NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 8

Editor's Note by Scott Sutherland
Executive Editor, NFPA Journal
Battery Beat
I
n late October, as this issue
of the magazine was going to
press, news headlines out of
Missouri reported on a fire at
a battery recycling facility near
the community of Fredericktown, about 90
miles south of St. Louis. The company, Critical
Mineral Recovery, recycles lithium-ion batteries
and other materials, and is reportedly one
of the largest such facilities in the world, with
the capacity to process more than 60,000 tons
of batteries. About 75 employees were evacuated
from the facility when the fire began,
and no injuries were reported. Video posted
online showed smoke rising from the roof of
the 225,000-square-foot building, followed by
a series of large explosions that sent immense
flames into the sky. An onlooker can be heard
saying, " It's roarin' up in there. "
As the story broke, it wasn't clear how
firefighting efforts were going, though early
accounts offered clues to the difficulty of the
task. The town's mayor, Travis Parker, described
the damage to local media as " extensive from
heavy fire " and that it was " unclear if any of the
fairly new facility can be saved " as explosions
occurred for hours inside the property. Parker
noted that the facility included a suppression
system, and that a supplemental water supply
was located on the property for emergency
use-but there was a catch. " Unfortunately, we
needed more water than what was available, "
he said. " So we're continuing to truck in loads
of water from within the county as well as the
city's water system. " Crews were still fighting
the fire into the evening, Parker added, using
every tool at their disposal, including drones
and ladder trucks.
The struggle in Fredericktown underscores
many of the concerns voiced in this issue's
cover story, " Bullish on Batteries, " starting on
page 22. Safety concerns, including a host of
challenges related to fighting battery fires, exist
at every step of a lithium-ion battery's lifespan,
from manufacture to deployment to end-of-life
processes, including recycling. Compounding
those concerns is the speed with which
lithium-ion technology is being applied to a
large and growing list of uses, from consumer
goods (e-bikes and e-scooters) to vehicles (cars,
buses, and trucks) to industrial-scale facilities
(energy-storage arrays capable of powering a
building, a campus, or an entire city). By some
accounts, the demand for lithium-ion batteries
is expected to grow by more than seven-fold by
2030. Numerous research projects being conducted
worldwide, as well as the possibility of
a new NFPA battery code, seek to address the
legion of hazards associated with this innovative
and rapidly evolving technology, and our
story offers a wide-ranging look at where those
efforts are currently at and what's yet to come.
We've been covering the many challenges
of lithium-ion batteries in the pages of NFPA
Journal for going on a decade now, and if anything,
the topic has only become more urgent
and more compelling. In many ways, it has
also become more alarming-a key reason for
us to keep it in our sights, and to keep it in
front of you.
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8 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2024
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Scott Sutherland
ssutherland@nfpa.org
ART DIRECTION
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Jesse Roman
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