Not my area of expertise, so please tell me if the idea is complete garbage.
Turning a laptop battery into a weapon is a non-trivial endeavor. The absurdity of TSA was more their attempt to police based on weak science than the real danger of an airplane full of lithium battery powered devices.
Not really an answer to you, just writing it here in case anyone else interested is still reading along:
I looked up some numbers and apart from the practical challenges of making a battery “go boom” in a controlled way it seems like the energy density to even make this a hypothetical option just isn’t there. Even the best LiPo batteries don’t quite reach 1 MJ/kg while gunpowder has ~3 MJ/kg, and numbers only go up from there for more modern chemical explosives.
Turning a laptop battery into a weapon is a non-trivial endeavor. The absurdity of TSA was more their attempt to police based on weak science than the real danger of an airplane full of lithium battery powered devices.
Not really an answer to you, just writing it here in case anyone else interested is still reading along:
I looked up some numbers and apart from the practical challenges of making a battery “go boom” in a controlled way it seems like the energy density to even make this a hypothetical option just isn’t there. Even the best LiPo batteries don’t quite reach 1 MJ/kg while gunpowder has ~3 MJ/kg, and numbers only go up from there for more modern chemical explosives.