[362] in peace2
re: Fw: JN: Uranium Death
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jimmy_B,MajMoola_etc._Chien-ta Wu)
Thu Sep 14 12:26:44 2000
Message-Id: <200009141626.MAA23009@MECHWARRIOR.MIT.EDU>
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 12:26:56 EDT
From: "Jimmy_B,MajMoola_etc._Chien-ta Wu" <jimmbswu@MIT.EDU>
>Depleted uranium does not occur naturally. It is the by-product of the
>industrial processing of waste from nuclear reactors and is better known
>as
>weapons-grade uranium.
Point of information: Depleted uranium is not weapons-grade uranium.
"Weapons-grade" means that it is highly concentrated and can go fissile with
small critical mass (eg., 10kg). Depleted uranium, by definition, has a very
high critical mass because all of the U-235 isotopes have been "depleted" during
the nuclear processing. Therefore it is not weapon grade.
Uranium has a very high density, and crystalized uranium also is very hard.
Crystalized uranium can thus be used as a tank cannon munition to punch through
the armor of other tanks. However, naturally occuring uranium is radioactive,
which is why the Americans use depleted uranium in fabricating tank munition.
Depleted uranium, since it is depleted, has low radioactivity.
So that was that,
B, defender of the status quo
-----------
http://www.mit.edu/~jimmbswu "Who Dares, Wins."
--UK SAS
"It is good that war is so terrible,
else we should grow too fond of it."
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