Uranium bullets

[Thomas Kirby]

On several issues, this one included, I rarely find that either the mainstream side or the dissident side ever debates the actual merits of a case. The mainstream side is just as likely to become disruptive and even childish and abusive, and I'm glad to see that this is not happening in this case. Anti, please settle down. I know what some of the people who you have argued with are like. When someone is trying to be civil, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LET HIM. It is a precious thing. Don't make him change his mind. We actually had a discussion going. I don't think we do anymore. You, Anti, have failed to help your case. Even if God and the truth are on your side, you can afford to be civil. If you can't afford to be civil, you probably don't have the case you thought you did.

 

Now, to try to get this back on topic, I was going to point out that small particles of uranium are going to release much more alpha radiation, a fair amount more X-rays, and some more gamma rays into the surroundings because at some size, uranium loses its self-shielding completely. With alpha, less than a millimeter of uranium blocks it, so we gain at least ten to a hundred times the exposure over bare uranium, and a hell of a lot over clad uranium. This is significant. So is the fact that almost all of the alpha buries itself in a few cubic millimeters of tissue, ionization trails and all. What does all this pump it up to, about a million times the exposure for that tissue surrounding a grain of DU that weighs a few hundred micrograms to a few milligrams?

 

One thing about producing weapons grade plutonium for the U.S. government, in reference to the article about producing plutonium from CANDU reactors, is that the U.S. government produced tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. They were looking for a much larger quantity from each of a few reactors than would be needed to build two or three. A hundred pounds of plutonium is a lot easier to make than tens of thousands of pounds. I almost hate to say it, but two or three nuclear weapons are only good for making a country or two very, very angry. They are militarily useful only for committing suicide or for provoking one nation to destroy another.

[antiNarcism]

You realy didn't get it did you?

 

I'm not full of hate' date=' I'm killing myself laughing, your the one going off the deep end.

 

This has gone far enough, it's over now[/quote']

 

I'm deriving much amusement myself.

Glad you've finished tho, this is to important a topic to frighten everyone off with petty bickering!

[antiNarcism]

Sorry Tom, we've had our fun anyway.

I've only been here 48 hours so I do wish to respect long standing members.

By the way I am incapable of faith, in the establishment, the protest movement, or god. Always been this way, thats the root of my obsesion with understanding the nitty-gritty of everything important.

I know of no nuclear armed country, or even decently conventially equiped that the US state has had the guts to mess with. (they only went in to Iraq after bombing them every day and starving them for 10 years)

I reckon even a small Pu spreading cruise missile or robot torpedo may be a palpable deterrant. American Citizens are so much less used to being killed than those in the states the US oppresses.

[antiNarcism]

What do you guys think of GB's "rod from god" nuke silos in Orbit? Not to mention his 2 ton of Pu reactors for starwars. Pu being 100,000x as Haz as U at least.

We've already seen worldwide cancer spikes after 40 lb Pu alpha-energy reactors have re-entered.

I've calculated that as little as a ton of sand put in orbit would deny him this objective by ensuring that nothing could last more than a couple of orbits.

Cascade failure of orbital systems is probably not so far off anyway, and humanity is definately not responsible enough to be there anyway, or they wouldn't have rubber stamped George, Tony and Johns ongoing war of terror and hate by voting them back.

[antiNarcism]

Sorry DV, Can't consider this guy an extremist. Man who has seen, has cred's, has ability to empathise with the suffering of human beings.

 

Dr. Doug Rokke

Supporter of Suspension of Depleted Uranium Bill

 

Major Doug Rokke, now retired, was in charge of cleaning up American tanks hit by DU during the Gulf War—casualties of friendly fire. His work involved helping casualties and cleaning equipment contaminated with depleted uranium (DU), used in the war in tank-busting weapons because of its high density. "The shell would hit an armored vehicle. The uranium would catch fire and split into burning fragments.”

 

About 70% of the round vaporized into dust, as fine as talcum powder. "When we climbed into vehicles after they'd been hit, no matter what time of day or night it was, you couldn't see three feet in front of you. You breathed in that dust." He said the DU dust got blown far away by the wind and entered the soil and water supply.

 

Dr Rokke and other veterans believe the munitions have made them ill, and that they also threaten civilians. Dr. Rokke, who holds a Ph.D. in physics, said many of the men in his cleanup crew developed the same kinds of cancers seen among Iraqi children.

 

"The first member of our staff to develop cancer was sleeping downwind from where we collected the contaminated equipment," he said. "This was in Saudi Arabia. He developed cancer of the larynx and throat within nine months. He was breathing in the dust, which we know goes tremendous distances. The first lung cancers were within two years and the first deaths were fairly rapid.”

 

Two of Dr Rokke's clean-up team of about 15 people are now dead, he said. 'You're trashed with uranium' "It's very hard to look back at all those years of recommending medical care, and yet two of your best friends are dead because you assigned them to do a job." He was tested for uranium poisoning while working as head of a Pentagon project on DU in late 1994. "In July 1997, I received a letter from the Department of Energy stating my own internal uranium contamination was 5,000 times that permissible.”

 

Dr. Rokke believes depleted uranium poses a particular danger for children because their young bodies are more vulnerable. DU is both radioactive and a toxic, heavy metal. Children who breathe or eat even a small amount can be affected. He said using depleted uranium in Iraq may well cause serious health problems in years to come.

 

"In no circumstances should the citizens of the world allow the use of uranium munitions in this current war," he said. "The use of uranium munitions is going to cause cancers, respiratory [problems], eye problems, neurological problems in the children of Iraq."

[Dave]

I reserve the right to personal attack as long as I'm not trying to prove/disprove anyones data with it.

 

Not on this site you don't. Try reading the rules at some point, eh? I see no evidence to support your accusations of fallacy. In fact, you seem to be the only person on this thread using any of those that you listed.

 

DV8, If we cannot conduct a cool, rational discussion, It may be because we are both too full of hate. Or it could be because your long term Uxposure has left too many ionisation trails scrambling your logic circuits (joke).

Seriously though you should have your sperm cells checked for chromosome breakages. Knowledge is power, denial the route to madness. You may be able to chelate some of your internal dose out and looking after your immune system will help it deal with damaged cells. I'd look at some stem cell therapy too.

 

Yeah, well done there. I'd just like to point out that this isn't going to help you at all. To other members: posts like this will earn you a nice warning.

 

Let's get this thread back on topic. I don't want to have to close my third thread today because of hijacking.

[jdurg]

Thomas, don't forget that alpha particles are stopped by a few inches of air around them. Due to their large size (They are a bare helium nucleus after all), their energy is quickly dissipated. Alpha particles are more of a short range hazard than a long range one. If you have a small particle, yes there is less 'blockage' from other uranium atoms, but there is also a lot less alpha particles. On a larger particle, you have more external surface area so while more particles are 'blocked', more particles are also released. So the smaller size doesn't really result in more alpha particles.

 

I'll need to look this up to confirm it, but I also don't believe that Uranium gives off x-rays during its decay. In reality, the difference between x-rays and gamma rays is pretty minimal. They are both high energy photons given off by an atom. X-rays originate from the electron shells of an atom, while a gamma ray's origin is in the nucleus. In many cases, gamma ray and x-ray is used interchangeably. Uranium gives off gamma rays upon it's decay. A gamma ray is analagous to the light given off by an excited electron when it falls back down into it's ground state. A gamma ray is given off by a nucleus when it falls back down into it's ground state after rearranging itself.

[Thomas Kirby]

Maybe later today I will try to understand all of Uranium's decay modes. It gives off some X-rays which are obviously vulnerable to the self-shielding effect. One of my points here was that any significant thickness of uranium blocks alpha particles. Any counter measurements would measure tremendously fewer alpha particles than are produced. You even have the effect of the distance of your detector from most of the surface of the item that you are measuring. AntiNarcism deserves credit for bringing in the fact that alpha particles don't affect atoms and molecules on a one on one basis. They affect every atom and molecule that is close enough to their path. Those vapor trails they leave in a cloud chamber are huge compared to a cell nucleus.

 

A millionth of a gram-atomic weight of U-238 weighs about 238 micrograms, right? And that's 6.022 * 10^17 atoms. One half of these disintegrate per 4.5 * 10^9 years. In that many years are 9.86 * 10^16 seconds. Thinkquest says that this is the way to calculate the decay constant:

Thinkquest article

 

Each radioactive nuclide emits radioactivity at its characteristic rate, different from that of other nuclides. The rate of radioactive decay is related to the energy change that accompanies the transformation, but it is not a direct relationship. The rate of radioactive emissions of a radioactive nuclide is directly proportional to the amount of radioactive material present. The rate of decay of a radioactive nuclide is measured by its half-life. Half-life is the time required for one half of the atoms in any starting sample of a radioisotope to decay. If the half-life of a radioactive nuclide is known, its decay constant can be calculated by:

 

l = 0.693 / T1/2 Nt = N0e(-lt)

 

where N0 is the starting number of nuclei, Nt is the number of nuclei remaining after time t, l is the decay constant, and e = 2.718. The units for the decay constant would be s-1 (or sometimes expressed in disintegrations per second) if the half-life is expressed in seconds. This relationship expresses radioactive decay based on statistics and probability, from an examination of the behaviour of a large number of individual situations. Note that it does not give any indication when a particular nucleus will undergo decay, but only the amount of time needed for a certain proportion of the nuclei in the sample to decay.

 

I get around 8.5 alpha disintegrations per second from a millionth of a gram-atomic weight of U-238. This doesn't sound like very much but the impact of these disintegrations takes place in just a few milligrams of flesh. In such small particulates, there is no self-shielding effect, and the dose is delivered at less than point-blank range.

 

Most of the controversy is about inhaled uranium. Since it is inhaled in the form of smoke, it is in the form of very small particulates.

[jdurg]

The inhaled form is dangerous because then the alpha particles are exposed to living tissue that is reproducing and dividing. Externally, your skin is composed of dead cells. Dead cells don't divide. Dead cells are immune to cancers. Skin cancer involves the subdermal layers which are comprised of living cells which reproduce. This is why UV rays cause skin cancer. They have enough energy to move through the dead cells. Alpha particles simply cannot get through the layers of dead skin.

 

I'm still trying to find it again, but when I was doing my 'quest for knowledge' on DU before, I found a great website that listed the energy of the radiation given off by uranium as it decays and compared it to commonly encountered sources of radiation. What was remarkable was how 'average' the radioactivity of uranium is. There are a great number of elements/isotopes out there which are far more radioactive than DU is.

[DV8 2XL]

Thomas, while I applaud your diligence in getting down to the fine mechanics of this issue, there in really no need to re-invent the wheel. Dosimetry is an established field and the fundamentals there have been worked out. I suggest that you turn your inquiries there and save yourself some time.

 

Also, if you look into it, you will find that there are several “acceptable limits” schedules in force, and some of them seem to be in conflict with each other. You have to look closely at exposure tables and what radiometric models they are using and what questions that they are trying to answer.

[Thomas Kirby]

Here's one

 

 

It must be the percentage of U-234 removed that actually reduces the radioactivity of DU. Here is a chart. When I run the numbers myself, I get something that looks like 90 percent or better, but I will go with their 49 percent until I get better information. You've got to read charts like that carefully too, because the half-life that this source gives for U-235 has more digits to the left of the decimal point. The convention for scientific notation is one digit to the left of the decimal point.

 

Their figure for U-234 in DU is 0.0008976%. According to my calculations, U-234 experienses about 18400 times as many disintegrations per second as does U-238. 18400 times .00000898 equals .16 so this might well be where most of the radioactivity has been removed. It also explains DU being roughly 60 percent as radioactive as the original. It's definitely a puzzle to try to figure it out when someone seems to be telling me that the removal of U-235 decreases the radioactivity significantly. U-235 is about 7 times as radioactive as U-238 and accounts for at most 1/140 of the mass in natural uranium.

 

Again looking at the decay charts, it does look like any sample of DU will increase in radioactivity over time. I simply don't have time today to try to figure out how much. It probably took some geniuses weeks to figure that out. Obviously U-234 isn't going to be created any faster than U-238 decays. And I'm going to have to see if I can find better equations for yearly production because I think when you use an equation like the one on Thinkquest, you have to take "e" to the power of to get it right. About 2 tenths of a billionth of the mass of U-238 turns into U-234 in a year, and that radiates 18,400 times as many alpha particles as U-238. There are two intermediate isotopes that each emit a beta, that's like one click of alpha followed by two clicks of beta for each U-238 disintegration. Every stage, according to the source I linked to, is also accompanied by a gamma ray.

 

There are two major plateaus followed by a third. The first and second are Th-234 and Pa-234, with half lives of 24.5 days and 1.17 minutes respectively. Essentially, this is one plateau because the second beta disintegration takes a much shorter time than the first, to reach U-234. Some equilibrium point is reached where these two go "click-click" as often as a U-238 nucleus disintegrates. After that particular time, your sample of DU has three times the gamma ray activity that U-238 does. In ten half lives the remaining unexpired nuclei number 1/1024, or about .000977 of the original, so it should be safe to say that parity is reached before ten half lives. I realize that this adds up to about 180 percent of the activity of natural uranium, so this is subject to modification by better information and better calculations.

 

Once again, most of the concern is about the ability of DU rounds to put millions of tiny particles of DU into people's bodies through their lungs. The effect per mass of uranium is magnified tremendously and you have the daughter products for icing on a pretty nasty cake. One sample of a few micrograms is nasty, maybe enough to cause measurable radiation burning. Did anyone ever do a series of tests using cell cultures?

 

The other concern, which I still consider significant, is that these big pieces could be forming some nasties just inside where they are shielded from view. According to some observers the radioactivity is way way high when the shielding is blown apart. Of course, it's also going to be hellaciously high when smoke is hanging in the air because it is all exposed.

[DV8 2XL]

Your link is from:

 

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research: Where Science and Democracy Meet

 

In their own words:

 

IEER is dedicated to increasing public involvement in and control over environmental problems through the democratization of science. While scientists write for each other, they do so largely in "peer-reviewed" journals. When the process works well it means that a number of qualified people have looked over the research and commented on it before publication.

But the very term "peer review" means that the people who are affected by those decisions are not only left out of the review, they are generally not even a part of the audience.

IEER's aim is to provide people with literature which has a quality equal to that in scientific journals, but which doesn't require you to go back to college to get a degree in science to understand it.

Our audience is that of the determined activist concerned about the world, the concerned policy-maker, and the knowledgeable journalist. We choose our subjects so that they are relevant to environmental protection and other aspects of human well-being.

[antiNarcism]

Yes it is true that any refined uranium metal increases its radioactivity substantially in 1 year. I'll have a dig for some calcs and graphs I've seen before that 1yo DUM is 75% as radioactive as 1yo NUM. Both are considerably more than new NUM.

[antiNarcism]

Didn't need to dob me In Tom!

heres my reply to Dave. He says hes closing this thread!!!

 

Can you clarify my violation please dave?

was it post #99? Dr. Siegwart-Horst Günther had his cells tested b4 and after, 2 days inspecting bombsites in Iraq, found much evidence of Chromosome breakages.

 

Is this is a result of a complaint from DV8/ someone else or your decision?

 

I'm sorry if I overstepped the mark and certainly have been trying to conduct a scientific discussion.

I have found my attempts to have studies and data rationally reviewed to be thwarted by ongoing abuse and ridicule by DV8 eg:

"Since it is painfully obvious that science is only a political tool for you, useful only to advance whatever ideological agenda that you have at the moment," and "propaganda wrapped in a tissue of science."

As my reason for being here is in part to check the validity of data I am considering using in my role as Government consultant ( we are 2 mths out from an election in New Zealand, and it will be won/lost on the nuclear issue) I have little patience for people who are prepared to write off an entire side of a debate about, arguably the biggest atrocity ever commited by a state, as "extremists/activists etc"

Phd level, peer reviewed studies such as Doug Rokke's, and Dr. Siegwart-Horst Günther's

[antiNarcism]

Hmmmm...

Whats the validity of Nuclear industry websites stuff? It generally looks more like advertising than info.

Also the peer review system has many flaws, eg./ ability of powerful vested interests to overwhelm discussion with mistruths pushed by hired sci's.

[antiNarcism]

If this Thread is closed, Hows about a new thread debating the following proposition:

"There would be no justification for Nuclear power if it were not for Nuclear weapons"

theres just, soooo many cheaper, clean and inexaustable power sources!

[Thomas Kirby]

Your link is from:

 

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research: Where Science and Democracy Meet

 

In their own words:

 

IEER is dedicated to increasing public involvement in and control over environmental problems through the democratization of science. While scientists write for each other' date=' they do so largely in "peer-reviewed" journals. When the process works well it means that a number of qualified people have looked over the research and commented on it before publication.

But the very term "peer review" means that the people who are affected by those decisions are not only left out of the review, they are generally not even a part of the audience.

IEER's aim is to provide people with literature which has a quality equal to that in scientific journals, but which doesn't require you to go back to college to get a degree in science to understand it.

Our audience is that of the determined activist concerned about the world, the concerned policy-maker, and the knowledgeable journalist. We choose our subjects so that they are relevant to environmental protection and other aspects of human well-being.[/i']

 

I don't see a problem with that. I'm not all that certain that peer review makes better science. I'm really certain that scientific literacy needs to be more common, in a more "hands-on" way, and that the word of authority is always suspect.

 

It costs nothing for us to be polite with each other, and I for one find it more enjoyable.

 

Is there anything wrong with the information that I quoted from IEER?

[DV8 2XL]

I'm not all that certain that peer review makes better science.

 

jesus weeps

[antiNarcism]

This is one site: http://www.idust.net/Tutorial/DURadiation01.htm

 

eg:

all of the uranium isotopes, as they give off alpha particles, produce radioactive decay products that immediately begin contaminating the pure uranium sample and undergoing radioactive decay themselves, giving off their own radioactive emissions. After a sample of NU or DU is six months old, the above figures are no longer correct. The decay products, called daughter isotopes, are giving off beta particles and gamma rays. These must be added to the alpha radiation calculated above, and this will result in a different percentage figure for the amount of radiation given off by DU as compared to NU.

 

The relevant daughter isotopes for each of the uranium isotopes listed above are shown in the following radioactive decay series. Th represents thorium; Pa represent protactinium. Read the "»»" symbol as "producing" or "yielding".

 

 

U-238 which emits alpha »»

Th-234 (half-life = 24.1 days) which emits beta + gamma »»

Pa-234 (half-life = 6.75 hours) which emits beta + gamma »»

 

 

U-234 (half-life = 247,000 years).

 

 

U-236 which emits alpha »»

Th-232 (half-life = 14 billion years)

 

 

U-235 which emits alpha + gamma »»

Th-231 (half-life = 25.5 hours) which emits beta + gamma »»

Pa-231 (half-life = 32,500 years)

 

 

U-234 which emits alpha + gamma »»

Th-230 (half-life = 80,000 years)

 

The complete radioactive decay series for each of these is much longer, but for practical purposes once the chain has hit an isotope with a very long half-life, any additional decay becomes insignificant (at least for the duration of our life times).

 

Don't worry DV8, our mon ami george tells me Jesus is far too busy getting ready to scorch the earth for a 1000y to weep.

[DV8 2XL]

link is from:

 

IDUST - International Depleted Uranium Study Team

 

In their own words:

 

IDUST is a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) of international researchers, activists and scientists dedicated to stopping the use of Depleted Uranium U-238 (DU) in military weapons by the year 2010. To disseminate information and coordinate advocacy efforts worldwide; To bring about a total ban on weapons that contain depleted uranium.

 

Another totaly unbiased source

[antiNarcism]

So really when you just talk about the alpha from an ingested dose like I did before, you're understating the dose and hazard by some 5 times.

The two betas and 3 gammas from each decay of 238 are a considerable external risk too.

 

Can anyone pin down the penetration in Umetal of gamma and Beta so I can approximate the output of airliner sized blocks.

 

Great all those airbus passengers/crew survived in Toronto, have you heard if the ballast blocks burnt DV?

[Thomas Kirby]

So really when you just talk about the alpha from an ingested dose like I did before' date=' you're understating the dose and hazard by some 5 times.

The two betas and 3 gammas from each decay of 238 are a considerable external risk too.

 

Can anyone pin down the penetration in Umetal of gamma and Beta so I can approximate the output of airliner sized blocks.

 

Great all those airbus passengers/crew survived in Toronto, have you heard if the ballast blocks burnt DV?[/quote']

 

These are some good points that are on topic. Depleted Uranium is an inhalation hazard in a fire. The radiation from DU increases as it ages. The raw gamma count triples in the first few months. The sum of the alpha and beta counts triples. At some point there will be a one on one correspondence with between the alpha+gamma decay of U-238 and the beta+gamma decays of its first two daughter isotopes. Then there is a slowly increasing alpha count from U-234, but if I understand this well enough, it will be hundreds of thousands of years before it achieves parity.

 

The math tells me that a one year old block of DU must have a gamma ray count just about three times that of a fresh one. Three times the dose might not be much, but it's still three times something, and if you have thousands of pounds of it, it's something.

[antiNarcism]

Please look at the figures DV8

 

I can't argue with the half lives in days and hours of 238 daughters, can u?

 

It was you who "handles uranium with their bare hands" wasn't it. Some may consider that gives you an agenda.

[antiNarcism]

yeah tom, it falls to a slower rate of increase several times until megayears .

Haven't found the graph I saw a year back but I think it maxes at 100x or so

[antiNarcism]

durn!

 

I just watched footage of the Toronto Airbus burning on the News. The entire tail section melted into a liquid pool in about 5 seconds flat!

I'm desperately clinging to the hope that it wasn't the 1000lb DU tailplane counterweight providing the heat but its a slim straw.

 

The LD50 for Sarin nerve gas is 2mg per kg of bodyweight

eg/ around 0.18g for 200lb human.

 

Isn't this pretty durn close to ceramicised UO aerosol?