[363] in peace2
more unsolicited DU commentary
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (J Sam Arey)
Thu Sep 14 16:34:25 2000
Message-Id: <200009142034.QAA23229@mei.mit.edu>
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 16:34:14 -0400
From: J Sam Arey <arey@MIT.EDU>
I'm with Jimmy (sort of),
I think the reporters have kind of screwed it up because the issue has
the word "uranium" in it.
U-235 is actually considered more of a health hazard as related to its
toxicological chemistry than its radioactivity. As a crude measure, if
you compare the EPA safe drinking water threshold of U-235 to other
metals, it is comparable with some of the most toxic (cadmium, chromium).
Crystallographically, U-235 reacts with phosphate and tends to collect
in your bones.
but that being said, if you stick a hand-held relatively insensitive
gieger counter next to 0.1% U-235 contaminated soil, the counter will
go nuts.. (I'm speaking from experience on this one)
My point is that although DU is a lot less radioactive than weapons-
grade U, it's still pretty hot stuff.
either way you slice it, it's not much of a party. I have more
information if anyone is interested (I used to research U-235
contamination).
sam
--------------
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Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering fax 617 253 7475
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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>
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU
Subject: re: Fw: JN: Uranium Death
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
