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Dirty Bomb - Depleted Uranium?

Simon W | 30.01.2003 22:40

Depleted Uranium munitions could be the active ingredient dirty bomb and have a similar effect on a population.

I just watched a fairly interesting Horizon programme about the posible effects that a terrorist detonated dirty bomb would have on a major city such as London.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/

The programme speculated that the terrorist might find a high power radioactive source from the former USSR (such as seed irradiators) or a low power one from the US (medical supplies etc).

However it did not mention the fact that the US is planning to drop many tonnes of depleted uranium on Iraq over the next few months.

The effects on the Iraq population from the last Gulf Ware was documented in a former Indymedia article:
 http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=51585

The US military's own advice about dealing with spent DU munitions can be found here:
 http://www.usapa.army.mil/pdffiles/p700_48.pdf
(or html-ised by google
 http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:3lfApZg5QAAC:www.usapa.army.mil/pdffiles/p700_48.pdf+heath+risks+depleted+uranium&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
)

So the americans are:
1). Giving the (alledged) terrorists a radioactive source.
2). Contiminating a country/towns in much the same way that a 'dirty bomb' would.

Just another kink in this crazy war...

Simon W

Comments

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I kinda half watched that programme

30.01.2003 23:31

and I thought it sucked.Government propaganda.
The perpetrators of the biggest and best terrorist events are members of the intelligence services worldwide in collusion withe the military-industry types, manipulating events at the behest of their controllers
If a dirty bomb appears on the street of any of our cities, or any other WMD, in the near future we can be assured it's a present from our masters

dh


"Atomic Physics for Dummies"

31.01.2003 02:35

Absolutely not. I'm afraid that there is some pretty serious misunderstanding about "depleted Uranium", what it is and why is is used in certain sorts of munitions.

There are two main isotopes of Uranium, U238 and U235 The numbers refer to how many protons Plus neutrons there are. Since in both cases it is Uranium there are 92 protons the difference is in the number of neutrons. Both are unstable (radioactive) but there is a HUGE difference in their halflife (how radioactive) to the extent that even as late as the 1930's they weren't sure whether U238 was radioactive at all (since in any naturally occurring Uranium there would always be some of the much more radioactive U235 present -- and also usually traces of a whole host of other even more radiactive elements -- the Curies found Radium and Polonium in pitchblend (a Uranium ore) because these were much MORE radioactive even in the tiny amounts present.

It's U235 that may be "fissioned". If bombarded by slow moving nuetrons U238 may "capture" and break one into a proton and neutron becoming Plutonium (fissionable) but that's another matter.

In making "reactor fuel" they need to spearate the useful U235 from the "useless" U238 (MUCH more common than U235). So the process of making reactor fuel leaves you with massive heaps of SLIGHTLY radioactive U238. This is what is called "depleted Uranium", Uranium from which the "useful" U235 has been removed. Maybe more radiactive than the average rock in Pennsylvania, maybe not (that's a place where you need to test for Radon in your basement, etc.). What might it be good for?

Well it's heavy, very heavy. Uranium is one of the densest elements, and the very dense elements tend to be expensive (gold for example). So when you need something very dense, a good "cheap" possibility is "depeleted Uranium". THAT is it's role in munitions, a very dense filler material that isn't hopelessly expensive.

Not a good substance for making a "dirty bomb". For that you want something with a MUCH shorter halflife (more intensely radioactive) --- a half life measurable in days, weeks, months, perhaps even a few years. NOT something like U238 which has a halflife of what -- a quarter MILLION years? (I can't recall exactly but yes, the order of millions).

What a "dirty bomb" is -- just a conventional explosive device except surrounding it is a quantity of SERIOUSLY radiactive material, say radioactive Iodine or radiactive Cessium (I think these have halflives order of 100 days). Bomb goes off and spreads them around.

This is NOT to say that there is NO danger from depleted Uranium. IF reduced to a fine powder and inhaled, then lodged in the lungs, it would increase the risk of lung cancer. Being a Uranium miner isn't the safest job in the world.

Mike
mail e-mail: stepbystepfarm@shaysnet.com


The nasty thing about depleted uranium is...

31.01.2003 12:48

Not so much the risk of radiation, (Mike has already said that the amount of radiation emmited is too small to pose a direct risk), and the type of radiation emitted is alpha radiaion, which is blocked by a sheet of paper, and so is relatively harmless in the environment (however alpha sources are bad news if they enter the body, because they are stronger ionisers than beta or gamma radiaion). The major thing about depleted uranium is that uranium is chemically toxic, that is that the uranium itself poisions the body, and the risk of uranium poisioning is much greater than any risks from radiation from uranium.

Thomas J


Stratford reactor

31.01.2003 15:31

A research reactor owned by Queen Mary College located near Stratford shopping centre spewed out radioactive iodine gas into the sewers and the atmosphere for 25 years before it was decommissioned in 1983. Did the government care? No - it didn't even bother to inform the local MP, Tony Banks, at the time. The reactor didn't even have a containment, which meant that if it had gone into melt-down it would have laid half of London to waste. The building is still sitting there totally empty, with a high probability that the concrete sewers and the surrounding ground are contaminated. That's a 'dirty bomb' for you. Oh and, by the way, where did the nuclear physics students using the reactor hail from? You guessed it: Iran, Iraq, Pakistan.

Dan