Last week, I was part of the Labelmaster team that attended the Lithium Battery workshop hosted by IATA in Montreal. For those of us who’ve been following the twists and turns of the regulations governing the air transport of lithium batteries, we might be forgiven for thinking there would be nothing new to see and hear. We know that lithium batteries have been designated as Dangerous Goods since the first edition of the ICAO Technical Instructions. That was back in 1982! A lot has changed over the past 30 years.  From a transport perspective, the most important has been the fact that the sheer number of devices which rely on batteries for their operation has increased a 1000 fold. Industry innovation has developed batteries which are 10 times more effective, more energy delivered for much longer. So it’s not surprising that DG regulators continually have to revisit the risk assessments that make it possible to ship these articles safely.

What we saw at the IATA workshop was very encouraging – we learned that IATA has conducted the first data driven assessment of the risks associated with transporting lithium batteries, an exercise that goes a long way to identifying the real worst case scenario that an incident involving batteries presents.

The main conclusion? 

Lithium metal batteries currently present an unacceptable risk in air transport but the recent rush by air carriers to restrict acceptance of lithium ion batteries is not supported by IATA’s risk assessment.  IATA will be sharing their results with their members who are conducting their own assessments.  Currently some 44 airlines are known to restrict lithium ion battery acceptance.

Even more exciting was the data that was shared on the technical developments that have been made on how cargo is carried.  New materials and construction methods have developed Unit Load Devices including pallet covers have been shown to contain and control fires for extended period of time.  This is exciting for reasons beyond lithium batteries.  All cargo can be made more safe and secure with the application of these technologies.   At the package level, similar developments have shown that packages can effectively prevent the propagation of the mass lithium battery event which is the basis for much of the concern about transporting lithium batteries by air.  At the article level, the battery manufacturers have shown that shipping batteries at a specific “state of charge” greatly reduces the liklihood and effects of any incident.

Unfortunately, it was not all good news

ULD manufacturers and the packaging industry have not to date been invited to ICAO’s multi-disciplinary working groups.  And those working groups have not codified the standards to which new ULD’s and packaging should be designed.  This commentator hopes that we’ll see progress in this area at the upcoming ICAO Dangerous Goods Panel meeting.  It would be extremely unfortunate if all the good work industry has so far undertaken is not adopted in any new packaging/operational standards.

But perhaps most disturbing is the fact that the data indicates that non-compliant batteries and undeclared shipments are the primary source of risk from lithium batteries.  As was pointed out by several comments from the floor, no amount of regulation, however well intentioned, will address those risks which actually contribute the largest risk.  And to date, industry is seeing no action from the producing countries dedicated to enforcing the existing regulations, the battery manufacturing standard, declaring batteries as dangerous goods for transport.  Worse, dangerous goods regulators are getting no help from their colleagues in the security aspect of trade.  Arguably, a non-compliant lithium battery presents a higher security risk than the articles security personnel are focused on.  Both can and should be considered as “unlawful interference”.    We did learn that the UK was in the processing of evaluating the feasibility of including Lithium battery detection in the computer algorithms used by cargo screening X-ray machines.  Fingers crossed that these will prove effective and cost feasible.

The upcoming ICAO Dangerous goods panel meeting promises to be as interesting and lively as the last one.