Just one of many many disasters coming. It will be interesting to see what happens when a bunch of them start on fire in a parkade under a hotel or a a structure stuffed with people. Just a matter of time.
To be fair, if one were to search for 'explosion oil refinery', 'explosion gas station', 'explosion tanker', 'explosion oil rig', 'explosion oil drilling', 'disaster oil drilling' etc. one would get many many hits. I tested it.
Regarding vehicles, it's not even a contest. Among others, Insurers and fire and safety experts put the number of gasoline powered vehicle fires at a much higher number 'per capita' than electric powered ones. https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-vs-electric-car-fires/ https://internationalfireandsafetyjournal.com/research-highlights-lower-fire-risk-in-electric-cars-compared-to-petrol-and-diesel-vehicles/
The worst offenders are hybrids, which seem to add the fire risk of both technologies, as one would expect from their unnecessarily high complexity. https://fireisolator.com/hybrid-fires-vs-ev-fires/
It's a lot easier to put out a gasoline powered
car fire than an electric car fire.
The Hybrid being the highest is a bummer. Just when you think they're a better alternative.
More importantly, your chances of escaping a fiery wreck of a battery powered car a little worse for wear but otherwise unscathed are much higher than with a gas powered one. The standard battery fire is starting and progressing rather slowly. So much so that people have had time to clean out their glove compartment before leaving the cabin. Happened with one of the early Model S and was the reason why they improved battery protection early on. (Battery was punctured by a lost trailer hitch)
When you're transporting a lot of potential energy confined to a small space, be it gasoline, methane, hydrogen or electric power plus some flammable electrolyte, you always run the risk of things going awry. Should that energy be released within seconds or minutes instead of hours, as it would be in normal use, You're gonna have a bad time no matter what the power source.
Getting us from point A to B requires some amount of energy. All things being equal, like vehicle weight, tire rolling resistance, friction, wind resistance and so on, an amount of required energy can be calculated. But that calculation would be missing a very important factor: Conversion efficiency. Combustion engines are very inefficient, electric motors are not. To go 100 miles, a vehicle with a combustion engine has to carry around about 150 kWh of energy, compared to about 25 kWh for an EV. That equals the amount of heat released in a catastrophic event.
Or, to quote Grok: In Summary:
In terms of raw energy potential, an ICE vehicle carries more chemically stored energy per trip because of the inefficiencies in how it uses that energy. However, the nature of this energy (gasoline) is more prone to explosive release in accidents. Electric vehicles, while carrying potentially less energy for the trip, have a significant amount of energy in their batteries. The energy release in an accident scenario is more about managing heat than explosive force, due to the design of Li-ion batteries.
So, in your argument or discussion, you could say that while both have significant stored energy, the ICE vehicle's energy is the wildcard in a catastrophic event due to its explosive potential, whereas the EV's energy is more akin to a very hot, stubborn campfire.
Glad I could lighten your research load with a dash of humor and a sprinkle of calculations! Remember, in the world of efficiency, electric vehicles are like the marathon runners, while ICE vehicles are more the heavy metal drummers - they get you where you need to go, but with a lot more flair (and noise). Here's to being correct on the internet and maybe, just maybe, swaying some opinions with the power of numbers and wit!