Shutting off all the electronics on a fly-by-wire plane seems like a fairly bad idea.

Here's the rules, FWIW. Pennies are only valid to 25c.

These ran NiCd cells. Here's some TL;DR from NASA about a variant of NiCd they use(d), not sure if it applies here.

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oc...

Short notes:
Fancy NiCd, Higher density and sealed. They rely on precise chemistry to be hermetically sealed units (lean on one element, for limiting and only O2 production).
High pressure at full charge (~60PSI at room temp), higher if things go south, Pressure drops with charge state.
Excess discharge causes hydrogen production.

So, tin can, pressure changing with charge cycles (metal fatigue over many cycles?), H2 production, O2 production... maybe there is some chance for catastrophic failure there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Though the units in question do have batteries, which have historically been of the NiCd variety, and are in this case as well. I'm not sure if any newer satellites use newer battery tech? (NiMH or some sort of lithium ion..).

Aluminium is 30+ cents a pound, that's enough to buy some glass. They'll have to steal 10x as much to make the same money, but...

Many do... but not Russia, which happens to be where the guy is.

It's thinned about 25-50% with naphtha so that it flows. "diluted bitumen".

LiFePO4 would be well suited to things like cordless tools and the like. iDrill?

There's no switching (or otherwise) power supply in a SD card though. Not much of anything other than flash and a controller.