Depleted uranium munitions

[lost_sailor]

check this out

then reassure me that it's worth it, and certainly no threat to the health of Iraqi citizens or our troops.

:whazzup:

[Sea Nymph]

Originally posted by lost_sailor:
check this out

then reassure me that it's worth it, and certainly no threat to the health of Iraqi citizens or our troops.

:whazzup:

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">yeah, that's pretty bad. Probably not as bad as THIS though.

SN

[Pilar]

I have some education in the matters of radiation and nuclear technology. The physics of this topic are probably beyond the scope of discussion here but let me tell you something.

Plutonium is the material used for Hydrogen bomb triggers. A trigger is a small fission bomb used to spark the much larger fusion reaction.

Follow along here .... U-238, which is the uranium in DU weapons can be converted to Plutonium simply by exposure to the intense radiation (neutron) present in a commercial nuclear reactor of typically Russian design. That is a graphite moderated reactor. A reactor designed for this purpose is sometimes called a breeder. This technology is well known and proven over many years of use. It is also public knowledge, available on the internet.

So we are leaving the raw materials for plutonium production scattered about the lands of our potential future nuclear adversaries.

Does this make sense?

[The Fishing Geek]

We yelled "HALT!" What else could we do?

[Sea Nymph]

We yelled "Halt", but for how many years?

SN

[Miss B Haven]

Pilar- I think they'll have a hard time putting enough Uranium dust particles together to get a solid mass to enrich! It would take a lot of Hoover fulls! :grin:

[Cool Texan]

Just a good reminder to not lick any blown up bunker busters! :grin:

Wouldn't it be easier to buy it from the Iranians or Pakistanis

Iranian Uranium Deposits

Pakistan

The number of rads that the people will be exposed to, unless they are at the bombing target, wouldn't even equal what you get from your TV. In fact I would guess that the background radiation in Lakeview would be higher than in Bagdad.

[ 04-10-2003, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: Keta ]

[Pilar]

The bombs are only guaranteed to fall when dropped, not explode. One dud would have a large quantity of high purity material.

[Degner]

I think it's great stuff, I had my lead water pipes in my home replaced with it a few years ago and have had no problems since. I also spend less for heating now. It also gives you a warm tingling sensation when you lick it.

[ 04-10-2003, 11:26 AM: Message edited by: Degner ]

[Silver Hilton]

Pilar,

I'm not worried about you picking on me, I'm used to it

I think I understand what you are saying, and that Janes is hardly an unbiased source. I cite that article mostly to provide background for the various material I have heard. The first source was NPR, hardly an organ of the defense industry. Besides, haven't you heard, I'm a ****** liberal!

It's possible I don't understand some of the issues. While depleted uranium burns, I don't believe that it spontaneously combusts. I thought, "when heated in the presense of oxygen, it will combust", or oxydize. But steel and magnesium also burn when heated and provided oxygen, don't they? The shells that soldiers handle aren't spontaneously combusting, and they seem to be considered to be safe for handling without protective shielding. Yes, I know, the Army is not what we consider a model of workplace safety. But they don't like to poison soldiers in their tracks.

Next, while it is radioactive, and has a half life of 4.5 billion years, that half life means that it is relative lowly radioactive. That implies that, compared to the spectres of strontium 90 and such, inhaling particles of depleted uranium is more like inhaling tobacco smoke than cyanide. Not to be pursued, not good for you, but not immediately deadly. Yes, it has a very long half life, but that immediately implies that it's not as deady as other radioactive materials.

It's been a long time, but I remember alpha particles as being fairly weak characters in the spectrum of radiation effects. My recollection is that they act as ionizers, stripping electrons from molecules around them, seeking to become helium, and that they can't penetrate skin. Their negative effects occur mainly from the ingestion of materials that emit alpha particles, possibly injuring tissue after ingestion. I think the point of the material cited in Jane's is that since u-238 is such a slow emitter, of particles, it isn't the risk factor of other materials with short half lives, such as the by-products of atomic explosions.

The article notes that while uranium is chemically toxic, it is coniderably less so than lead. It doesn't compare it to copper or tin, the elements of brass, the casing of the .223 rounds deployed in the gulf. I submit that there as many lbs of brass and lead fragments as U-238 being created in the area, if not more. Those 2000 lb bombs are not 2000 lbs of U238.

Finally, the article notes that U-238 is not highly available, chemically, when ingested. Most of it passes through the digestive tract unabsorbed. This is sharp contrast to metals such as lead, tin, and copper, which are highly available and absorbable when ingested.

Pilar, I'm not trying to defend the use of depleted uranium. Rather, in my own eyes, I'm simply trying to weigh where it sits in some Mazlovian pyramid of fears to be concerned about. I'm not going to run scared from something because it's "radioactive". The evidence tells me that if I had to choose between my child playing in a playground that had U-238 contamination or one with lead contamination, I should rationally prefer the U-238. Clearly any parent would prefer neither choice.

[The Fishing Geek]

I played in that stuff all the time as a kid. Nothing happened to me.

[Miss B Haven]

Ya Geek- but your brother, he don't look so good. But then again maybe that's just cause your his dad?

[Pilar]

Silver Hilton you are correct about alpha particles. They cannot penetrate the dead skin layer you have over much of your body. The lining of the inner body parts such as lungs, digestive tract and reproductive/urinary tract has no dead skin shielding. A particle of U-238 can emit an alpha particle with enough kinetic energy to ionize the epithelial cells on the inside of your body.

How much radiation exposure is enough to cause an effect? This discussion has been in the works since the 1930's and the first Enrico Fermi reactor experiments at the University of Chicago. The lowest safe exposure level has never been determined. We are more certain about high level exposure effects because we have studied the victims of nuclear weapons, nuclear reactor incidents and lab accidents.

Given the fact that radiation cannot be neutralized or counteracted does it make sense to dump more of it into our ecosystem? Naturally occuring radiation sources are somewhat rare. Most of the radioactive isotopes dumped on the earth by early geologic events (volcanic activity) have decayed into relatively harmless things over the vast amnounts of time that have gone by.

That is my point. Nuclear weapons are very effective military tools. We do not use them because they kill large numbers of people and render the area useless for long periods of time.

DU weapons are low level nuclear contaminating devices. Or if you prefer nuclear weapons. The levels of contamination caused by them exceed what we would accept at a facility like Hanford.

What right do we have to contaminate anyone else?

Does anyone else see this as duplicity on the part of the good old U.S. of A?

[The Fishing Geek]

Pilar:

You DO realize that all of that heady stuff is gonna make the eyes on this thread go straight up, dontcha?

Oh, and the right that we have to contaminate others is called CAPITALISM. :grin:

[Silver Hilton]

Originally posted by Pilar:
What right do we have to contaminate anyone else?

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">That, my friend, is the real question.

I don't see the issue as being about depleted uranium. It's a tool of war. For the reasons stated above, I don't find it to be as egregious a tool of war as, say cluster bombs or land mines, which kill thousands of people for years after the conflicts end. They are still pulling claymores out of vietnam.

As I see it, the morality of use of u-238 is tightly linked to the morality of the underlying cause and action in which they are used.

I think we probably agree that the posture of the US is a bit arrogant in what we consider to be "acceptable" results of our actions on the rest of the world. Pulling out of the Kyoto treaty, and refusing to support the International Criminal Court are pretty good examples of that.

I think where we disagree is in speaking of u-238 and nuclear bombs in the same breath. A-bombs leave a lot more toxicity around after the explosion than what I understand u-238 to do. Again, i'm not advertising for it, just trying to accurately rank risks.

BTW, even a-bombs don't end life as we know it forever. I have fished Christmas Island, which was a nuclear test site. They didn't bother to tell me this until after I arrived, for some reason.

But the waters were rich, the people apparently healthy, and the crabs looked to be normal. And man do those three eyed bonefish fight!

[Silver Hilton]

Originally posted by The Fishing Geek:


Oh, and the right that we have to contaminate others is called CAPITALISM. :grin:

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Well, Mainland China, the USSR and satellite countries have a much worse record than the US does, just for argument's sake.

Environmentalism is a priviledge of the rich.

[Pilar]

TFG ... the biggest problem with nuclear power/ nuclear issues .. besides the people who say nuke-u-lar .. is the ignorance of the layman.

I knew next to nothing and got quite an indoctrination when I volunteered to punch holes in the ocean on a sewer pipe. The depths of my uneducated ignorance was astounding.

If contained properly nuclear materials are actually quite useful. 'Contained' being the key word in that sentence. A loss of containment is the common thread in almost every nuclear incident to date. A short list follows

1) Nuclear weapons testing in the western US deserts. There is no containment of an airburst nuclear weapon. Plutonium even, very nasty stuff.

2) SL1, a portable gas cooled Army test reactor that melted down in the late '50s. This site is located in the deserts of SE Idaho. It is currently about a square mile of asphalt surrounded with 18' high razor wire fence and guys with dogs and automatic weapons patrolling it. The people who died there were buried in pieces, in lead coffins. The man who drove the rescue ambulance died from radiation exposure several weeks later.

3) Nuclear weapons testing in the S. Pacific ... Bikini Atoll. An entire tribe of people permanently displaced from their homes.

4) Nuclear Weapons testing in the Aleutian Islands.

5) K-19 ( called Hiroshima by her crew ), a Russian ballistic missile sub that nearly contaminated the eastern seaboard of the US in the early '60s after suffering a near meltdown of one of the propulsion reactors only a hundred miles from our coast.

6) TMI (Three Mile Island)unit 1. Fuel elements melted, primary coolant contamination and 600,000 gallon contaminated water spill. Almost lost Pennsylvania over that one. You have no idea how close we came to that.

7) Chernobyl. Lapland is contaminated by fallout from this accident. Thousands of reindeer are slaughtered and buried every year as they are still unsafe to eat. Not over yet. 1000's of metric tons of extremely radioactive dust in a very shoddily built containment structure. The structure is being weakened by radiation embrittlement of the reinforcing steel embedded in the concrete.

8) Nuclear weapons facilities in the former Soviet Union. Open air tailings piles, dried up process water ponds and massive groundwater contamination.

9) Hanford. Rocket surgeons during the Manhatten project used the Columbia River as a single pass cooling system for weapons grade material reactors in area 100. That is water from the river was pumped through the cores of operating breeder reactors and dumped back into the river. Many of the fuel elements had failed containment tubes and contaminated the water.

10) Rocky Flats .. literally tons of unaccounted for plutonium. It's coating the ventilation systems of the weapons fabrication buildings.


The list goes on ... Hiroshima, Nagasaki, now add all the places the 20mm DU cannon shells, smart bombs, armor piercing cannon shells and who knows what else have been used.

The deliberate distribution of radioactive materials no matter how 'low level' is not a good idea IMHO under any circumstances. We have more than enough 'accidents' already.

We are all breathing the same air. I know this because I was able to detect significant amounts of I-131 in a rain water collection system at my home in Damascus during the weeks after the Chernobyl accident.

How far is Oregon from the Ukraine?

[ 04-10-2003, 04:39 PM: Message edited by: Pilar ]

[lost_sailor]

I was in (dare I say?) France :shocked: :shocked: in the days after the Chernobyl accident. I got a weird sunburn one day :depressed:

[Silver Hilton]

I have seen some material on this recently here. I was left with the impression that, while I don't want to sprinkle this stuff on my breakfast cereal, it perhaps wasn't the most poisonous substance known to man.

Yeah, this stuff is no good. But the PCBs that were in the trasnformers we've blown up, the plastics that have been burned by the fires in Baghdad, and the industrial pollution that the iraqis themselves have dumped in the river are probably a bigger threat to the Iraqis.

It's easy to latch on to the word "radioactive" and think instantly, "worst hazard known to man". It's not necessarily true.

[Pilar]

Silver Hilton, U-238 is pyrophoric (burns on exposure to air), poisonous and emits alpa particles (high speed helium ions). Anyone breathing uranium dioxide produced by burning uranium is going to experience health effects. Most notably increased risk of lung cancer and other rare cancers.

Oh and it radioactively decays very slowly. On the order of 10^6 years for a 1/2 life. Of course the decay chain goes through several other radioactive nuclides (isotopes) before becoming stable. You might even call it a low order dirty bomb. The very thing we expect terrorists to do to us.

Last thing, Silver Hilton, BTW, I'm not picking on you .... Janes is a major proponent of the defense military industrial complex. Follow the money. It does not surprise me that they would minimize the health effects of transuranic compounds that the defense industry is selling our country for the purpose of War.

Does it surprise you?

[ 04-10-2003, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: Pilar ]

[CATCH AND EAT]

This is a very interesting topic and I appreciate the resources "ALL" of you have put forth. Thanks for teaching me something here. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]