The panic over liquids being brought on airplanes after alleged chemical mixes were going to blow them up over the Atlantic -- which suddenly, probably for commercial reasons, is no longer as important as it was -- is incomprehensible compared to the dangers of products that are freely allowed on board.
All our engineering readers are very aware of the power that a battery can deliver -- at least for a short time -- given the right conditions.
Previously our fears of the battery in the millions of laptops that fly every day has been in the fake batteries that have dominated the replacement market. Many of EN-Genius Network's sponsors make products to protect battery packs against bad charging techniques and short-circuit conditions. Leave those devices out of a battery pack, as many fake cells do, and the troubles that can be created are intense -- ranging from smoke to explosion.
The recent spate of battery problems, notably in Dell laptops, has created an even worse situation. The 4.1 million batteries recalled, manufactured by Sony (with no indication of which country they are actually produced in), are thought to have had problems because of contaminants in the cells themselves.
We have no way to protect ourselves from that situation. None.
Presumably the power density of the cells themselves is being pushed so hard -- everyone wants a smaller, longer-life battery -- that we are reaching the limits of chemical clarity. So with all those recalls should we would be worried in the future?
We quite clearly should be. An incident at LAX shows that the dangers are huge. When a passenger was boarding his flight his laptop started to smoke. He, very wisely, left the plane and returned to the gate area where the battery started to spark.
If this incident with this flier's Lenovo laptop (number three in laptop sales volume) had happened during flight, what would have happened? If the laptop was on his lap the likelihood would be that it would have ended up in the aisle and the violence of the drop to the floor would have done what to the faulty battery? And if the laptop had been in the overhead, nobody would have noticed until what happened? A fire in the attic? That is every pilot's worst nightmare situation.
Lenovo has not yet announced a recall for the batteries. But they should. I am not amused that, in some weird sensitivity for Sony's business feelings, these batteries are still flying and that I might be flying with them. I am looking forward to the very near future when I only have to carry a single memory that has all my programs and data and I can just load up an OS-equipped-only PC in my hotel room and make it look like my own desktop.
Now, that's a great way to get rid of a bomb…
