sony batteries used in Dell, Sony, Apple, Lenovo/IBM, Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu and Sharp laptops was stated to be as a consequence of internal contamination with metal particles. Under some circumstances, these can pierce the separator, causing the cell to short, rapidly converting all of the energy in the cell to heat[41]resulting in an exothermic oxidizing reaction (also known as “fire”), increasing the temperature to a few hundred degrees Celsius in a fraction of a second. This causes the neighbouring cells to heat up causing a chain thermal reaction. However, there are problems that go beyond this and so this explanation is not complete.
The mid-2006 Sony laptop battery recall was not the first of its kind, however it is the largest to date. During the past decade there have been numerous recalls of lithium-ion batteries in cellular phones and laptops owing to overheating problems. In October 2004, Kyocera Wireless recalled approximately 1 million batteries used in cellular phones, due to counterfeit batteries produced in Kyocera’s name.[42] In December 2006, Dell recalled approximately 22,000 batteries from the U.S. market.[43] In March 2007, Lenovo recalled approximately 205,000 9-cell lithium-ion batteries due to an explosion risk. In August 2007, Nokia recalled over 46 million lithium-ion batteries, warning that some of them might overheat and possibly explode.[44] There was an incident in the Philippines involving a Nokia N91, which uses the BL-5C battery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Disadvantages
@15, not so.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119911051123859361.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Too easy.
well.. duh! Of course the WSJ article was online. ya think anyone can be bothered typing a whole story in from a magazine? 99% of this story was copy & paste from the above WSJ link, up to “the agency says.”
Dunno where the last sentence came from – that’s the problem. we can’t tell which bit is story and which bit is Martin without links to the original stories!
Women everywhere are crying in agony.. I predict a shortage of women going to the bathroom on flights.
Why don’t we all just go on planes naked and without any carry-on bagage? Cavity searches are, of course, mandatory.
If the stewardesses do the same thing, I won’t have a problem with that!
Dunno about you, but I’d still have carry-on baggage.
Its appalling the amount af aeroplanes that have caught fire and crashed because of faulty batteries isnt it…..
This is just Another Load of “ifs and buts” paranoid bollox.
from the world-famous propaganda machines.
Please stop posting this type of sh1t
(grrr, why wont this post????)
^ annoying isn’t it?
Took me ages to figure out why my post mentioning cơckroaches wasn’t being accepted.
Lets see. Loose batteries are known to explode, but batteries installed in a system are not?
Uhhhhh, mmmmm…. OK.
if a battery can overheat flying up in the cold air, its probably the last thing I would be worried about but rather maybe the plane is one fire!!!
Ok the plane full of electricity and kerosene, will not blow up, and the battery that is constantly exposed to sun during photoshoots, celulars…..etc….will explode???
How much heat do you need for a battery to explode????
At the end it will be that people cannot go on the plane ‘cos they will explode or spontaneously combust
Humans should be banned from flying on planes because of their tendency to spontaneously combust from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion
Next on the list of airline rules.
1. All passengers to fly naked.
2. All passengers to fly shall not speak or communicate in any way.
3. All passengers to be manacled to their standing room only position.
=\ Don’t fly at all folks.
WOO HOO… the terrorists are winnning!
By succeeding to put you out no end they have racked up some kudos.
Solar power for prez
Why no officer, that there is a ni-mh battery. An upgrade from the olden days of ni-cads. you remember those? yea they wouldn’t last for crap for me too. These are better, they hold more of a charge and dont lose it as …. I can go though? thanks, have a nice day.
My brain has many exothermic oxidizing reactions just thinking about the money being made securing our safety.[I]‘m gonna give you three seconds–exactly three fu**ing seconds–to wipe that stupid lookin’ grin off your face, or I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull fu** you!
has there actually been any cases of fires caused by these batteries to insight this new measure? I haven’t heard of any. this smells of officials with too much time on their hands figuring ways to make people who aren’t them waste their time an have a more uncomfortable travel experience. in fact has anyone notice the powers that be are trying to make air travel more difficult, saying it is terrible for the planet (global warming). seems like they want us to stay put in our cages.
Poor americans… Still go on with their madness and xenophobia. What next? Pencils, ties, toothpaste? No, no – don’t get me wrong, cuz I’m really concerning about their future… (Hope you agree that it’s not only about batteries huh?)
since ppl arent yet convinced look at these photos
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/06/21/dell-laptop-explodes-at-japanese-conference
Thought Id boost this topic again by adding new info (source: slashdot).
“A security company is willing to fork over $500,000 in prize money to the person or company that comes up with an innovative technology to speed airport security lines.”
What you’re waiting for, easy money lol!