Disaster Caused by Overconfidence in Batteries

Battery-related accidents continue to occur. These are accidents caused by a mindset that prioritizes battery “utilization” over “safety.” Overconfidence that using batteries must be environmentally friendly led to misguided regulations and subsidy policies, and that perception invited disaster by neglecting safety. If we are to prioritize safety, efficiency, and the environment while considering long-term sustainability, we need to think carefully about what policies are desirable.

The fire at the National Information Resources Service paralyzed the government’s computer systems. It is said that the fire began when sparks flew while lithium-ion batteries in the server room were being separated. In other words, the batteries caught fire. Although the blaze was extinguished after 21 hours and 45 minutes, all 740 pieces of computing equipment on the same floor were burned.

When chemical reactions inside a lithium-ion battery occur explosively, thermal runaway can occur, causing the temperature to keep rising. In fact, the temperature inside the server room reportedly rose to 160 degrees due to a chain of explosions.

Above all, it is shocking that the distance between the lithium batteries and the servers was only 60 centimeters. Even though battery-related accidents had already occurred repeatedly, the servers were placed right next to hazardous materials. The danger of batteries had already been highlighted in the 2022 fire at the SK C&C Pangyo campus, which triggered the “Kakao outage” incident. More recently, fires involving battery-powered cars in underground parking garages have also developed into major disasters.

Just because technology is advancing rapidly does not mean we should blindly trust or overestimate it. Batteries are not yet safe. Older batteries in particular pose even greater risks. Recycling old batteries is extremely dangerous.

The fact that battery use has been prioritized over safety, efficiency, and environmental protection is largely the result of the government’s battery subsidy policies. Calls to increase battery use may be understandable as part of environmental activism. But when the government turned those ideas into regulations and subsidy programs—forcing battery use and supporting it with public funds—safety and the environment were pushed aside.

The Ministry of Environment is spending large amounts of tax revenue to promote the sale of battery-powered cars. It is still devoting an enormous budget to purchase subsidies for battery-powered cars. Consumers, wisely enough, had been choosing hybrid vehicles the most. They were making purchasing decisions in consideration of the fact that hybrids are the most environmentally friendly and offer high efficiency and safety. Yet only after wasting enormous sums of money did the government include hybrid cars on its list of eco-friendly vehicles.

It is arrogant for the government to think it knows better than everyone else and can enlighten people on what they should buy. Policies that regulate purchases of specific products and provide subsidies for them should now be stopped. Subsidy policies that ignore risk, in particular, only make accidents worse. They distort industry, create inefficiency, and ultimately even damage the environment.

From now on, more attention should be paid to improving safety so that harm does not occur during the use of batteries. Blindly encouraging their use under the illusion that batteries must be environmentally friendly is deeply irresponsible governance.

The former Ministry of Environment has now transformed into the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment. By seizing energy policy authority in addition to climate and environmental policy, it has become a “super ministry.” This accident should serve as a cautionary lesson, and we should move away from policies based on the notion that using a particular product is automatically environmentally friendly.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

---

Original title: 배터리에 대한 과신이 부른 재난

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2025-10-01

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&idx=28200