Microsoft on the slippery slope?
Gordon
That's a pretty bold question when you ask it about a company with $56
billion in cash, but just take a look at it from a business standpoint -
fortunately we have a solid example for comparison (that's how Harvard
Business School does this sort of thing.)
Short:
http://tinyurl.com/n9nuv
--
Gordon Burgess-Parker
Interim Systems and Management Accounting
www.gbpcomputing.co.uk
opity
>
> Is Microsoft about to collapse?
> That's a pretty bold question when you ask it about a company with $56
> billion in cash, but just take a look at it from a business standpoint -
> fortunately we have a solid example for comparison (that's how Harvard
> Business School does this sort of thing.)
>
Very interesting read. Linux certainly is pushing Microsoft more and more.
One has to wonder how it took MS ages to develop e.g. IE7 when it's mostly
a copy of FF features which comes for free and for every platform.
Roy Schestowitz
"Collapse" is a very strong word. I notice that Gordon oderated it some-
what and 'cushioned the fall' by equating this to a "slippery slope".
Microsoft will not disappear quite so quickly as it will most probably mu-
tate. It will attempt to evolve and catch up with the trends, much like
IBM. IBM are probably a bigger rival to them than Google, and a risk to
manage as well. Sooner or later, IBM will offer Open Source solutions to
all clients simply because "it's the better choice".
Microsoft are changing. In fact, they has already done so by moving to We-
b-based services (notably Live which will incorporate Live Office Applica-
tions). Thus far, Microsoft are not doing well. Bill Gates has said on
various occasions that services are the future, indirectly implying that
he hasn't much trust in the prospects of Windows, Office and the rest of
the flagships.
OpenOffice and Firefox are few threats among a larger pool. Come to con-
sider Web-based applications like ZIMBRA (http://zimbra.com/ , demo on
site), which is one among various examples of the power of Asynchronous
JavaScript (P/L) and XML (remote database-ish on server).
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Proprietary cripples communication
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux Ś PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
2:05pm up 22 days 3:50, 10 users, load average: 0.66, 0.78, 0.61
http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project
BearItAll
A synic might say that MS appear to be making too public the problems with
the current IE, seems out of character, until you remember that they have a
new one coming along and what better way to get their users to install the
new one than to push into their faces the problems with the old one.
As for development cycles, I don't mind at all if major product updates are
slow, goodness MS users haven't learnt how to use what they have had for
years, what chance do they stand if given a new one.
But in all the time waiting for the new version, here we are on the brink of
release (this year I believe) and now MS start thinking about adding
security. Don't wintrolls jump on me for that, I was one of those that
received the email asking us to help them out. Sign up, join the
discussions, submit coding ideas etc.
I was going to help them too, I have done before and I quite enjoy being
involved in this stuff, but I got as far as signing in then some part of
that page wouldn't work in Opera, so I tried again in case it was a glitch,
then I got a message saying I should use an IE browser.
So I sat back, MS's inability to cope with other browsers gave me time to
think more about what I was about to do. Of cause I could of asked Opera to
pretend it's an IE5/6/54 what ever, but then I decided that the whole thing
was just plain stupid.
I am sick of the fight with MS, I hate the fact that MS Win is not what it
could have been by now, a fully safe secure system. I hate the fact that
emails are not what they were meant to be because people are so scared of
virus's, virus's should never have been a problem, hacks might have been,
but virus's should never have existed and MS are solely responsible for all
that virus's have done, because they could have stopped it at the
beginning. I hate that I can sit at my favourite computer (Suse on my
desktop) browsing the Internet with my favourite browser (Opera), but I
have to make allowances for MS, when it is in fact MS who are the foriegn
party in Internet terms.
Frankly though, they are enough good developers out there who don't mind
what you use as a browser (wasn't that the way it was always meant to be on
the Internet?), that when I get one that wont load properly or at all I
just move on. But my point is that I shouldn't have to, the Internet is
meant to be for everyone so the pages there are meant to be for everyone
reguardless of the computer they are sat at and the browser they are using.
I want computers that I can sit my nephew at and be certain that he isn't
going to get any filth passed through to him either in email or through the
Internet.
I can do that on Linux, all emails passed through spamassassin, the child
controls plus filters in Opera (also available in your Firefox's). I can
protect my nephew on a Linux machine, but I can't protect him on MS Win,
specially as MS themselves are responsible for the code that allows pop ups
to bypass any blockers and filters the user might have from third party
software. 'slip us a fiver guvner and we'll let you through'.
So I'm not helping MS, they are unsafe by design and dispite some good
things coming from the MS camp, the bad things can't be allowed to
continue. MS suckers will say that MS takes computing forward. I disagree,
MS are holding computing back. Just think about one area of all this,
emails, how many of you have roving users in your companies or a family
member, they sit in a hotel somewhere and decide they want to send an
email. They can't, by that I mean they can't send the email using the same
settings that they have when sat in the safety of your own network, or the
dial up or wireless. Because spam and virus's have meant that ISPs have to
prevent smtp comms from 'just anywhere'.
Of cause they are ways round it, the point though, is that it should never
have been this way.
Spam? In what way are MS the cause of spam? Linux had spam blocked very
quickly once the spam had passed the point of simply being a joke. Our
sendmails were fixed super fast once it was seen that it could be set as a
spam relay. MS Could have done those too, it would be nice to say they were
too busy fighting virus's, but we all know that MS hasn't fought a virus in
it's life, third parties fight the virus's, MS just do the job of allowing
them in so that the fight can happen.
So all in all, if MS are on the slipper slope, thank god for that because at
last we can all start heading towards a much safer cleaner computing world.
billwg
"Gordon" <gor...@gbpcomputing.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message
news:NfmdnVWDlq0...@eclipse.net.uk...
No wonder you limeys are still burning coal to heat your flats, gordo!
Your HBS styled review includes:
"GM got where it is by having, a near monopoly - essentially being able
to print money - which lead to complacency in product design, quality
control, and even in the way employees are paid."
I don't think GM was ever accused of monopoly or near monopoly, but if
it were to be, that was in the 1920's and would be paying the price some
80 years later! That being the case, MSFT might find themselves on the
same "slippery slope" by the year 2100! LOL!!! Well if Gates leaves
his fortune to his kids instead of to charity as he has said, William
Henry Gates VIII or so may be worried someday.
Roy Schestowitz
> opity wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:40:49 +0100, Gordon wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Is Microsoft about to collapse?
>>> That's a pretty bold question when you ask it about a company with $56
>>> billion in cash, but just take a look at it from a business standpoint -
>>> fortunately we have a solid example for comparison (that's how Harvard
>>> Business School does this sort of thing.)
>>>
>>> http://tinyurl.com/n9nuv
>>
>> Very interesting read. Linux certainly is pushing Microsoft more and more.
>> One has to wonder how it took MS ages to develop e.g. IE7 when it's mostly
>> a copy of FF features which comes for free and for every platform.
Excuse me for 'hijacking' this message from opity, but you triggered some
mental trails of thoughts which ought to be unleashed as written words.
> A synic might say that MS appear to be making too public the problems with
> the current IE, seems out of character, until you remember that they have a
> new one coming along and what better way to get their users to install the
> new one than to push into their faces the problems with the old one.
>
> As for development cycles, I don't mind at all if major product updates are
> slow, goodness MS users haven't learnt how to use what they have had for
> years, what chance do they stand if given a new one.
>
> But in all the time waiting for the new version, here we are on the brink
> of release (this year I believe) and now MS start thinking about adding
> security. Don't wintrolls jump on me for that, I was one of those that
> received the email asking us to help them out. Sign up, join the
> discussions, submit coding ideas etc.
>
> I was going to help them too, I have done before and I quite enjoy being
> involved in this stuff, but I got as far as signing in then some part of
> that page wouldn't work in Opera, so I tried again in case it was a glitch,
> then I got a message saying I should use an IE browser.
>
> So I sat back, MS's inability to cope with other browsers gave me time to
> think more about what I was about to do. Of cause I could of asked Opera to
> pretend it's an IE5/6/54 what ever, but then I decided that the whole thing
> was just plain stupid.
User-agent forging opens the door to discrimination. Never accept this. In
fact, I identify myself on the Net with some odd strings, just for spite. I
want to know which sites are vain enough to make decisions that exclude
unknown browsers and practice browser racism.
> I am sick of the fight with MS, I hate the fact that MS Win is not what it
> could have been by now, a fully safe secure system. I hate the fact that
> emails are not what they were meant to be because people are so scared of
> virus's, virus's should never have been a problem, hacks might have been,
> but virus's should never have existed and MS are solely responsible for all
> that virus's have done, because they could have stopped it at the
> beginning. I hate that I can sit at my favourite computer (Suse on my
> desktop) browsing the Internet with my favourite browser (Opera), but I
> have to make allowances for MS, when it is in fact MS who are the foriegn
> party in Internet terms.
Some of the flamers in this groups would actually argue that Microsoft made
the Internet a reality; not Al Gore (sarcasm).
> Frankly though, they are enough good developers out there who don't mind
> what you use as a browser (wasn't that the way it was always meant to be on
> the Internet?), that when I get one that wont load properly or at all I
> just move on. But my point is that I shouldn't have to, the Internet is
> meant to be for everyone so the pages there are meant to be for everyone
> reguardless of the computer they are sat at and the browser they are using.
>
> I want computers that I can sit my nephew at and be certain that he isn't
> going to get any filth passed through to him either in email or through the
> Internet.
>
> I can do that on Linux, all emails passed through spamassassin, the child
> controls plus filters in Opera (also available in your Firefox's). I can
> protect my nephew on a Linux machine, but I can't protect him on MS Win,
> specially as MS themselves are responsible for the code that allows pop ups
> to bypass any blockers and filters the user might have from third party
> software. 'slip us a fiver guvner and we'll let you through'.
Windows has some filtering software too, but it is not free. Then one comes
to consider your next set of arguments, which attribute spam to compromised
Windows workstations.
> So I'm not helping MS, they are unsafe by design and dispite some good
> things coming from the MS camp, the bad things can't be allowed to
> continue. MS suckers will say that MS takes computing forward. I disagree,
> MS are holding computing back. Just think about one area of all this,
> emails, how many of you have roving users in your companies or a family
> member, they sit in a hotel somewhere and decide they want to send an
> email. They can't, by that I mean they can't send the email using the same
> settings that they have when sat in the safety of your own network, or the
> dial up or wireless. Because spam and virus's have meant that ISPs have to
> prevent smtp comms from 'just anywhere'.
In am not entirely sure that SMTP restrictions should have Windows blames.
Open gateways for despatch of mail could be hammered from any platform, even
using a script that is easy to compose GNU/Linux. Web-based mail is taking
over, so fewer people nowadays depend on desktop-side software.
Speaking of ads/pop-ups, expect more in Vista. Even the login manager will
have ads.
> Of cause they are ways round it, the point though, is that it should never
> have been this way.
>
> Spam? In what way are MS the cause of spam? Linux had spam blocked very
> quickly once the spam had passed the point of simply being a joke. Our
> sendmails were fixed super fast once it was seen that it could be set as a
> spam relay. MS Could have done those too, it would be nice to say they were
> too busy fighting virus's, but we all know that MS hasn't fought a virus in
> it's life, third parties fight the virus's, MS just do the job of allowing
> them in so that the fight can happen.
80% of the world's spam is said to come from compromised Windows boxes. The
remainder is not sent using zombies, but is most probably coming from
Windows as well. Same arguments apply to DDOS attack, of which I am a
constant sufferer (most latterly last night, with almost half a gigabyte of
pages generated 'on the fly' in PHP).
> So all in all, if MS are on the slipper slope, thank god for that because
> at last we can all start heading towards a much safer cleaner computing
> world.
I have no doubt about that.
With friendly regards,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux Ś PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
3:45pm up 22 days 5:30, 10 users, load average: 0.06, 0.47, 0.58
http://iuron.com - help build a non-profit search engine
B Gruff
> A synic might say that MS appear to be making too public the problems with
> the current IE, seems out of character, until you remember that they have
> a new one coming along and what better way to get their users to install
> the new one than to push into their faces the problems with the old one.
Rather drastic snipping(!) but just on that one point:-
I'm sure that you are right, but it goes a lot further, does it not?
I.E. 7 will be available for Vista, of course. I hear also XP. What about
W2K? Anything else, NOT, I assume?
Thus, MS gets rid of a lot of baggage here?
- "You need to buy our latest O/S to be secure".
- they wash their hands of past problems, while providing an
"incentive" (=Offer You Can't Refuse) to buy the latest, Most Secure
Windows Ever.... Neat?:-)
What I'm telling you is, not only do they get rid of I.E. 6 and previous,
they also get rid of any responsibility at all for previous OS versions.
Gordon
>
> Rather drastic snipping(!) but just on that one point:-
>
> I'm sure that you are right, but it goes a lot further, does it not?
> I.E. 7 will be available for Vista, of course. I hear also XP.
Correct. IE7 will ONLY be available for XP and Vista.
B Gruff
> No wonder you limeys are still burning coal to heat your flats, gordo!
Current U.K. Coal Consumption approx 70 Million tons p.a.
Current U.S. Coal Consumption approx 1,100 Million tons p.a.
Shall I tell him, or shall you, Gordon?
LOL!!!
Gordon
But he'll still manage to lie his way out of it.
I /like/ my coal fire in my cottage - if I didn't I'd have no central
heating!
billwg
"B Gruff" <bbg...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:492ecmF...@individual.net...
into the power plants and steel mills.
Gordon
>>
> But none of it ends up in the home fireplace, goat! It's all dumped
> into the power plants and steel mills.
So what's the difference between burning coal in the grate to heat your
house and using electricity generated by burning er um COAL to do the same?
or don't they let you near naked flames for your own protection?
What a TUP you are billy.
Lobo
>
>"B Gruff" <bbg...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:492ecmF...@individual.net...
>> On Thursday 30 March 2006 15:11 billwg wrote:
>>
>>> No wonder you limeys are still burning coal to heat your flats,
>>> gordo!
>>
>> Current U.K. Coal Consumption approx 70 Million tons p.a.
>> Current U.S. Coal Consumption approx 1,100 Million tons p.a.
>>
>> Shall I tell him, or shall you, Gordon?
>> LOL!!!
>>
>But none of it ends up in the home fireplace, goat!
Americans are too impatient to wait for coal. They burn trees instead.
Jim Richardson
Hash: SHA1
That's the beauty of a renewable resource...
>> It's all dumped
>>into the power plants and steel mills.
>>
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=6FQw
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
billwg
"Gordon" <gor...@gbpcomputing.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message
> billwg wrote:
>
>
>>>
>> But none of it ends up in the home fireplace, goat! It's all dumped
>> into the power plants and steel mills.
>
> So what's the difference between burning coal in the grate to heat
> your
> house and using electricity generated by burning er um COAL to do the
> same?
Well, gordo, over here the difference is called "SO2 scrubbers", but
maybe you limeys haven't heard of that yet.
billwg
"Lobo" <n...@here.com> wrote in message
news:98bo22ph0a9kiha4o...@4ax.com...
>
> Americans are too impatient to wait for coal. They burn trees instead.
>
the ceramic logs are fed some natural gas and air to flame up instantly!
Even have some stuff you sprinkle under them to pop and hiss like bugs
in the logs.
Gordon
Oh dear me. I think we got the best deal when we let you colonials get on
with it if you're a typical yankee arsehole.....
Gordon
I'm surprised the doctors allow you real flames...is that just when you've
not had any bad dreams for a couple of weeks?
Lobo
Us Canucks can flick a switch and your fireplace will go out.
billwg
Three words, wolfie: Liquid Propane Gas. You are just an orifice away
from obsolescence.
Jim Richardson
Hash: SHA1
On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:20:20 +0100,
Gordon <gor...@gbpcomputing.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
> billwg wrote:
>
>>
>> "Gordon" <gor...@gbpcomputing.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:rf-dnd7O-qs...@eclipse.net.uk...
>>> billwg wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>
>>>> But none of it ends up in the home fireplace, goat! It's all dumped
>>>> into the power plants and steel mills.
>>>
>>> So what's the difference between burning coal in the grate to heat
>>> your
>>> house and using electricity generated by burning er um COAL to do the
>>> same?
>>
>> Well, gordo, over here the difference is called "SO2 scrubbers", but
>> maybe you limeys haven't heard of that yet.
>
> Oh dear me. I think we got the best deal when we let you colonials get on
> with it if you're a typical yankee arsehole.....
>
Much as I hate to side with scum like billwg, I think he's pointing out
that it's a lot easier to clean the combustion byproducts out of the
exhaust gasses of one large coal fired plant, than to do the same for a
few hundred thousand fireplaces.
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=29x2
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
I liked things better when I didn't understand them.
-- Calvin
John Bailo
> Is Microsoft about to collapse?
> That's a pretty bold question when you ask it about a company with $56
> billion in cash, but just take a look at it from a business standpoint -
> fortunately we have a solid example for comparison (that's how Harvard
> Business School does this sort of thing.)
Here's an interesting thought that I had while writing on some of the
Yahoo Finance bulletin boards.
There are now 5 commercial "OS Companies":
Microsoft: Windows
Apple: OSX
Novell: Suse/Linux
SCO: Unix
RedHat: RH/Linux
The three old school guys are Microsoft, Apple and SCO. The
profitability of their software has been ever declining, and they have
tried to substitute various "spinoff" techology ( MSN, iPods, IP
lawsuits ) to keep growth alive.
None of those efforts have had the effect that their formerly high
growth software businesses had.
Now take RedHat and Novell. They are OS companies, but they are far
more /pure/. They don't make walkie-talkies and build websites with
horoscopes on them, and they actually create IP, not sue about it.
Novell is more laden than RH because it has its previous generation OS,
Netware, which is thought to be a plus *if* they can convert them to
Suse Linux.
These two (see latest RH financials) are enjoying brisk growth in their
Linux businesses and in their associated software.
>
> Long:
> http://techrepublic.com.com/b2b-trcommunity/5254-6257-0.html?forumID=99&threadID=185989&messageID=1984647&id=969373&tag=nl.e101
>
> Short:
> http://tinyurl.com/n9nuv
>
--
http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
fueled by Texeme Textcasting
Lobo
>
>"Lobo" <n...@here.com> wrote in message
>news:oklo2216sda7tdtil...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 21:19:59 GMT, "billwg" <bi...@twcf.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"Lobo" <n...@here.com> wrote in message
>>>news:98bo22ph0a9kiha4o...@4ax.com...
>>>>
>>>> Americans are too impatient to wait for coal. They burn trees
>>>> instead.
>>>>
>>>Only the poor people, wolfie! Down here in FL we click the button and
>>>the ceramic logs are fed some natural gas and air to flame up
>>>instantly!
>>>Even have some stuff you sprinkle under them to pop and hiss like bugs
>>>in the logs.
>>>
>>
>> Us Canucks can flick a switch and your fireplace will go out.
>
>Three words, wolfie: Liquid Propane Gas. You are just an orifice away
>from obsolescence.
Us Canucks can flick a switch and you won't get your tank filled ;-)
Propane Stockdraw Near March Record
U.S. inventories of propane continued sharply lower last week,
dropping by 1.7 million barrels to settle at an estimated 29.2 million
barrels as of March 24, 2006. With last week’s draw, propane
inventories have fallen by 7.1 million barrels this month, only 0.3
million barrels below the all-time March record of 7.4 million barrels
reported in 1999. Continued unseasonably cold temperatures in many
parts of the Nation contributed to the steep decline in inventories
last week.
Mark Kent
Lobo <n...@here.com> espoused:
I have a mental image of loads of yanks, shivering in a fuel-less chill,
or baking in a fuel-less heatwave, whilst /still/ claiming that there's
no global warming going on. It's a real Cnut moment :-)
This is a real issue, though - there is just nothing like enough
carbon-based fuel to cope with the growth in demand resulting from
global warming, which is, err, the result of burning carbon-based
fuel... oops - poles on the wrong side of the s-plane here - unstable.
Gov here is looking at subsidising the build of micro-wind-generators on
houses to help... and yes, this is /absolutely/ the kind of thing
governments should get involved in, as businesses are driven by hedge
funds, which are looking for a 3month or less return on investment, so
couldn't care less about even 6 months' time, let alone next year or the
next decade. Greed != planning.
Don't think anyone burns coal in any significant amount in the UK -
we've had gas and oil from the North Sea for so long. A lot of houses
still have chimneys, though, as they were built when they were needed -
this is useful if you /do/ want to burn wood or coal or peat. Not sure
if there are any coal mines still working?
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
Anything cut to length will be too short.
Mark Kent
Jim Richardson <war...@eskimo.com> espoused:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:20:20 +0100,
> Gordon <gor...@gbpcomputing.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>> billwg wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> "Gordon" <gor...@gbpcomputing.co.uk.invalid> wrote in message
>>> news:rf-dnd7O-qs...@eclipse.net.uk...
>>>> billwg wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> But none of it ends up in the home fireplace, goat! It's all dumped
>>>>> into the power plants and steel mills.
>>>>
>>>> So what's the difference between burning coal in the grate to heat
>>>> your
>>>> house and using electricity generated by burning er um COAL to do the
>>>> same?
>>>
>>> Well, gordo, over here the difference is called "SO2 scrubbers", but
>>> maybe you limeys haven't heard of that yet.
>>
>> Oh dear me. I think we got the best deal when we let you colonials get on
>> with it if you're a typical yankee arsehole.....
>>
>
>
> Much as I hate to side with scum like billwg, I think he's pointing out
> that it's a lot easier to clean the combustion byproducts out of the
> exhaust gasses of one large coal fired plant, than to do the same for a
> few hundred thousand fireplaces.
>
I think it unlikely that there are remotely that number of people
regularly burning anything in the UK, we've had emissions control on
this stuff for so long.
That said, modern domestic burners are extremely efficient, too, whereas
a power-station runs continuously, burning way more coal that a few
hundred thousand houses do at home.
Of course, we don't burn anything like the amount of coal that the US
does - something like 100 times less, which is why billwg!!!'s point is
tosh.
billwg
So you are the gas kings of the continent, eh?
Ray Ingles
> Microsoft are changing. In fact, they has already done so by moving to We-
> b-based services (notably Live which will incorporate Live Office Applica-
> tions). Thus far, Microsoft are not doing well.
In general, I agree. See my .sig, for example. I don't think Microsoft
(or GM) will vanish, but what survives won't look much like their former
incarnations.
> Bill Gates has said on
> various occasions that services are the future, indirectly implying that
> he hasn't much trust in the prospects of Windows, Office and the rest of
> the flagships.
That's long-term, though. For the next few years Windows and Office
will continue to be the core of their business, and the main reason
anyone considers buying from them at all.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"Choice, flexibility and cost are really the driving factors [for
Linux adoption]. And Microsoft would have to stop being Microsoft
to ever compete with that combination." - emkey
Ray Ingles
> "GM got where it is by having, a near monopoly - essentially being able
> to print money - which lead to complacency in product design, quality
> control, and even in the way employees are paid."
>
> I don't think GM was ever accused of monopoly or near monopoly, but if
> it were to be, that was in the 1920's and would be paying the price some
> 80 years later!
While I agree that the choice of the word "monopoly" was a bit of a
stretch, there certainly are some parallels. GM had a comfortable market
segment and confident expectation of continued profit - a GNP larger
than many countries. Not a "lock-in" per se, but close enough for many
practical purposes.
> That being the case, MSFT might find themselves on the
> same "slippery slope" by the year 2100!
Of course, on "Internet time" 2100 should arrive about 2010. :->
Seriously, the computer industry changes much faster than the
automotive industry.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not
entitled to your own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Lobo
Canada is the US's largest supplier of oil and gas. We also send you a
lot of electricity and refined products. You guys should be happy. You
can buy the stuff cheaper than we can. But, we like your dollars. ;-)
It helps to keep us in the black.
But you are the coal kings. Lots of potential there if you can get the
public to pay the real price of fossil fuels. That is, the cost to the
environment of using the stuff w/o some method of carbon sinking and
efficient scrubbers which your administration has been fighting
against for years. Thankfully, they just lost their case in court.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2006/2006-03-20-10.asp
Court Shoots Down Bush Attempt to Circumvent Clean Air Act
By J.R. Pegg
WASHINGTON, DC, March 20, 2006 (ENS) – A federal appeals court on
Friday blocked the Bush administration from implementing a regulation
that would have eased clean air requirements for some 17,000
industrial facilities, including coal-fired power plants and oil
refineries. The court handed down a stinging rebuke of the regulation,
which it said is "contrary to the plain language" of the Clean Air
Act.
....
"Only in a Humpty-Dumpty world," would the regulation be allowed under
the existing statute the court said in its 20-page ruling. "We decline
to adopt such a world view."
....
B Gruff
> This is a real issue, though - there is just nothing like enough
> carbon-based fuel to cope with the growth in demand resulting from
> global warming, which is, err, the result of burning carbon-based
> fuel... oops - poles on the wrong side of the s-plane here - unstable.
First time in a very long time that I've found anything to disagree with in
your postings, Mark. Now, if you were to change that to "...burning
*fossil* carbon-based fuel...", we'd be back in harmony, in that burning
for example anything that you have grown, or distilled from what you have
grown, is an excellent way to trap, store and use solar energy ....?:-)
B Gruff
Actually, I think it works out at about three times as much per capita.
However, I has assumed that baa-lamb was simply trying to get us to discuss
coal-burning rather than Microsoft's slippery slope - or perhaps he was
comparing Microsoft's situation with the Aberfam disaster of 1966?:-)
billwg
>
> But you are the coal kings. Lots of potential there if you can get the
> public to pay the real price of fossil fuels. That is, the cost to the
> environment of using the stuff w/o some method of carbon sinking and
> efficient scrubbers which your administration has been fighting
> against for years. Thankfully, they just lost their case in court.
>
stopped. IIRC, there hasn't been a new one started construction in 20
years or more.
Lobo
Probably because no state or country wants to store the waste
products. This stuff will be dangerous for over 100,000 years. What if
it ever got into the aquifers?
Personally, I think they should be banned. Switch to solar, wind,
tidal and/or hydrogen energy sources would be much better. Europe has
it all over Canada and the US in this respect. Our oil and gas has
been too cheap (also "Big Oil" has a lot of political clout in our
countries)
Ray Ingles
> Probably because no state or country wants to store the waste
> products. This stuff will be dangerous for over 100,000 years. What if
> it ever got into the aquifers?
Put it in space, and use nuclear power to do it:
http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship7.htm
http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship13.htm
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
The "if you're innocent, you have nothing to hide" argument is a
strawman I tire of. It's not about hiding. When I'm in the bathroom,
I am not hiding. That doesn't mean I want everyone looking.
- Tom Vogt
billwg
> On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 20:38:51 GMT, "billwg" <bi...@twcf.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Lobo" <n...@here.com> wrote in message
>>news:7eiq22t4ujfv2igqq...@4ax.com...
>>>
>>> But you are the coal kings. Lots of potential there if you can get
>>> the
>>> public to pay the real price of fossil fuels. That is, the cost to
>>> the
>>> environment of using the stuff w/o some method of carbon sinking and
>>> efficient scrubbers which your administration has been fighting
>>> against for years. Thankfully, they just lost their case in court.
>>>
>>I often wonder why the nuclear power plants have been essentially
>>stopped. IIRC, there hasn't been a new one started construction in 20
>>years or more.
>>
>
> Probably because no state or country wants to store the waste
> products. This stuff will be dangerous for over 100,000 years. What if
> it ever got into the aquifers?
>
the West, there is a lot of very dry, uninhabitable land out there to
use for long term storage. They used to test atomic bombs just north of
LAS, so it can't be all that tough to just keep your eye on an acre or
two of concrete blocks. Right now the waste material is being stored in
the power plants themselves, so putting it a 100 miles from anywhere
should be an improvment.
Meanwhile, there are numerous aircraft carriers and submarines and other
surface ships of the US Navy tooling around with nuclear plants being
attended to by young kids and no problems apparent for decades now.
> Personally, I think they should be banned. Switch to solar, wind,
> tidal and/or hydrogen energy sources would be much better. Europe has
> it all over Canada and the US in this respect. Our oil and gas has
> been too cheap (also "Big Oil" has a lot of political clout in our
> countries)
Well, I think that we burn fossil fuel because it is the cheapest way to
generate electric power. If solar, etc., was economic, it would be in
use a lot more than it is. Nuclear is fairly cheap compared to fossil
fuel in terms of operating expense at least and it is very clean.
B Gruff
>> Personally, I think they should be banned. Switch to solar, wind,
>> tidal and/or hydrogen energy sources would be much better. Europe has
>> it all over Canada and the US in this respect. Our oil and gas has
>> been too cheap (also "Big Oil" has a lot of political clout in our
>> countries)
>
> Well, I think that we burn fossil fuel because it is the cheapest way to
> generate electric power. If solar, etc., was economic, it would be in
> use a lot more than it is. Nuclear is fairly cheap compared to fossil
> fuel in terms of operating expense at least and it is very clean.
Current problems in the U.K.:-
Mark Kent
B Gruff <bbg...@yahoo.co.uk> espoused:
Hehe - fair point :-)
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
Be open to other people -- they may enrich your dream.
Mark Kent
They do seem to be heading for some fairly terminal times. I'm
increasingly convinced that the PC is effectively dead, and once PS3 is
out there, and people have HDTVs, then there will not be any need for a
separate device for web-surfing, email, and so on, as your PS3 will do a
very good job of it, at a fraction of the price, with a smaller
footprint, lower power costs, less fan-noise, and so on (okay, you can
build silent PCs, but it's not easy, nor is it inexpensive).
There'll be some thin-clients for carrying around, like the Nokia 770 or
similar which can do surfing via wifi & bluetooth, but we need a
generation of devices which also contain umts/3g too.
One interesting possible development would be for some manufacturer to
produce PC-like motherboards for PPC and/or Cell processors at the same
kind of price as the current generation of x86 boards. If they were
couled with, say, an open bios (the linux bios project, perhaps?), then
there could be an interesting future that way.
On the low-power side, their are loads of ARM-based boards around which
appear to be very good. They run linux very well.
I cannot see Windows surviving in that kind of environment. Windows
needs a highly stable environment, with little or no development or
change, because of its incredible slow development pace and MS's very
poor development methods. This is probably one reason why computing
hasn't really moved on in the last 20 years... Free software is, at
last, allowing it to do so again.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
Mark Kent
Ray Ingles <sorc...@localhost.localdomain> espoused:
> On 2006-03-30, billwg <bi...@twcf.rr.com> wrote:
>> "GM got where it is by having, a near monopoly - essentially being able
>> to print money - which lead to complacency in product design, quality
>> control, and even in the way employees are paid."
>>
>> I don't think GM was ever accused of monopoly or near monopoly, but if
>> it were to be, that was in the 1920's and would be paying the price some
>> 80 years later!
>
> While I agree that the choice of the word "monopoly" was a bit of a
> stretch, there certainly are some parallels. GM had a comfortable market
> segment and confident expectation of continued profit - a GNP larger
> than many countries. Not a "lock-in" per se, but close enough for many
> practical purposes.
When organisations become that powerful, they are able to impose some
very unpleasant conditions on their suppliers as well as their customers,
and can afford to be ambivalent about their employees, too.
>
>> That being the case, MSFT might find themselves on the
>> same "slippery slope" by the year 2100!
>
> Of course, on "Internet time" 2100 should arrive about 2010. :->
> Seriously, the computer industry changes much faster than the
> automotive industry.
>
GM went from a world dominant player in the 1970s to near collapse
by the 2000s. This would align well with your figure of 2010 for MS, of
course.
Mark Kent
I recall discussing the future of nuclear power with an ex-girlfriend
physicist who'd gone on to work at a reprocessing plant in the UK. She
just wouldn't accept that putting the spent fuel underground, with it's
shockingly long half-life and the reality of exponential decay (ie., it
takes a /really/ long time to disappear) was in any way risky. We had
quite a debate on this... and haven't spoken since :-)
I would appear to have been absolutely right, though...
Jim
> "B Gruff" <bbg...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:492ecmF...@individual.net...
>
>>On Thursday 30 March 2006 15:11 billwg wrote:
>>
>>
>>>No wonder you limeys are still burning coal to heat your flats,
>>>gordo!
>>
>>Current U.K. Coal Consumption approx 70 Million tons p.a.
>>Current U.S. Coal Consumption approx 1,100 Million tons p.a.
>>
>>Shall I tell him, or shall you, Gordon?
>>LOL!!!
>>
>
> But none of it ends up in the home fireplace, goat! It's all dumped
> into the power plants and steel mills.
>
>
hm. Six times the population, 16 times the consumption. Something
doesn't add up.
Lobo
What will the climate be 30,000 years from now and will Yucca Mountain
still be 100 miles from anywhere? How will they get it there? We are
talking geological times here. What was the climate like in those
areas just 10,000 years ago?
One way the Americans and Brits have found to get rid of some of this
waste is to use it in spent fuel munitions. They've scattered hundreds
of tons of it all over the Balkans and Iraq. Each DU round fired by an
Abrams tank represents 10 pounds of solid uranium 238. Approximately 1
million individual DU rounds and submunitions were fired off in Iraq
War I alone.
There's been a sharp increase of the rates of cancer in these areas as
well as in soldiers using these munitions. The use of this type of
munitions is in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. You are not
supposed to leave stuff behind that can endanger the civilian
population.
The military knows all about this stuff yet continued to use DU. Read
this secret memo from 1991
http://www.spidersmill.com/gwvrl/los_alamos.htm
>Meanwhile, there are numerous aircraft carriers and submarines and other
>surface ships of the US Navy tooling around with nuclear plants being
>attended to by young kids and no problems apparent for decades now.
Cost is not a factor for the American military. Look at their budget.
>> Personally, I think they should be banned. Switch to solar, wind,
>> tidal and/or hydrogen energy sources would be much better. Europe has
>> it all over Canada and the US in this respect. Our oil and gas has
>> been too cheap (also "Big Oil" has a lot of political clout in our
>> countries)
>
>Well, I think that we burn fossil fuel because it is the cheapest way to
>generate electric power. If solar, etc., was economic, it would be in
>use a lot more than it is. Nuclear is fairly cheap compared to fossil
>fuel in terms of operating expense at least and it is very clean.
Nuclear energy is extremely expensive if you add in massive government
subsidies for building and maintaining plants, producing fuel,
transportation, disposal, insurance and other hidden costs. It has
never proved itself to be a viable source of energy. If you were to
pay the true cost, your electric bill would quadruple.
Our grandchildren will think we were crazy for even considering such a
dangerous, dirty, inefficient method of producing energy.
billwg
wolfie! By the time anything out West would move enough to cause a
threat, I would imagine the technology would be there in time to treat
it. People do get smarter over time. Just compare Windows 3.0 to
Windows XP! And that's only 10 years.
> One way the Americans and Brits have found to get rid of some of this
> waste is to use it in spent fuel munitions. They've scattered hundreds
> of tons of it all over the Balkans and Iraq. Each DU round fired by an
> Abrams tank represents 10 pounds of solid uranium 238. Approximately 1
> million individual DU rounds and submunitions were fired off in Iraq
> War I alone.
>
I don't think that they use it in order to get rid of the waste, wolfie.
IIRC, the purpose is to make the penetration end of the bullet extra
hard and heavy to deliver a real punch in a small spot. Lets the round
pierce some 10-12 inches of armor in some cases. Lead is too soft for
that purpose. It just mushes against the armor.
> There's been a sharp increase of the rates of cancer in these areas as
> well as in soldiers using these munitions. The use of this type of
> munitions is in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. You are not
> supposed to leave stuff behind that can endanger the civilian
> population.
>
> The military knows all about this stuff yet continued to use DU. Read
> this secret memo from 1991
> http://www.spidersmill.com/gwvrl/los_alamos.htm
>
Well, all that says is that it may become a political issue and that it
works wonders as a penetrator material. There have been some direct
analyses that are available on the web. One says"
"The major health concerns about DU relate to its chemical properties as
a heavy metal rather than to its radioactivity, which is very low. As
with all chemicals, the hazard depends mainly upon the amount taken into
the body. Medical science recognizes that uranium at high doses can
cause kidney damage. However, those levels are far above levels soldiers
would have encountered in the Gulf or the Balkans.
Because depleted uranium emits primarily alpha radiation, it is not
considered a serious external radiation hazard. The depleted uranium in
armor and rounds is covered, further reducing the radiation dose. When
breathed or eaten, small amounts of depleted uranium are carried in the
blood to body tissues and organs; much the same as the more radioactive
natural uranium. Despite this, no radiological health effects are
expected because the radioactivity of uranium and depleted uranium are
so low."
As to the Geneva Convention, it mostly discusses what to do with
prisoners and such. I don't think that any country has entered into any
agreement that would protect civilians hanging around a war zone from
immediate or long lasting dangers. What section do you think applies
here?
>>Meanwhile, there are numerous aircraft carriers and submarines and
>>other
>>surface ships of the US Navy tooling around with nuclear plants being
>>attended to by young kids and no problems apparent for decades now.
>
> Cost is not a factor for the American military. Look at their budget.
>
Well it doesn't go all that much to training nuclear engineers or other
operating personnel. They get a quick course and they are off to the
fleet.
Lobo
DU has several advantages. It is hard and heavy, and when deployed on
the tips of missiles and bullets, it can easily pierce the heavy armor
plating on tanks. Other types of shells work nearly as well, such as
those made from tungsten alloys, but depleted uranium has one
tremendous advantage over tungsten. It is provided to weapons
manufacturers free of charge by the U.S. government, as an ingenious
method of radioactive waste disposal.
Two types of DU exist. "Clean" DU is a by-product of the processing of
uranium ore into uranium-235 (which is used in nuclear fuel and
weapons). The other type is created at government facilities as a
by-product of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel (done to to extract
plutonium for nuclear warheads), and is known as "dirty" DU because it
contains highly toxic plutonium and other radioactive materials. Until
recently, it has always been assumed that DU armaments were made from
clean DU.
... researchers examined 11 sites in Kosovo hit by DU shells and found
radioactive contamination at eight of them. Further, those tests
uncovered evidence that at least some of the DU munitions in the U.S.
arsenal used in Kosovo contained "dirty" DU. This raises the question:
How much of its plutonium-processing waste did the U.S. government
supply to weapons manufacturers?
What's more, when DU (both clean and dirty) shells hit armored plates
they vaporize in the intense heat, releasing a toxic dust of uranium
oxide. That--along with the possibility that the shells are made from
dirty DU--could help explain why about 300 of 5,000 Serbian refugees
whose Sarajevo suburb was heavily bombed by NATO jets in 1995 have
since died of cancer.
>As to the Geneva Convention, it mostly discusses what to do with
>prisoners and such. I don't think that any country has entered into any
>agreement that would protect civilians hanging around a war zone from
>immediate or long lasting dangers. What section do you think applies
>here?
The U.S. Air Force's 1976 manual, "International Law: The Conduct of
Armed Conflict and Air Operations" governs the actions of all USAF
commanders and pilots, including the top guns shooting DU. "It is
especially important," the Air Force manual says, "that treaties,
having the force of law equal to laws enacted by the Congress on the
United States, be scrupulously adhered to by the United States armed
forces." The manual names treaties specifically recognized as binding,
including The Hague Conventions of 1907, the Geneva Gas Protocol of
1925, and the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of
Civilians in Time of War, 1949.
The Geneva Gas Protocol outlaws, "... asphyxiating, poisonous or other
gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices." The Hague
Conventions explicitly outlaw poison saying, "It is especially
forbidden: To employ poison or poisoned weapons."
Poison is defined by the Air Force manual as, "biological or chemical
substances causing death or disability with permanent effects when, in
even small quantities, they are ingested, enter the lungs or
bloodstream, or touch the skin."
....
Because the U.S. government has known since at least 1984 about the
poisonous effects of its DU warfare, the commanders of its bombing
raids over Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan may hope the White
House wins its fight for immunity in the International Criminal Court.
If not, the Pentagon's dirty bomb contamination may move from the gene
pool and the water table into the courtroom.
...
>
>>>Meanwhile, there are numerous aircraft carriers and submarines and
>>>other
>>>surface ships of the US Navy tooling around with nuclear plants being
>>>attended to by young kids and no problems apparent for decades now.
>>
>> Cost is not a factor for the American military. Look at their budget.
>>
>Well it doesn't go all that much to training nuclear engineers or other
>operating personnel. They get a quick course and they are off to the
>fleet.
In Jefferson County, Indiana, the Pentagon has closed the 200-acre
(80-hectare) proving ground where it used to test-fire DU rounds. The
lowest estimate for cleaning up the site comes to $7.8bn, not
including permanent storage of the earth to a depth of six metres and
of all the vegetation. Considering the cost too high, the military
finally decided to give the tract to the National Park Service for a
nature preserve - an offer that was promptly refused. Now there is
talk of turning it into a National Sacrifice Zone and closing it
forever. This gives an idea of the fate awaiting those regions of the
planet where the US has used and will use depleted uranium.
billwg
>
> Poison is defined by the Air Force manual as, "biological or chemical
> substances causing death or disability with permanent effects when, in
> even small quantities, they are ingested, enter the lungs or
> bloodstream, or touch the skin."
> ....
In which case the DU does not qualify as a poison, eh?
> Because the U.S. government has known since at least 1984 about the
> poisonous effects of its DU warfare, the commanders of its bombing
> raids over Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan may hope the White
> House wins its fight for immunity in the International Criminal Court.
> If not, the Pentagon's dirty bomb contamination may move from the gene
> pool and the water table into the courtroom.
> ...
>
I think that you are on a crusade for world peace or something, wolfie,
but you are going about it inefficiently. Obviously there is a wide
difference of stated opinion regarding DU and its aftereffects. More
significantly, there is a strong reason to use it as an efficient way to
kill an opponent in a firefight and that is going to overwhelm the
concern about long term effects. There is no doubt that the US and
other nuclear armed nations would, in various stated circumstances, use
nuclear weapons, too, with much more immediate and much more severe long
term effects.
The Iraqi insurgents and past and future crusaders have hidden
themselves among a more or less supportive civilian society and cried
foul when some overwhelming force was used to eradicate them. The
Russians used the anesthesia gas on the Chechens in the theater, killing
a lot of civilians in the process. The US has used guided bombs and
missiles to hit pockets of insurgents and doubtless killed many
passers-by, but the blame here is mostly in the laps of those using the
civilians as shields, a practice directly prohibited by the Geneva
Convention, IIRC.
Lobo
>
>"Lobo" <n...@here.com> wrote in message
>news:ubut2212rk5k3bnkd...@4ax.com...
>>
>> Poison is defined by the Air Force manual as, "biological or chemical
>> substances causing death or disability with permanent effects when, in
>> even small quantities, they are ingested, enter the lungs or
>> bloodstream, or touch the skin."
>> ....
>
>In which case the DU does not qualify as a poison, eh?
Reread my post. You snipped the relevant facts.
>> Because the U.S. government has known since at least 1984 about the
>> poisonous effects of its DU warfare, the commanders of its bombing
>> raids over Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan may hope the White
>> House wins its fight for immunity in the International Criminal Court.
>> If not, the Pentagon's dirty bomb contamination may move from the gene
>> pool and the water table into the courtroom.
>> ...
>>
>I think that you are on a crusade for world peace or something, wolfie,
>but you are going about it inefficiently.
I don't think so. Only the Americans with their politically controlled
press don't realize what is going on in the world. I can't tell you
how many times Americans I know say "I don't know why so many
countries hate us."
> Obviously there is a wide
>difference of stated opinion regarding DU and its aftereffects.
You snipped the portion where your own country cannot deal with an
area that was used as a testing ground for DU munitions and you are
trying to tell me there are no risks to health?
> More
>significantly, there is a strong reason to use it as an efficient way to
>kill an opponent in a firefight and that is going to overwhelm the
>concern about long term effects. There is no doubt that the US and
>other nuclear armed nations would, in various stated circumstances, use
>nuclear weapons, too, with much more immediate and much more severe long
>term effects.
The Iraq's had old Russian tanks that didn't require this kind of
firepower to penetrate their armor. Fighting insurgents doesn't
require DU rounds. The Americans are still using their DU rounds to
shoot up fucking cars. But, it's a great way to dump their radioactive
waste into other countries. After all, they have 700,000 tons of the
stuff to get rid of.
The day that the the US uses a nuclear bomb against another country
again is the day that the US will cease to exist.
>The Iraqi insurgents and past and future crusaders have hidden
>themselves among a more or less supportive civilian society and cried
>foul when some overwhelming force was used to eradicate them. The
>Russians used the anesthesia gas on the Chechens in the theater, killing
>a lot of civilians in the process. The US has used guided bombs and
>missiles to hit pockets of insurgents and doubtless killed many
>passers-by, but the blame here is mostly in the laps of those using the
>civilians as shields, a practice directly prohibited by the Geneva
>Convention, IIRC.
>
http://www.nukewatch.com/du/20058juryacquittal.htm
The Pentagon calls its DU shells "tank busters." In fact, they don't
always work as such because the angle of impact must be within a small
range to avoid ricochets or duds. When they do make a hit, uranium
shells are more properly called "gene busters," because the pulverized
uranium-238 can be inhaled or ingested.(10) Inside human bodies, DU
attacks the gene pool, bombarding surrounding tissues and damaging
chromosomes in successive generations -- for eons. Uranium-238 is a
heavy metal toxin, like lead or mercury, with a radioactive half-life
of 4.5 billion years.(11)
About 700,000 tons of DU was produced at government-owned uranium
enrichment plants in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Paducah. Kentucky; and
Portsmouth, Ohio.(12) The government gives this waste uranium metal
free to weapons merchants.(13) The sharks then turn around and sell
the shells to the government. Even the small caliber (30mm) shells
bring $21.50 a piece, according to the Wall Street Journal quoting the
Air Force.(14) The Air Force’s A-10 Thunderbolt -- sometimes called
the "Warthog" -- fires 30mm DU shells at a rate of 3,600 shells per
minute, or 60 rounds/second. The war profiteering is almost boggling.
(ATK is also the country's top bullet maker. The company announced
last April that its Lake City, Missouri plant had produced 1.2 billion
bullets for the U.S. Army in a period of 12 months. Over the next 12
it plans to make another 1.5 billion bullets.)(15)
According to its own promotional materials, ATK has made over 18
million of the shells -- 16 million 30mm, and 2 million 120mm
"anti-tank" rounds. The uranium "penetrators" as the company calls
them are "pyrophoric" -- they burn through tank armor and,
astoundingly, they self-sharpen as they punch through. (Tungsten works
to smash through tank armor, but its importation is expensive.)
......
Go here and have a good read. Your government is fucking you over (as
usual).
http://community.michiana.org/justice/campcasey/duresources.html
This might give you an inkling of why you Americans are in Iraq
"Killing for democracy". It had absolutely nothing to do with 911.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html
An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President
Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in
the last year, RAW STORY can reveal.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth
$241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The
former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged
to give proceeds to charity.
....
(BTW, Halliburton's subsidiaries are making a fortune from Katrina.)
AND NOW,
back to our regularly scheduled program... why open source software
is better.
Sinister Midget
> I don't think so. Only the Americans with their politically controlled
> press don't realize what is going on in the world. I can't tell you
> how many times Americans I know say "I don't know why so many
> countries hate us."
Lay that one at the feet of nearly intentional ignorance on the part of
the ignorant.
I know a lot of countries hate us. I know the reasons they espouse for
it as well. The press won't quit telling me. Even when I'm not paying
close attention I can't miss it.
IMHO the press mostly hates us, too. Especially our own. They can't
wait to cast aspersions. Not directly, but through the eyes and actions
of others so they don't have to answer to any scrutiny of the part they
themselves play.
--
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
billwg
Everyone selling something is going to present the facts in a light
favorable to their cause. Now a number of scientists say that DU isn't
particularly bad and that it is a stretch to find any long term problem
with it. You pull a cite out of thin air regarding some cleanup cost
for some test facility and say that it is "proof". I suspect that
someone is pulling your leg, wolfie.
DU bullets are standard ammunition for the US Navy F/A-18, I know, and
also for the CWIS AA guns on shipboard. I suspect that it is used in a
lot of other places, too. This stuff is shot around all the gun ranges
that the Navy uses and there isn't any limitation on its use. One heck
of a lot of it was shot at trucks and tanks and such in the MidEast
fracases and no one of any note is out crusading against it.
Furthermore, your direct cite says poisons are "biological or chemical
substances causing death or disability with permanent effects when, in
even small quantities, they are ingested, enter the lungs or
bloodstream, or touch the skin." The DU is not that toxic, period.
There is a claim that it has some long term effect, but that makes it a
pollutant, not a toxin.
>> More
>>significantly, there is a strong reason to use it as an efficient way
>>to
>>kill an opponent in a firefight and that is going to overwhelm the
>>concern about long term effects. There is no doubt that the US and
>>other nuclear armed nations would, in various stated circumstances,
>>use
>>nuclear weapons, too, with much more immediate and much more severe
>>long
>>term effects.
>
> The Iraq's had old Russian tanks that didn't require this kind of
> firepower to penetrate their armor. Fighting insurgents doesn't
> require DU rounds. The Americans are still using their DU rounds to
> shoot up fucking cars. But, it's a great way to dump their radioactive
> waste into other countries. After all, they have 700,000 tons of the
> stuff to get rid of.
>
I think that you invented the "700,000" tons part, wolfie, or you got it
from the whacko who told you about the proving ground cleanup=. It
doesn't help your argument at all. Were Iraq's tanks all that old and
obsolete? I'm not a tank fan, but those tanks were of recent purchase
in many cases and the Russians have been pretty tough when it comes to
armor and mechanised infantry.
> The day that the the US uses a nuclear bomb against another country
> again is the day that the US will cease to exist.
>
Bravado, wolfie, only bravado. Do you think that we and the others have
these things for no reason? A lot of it is a mutually assured
destruction kind of thing, but there is a current scenario wherein we
have said to North Korea that we will retaliate with nukes against
anyone who attacks us or our allies with nukes and suppost North Korea
shoots one at the US troops in South Korea or even just at South Korea?
10 minutes later Tridents take out a big hunk of North Korea. Who is
going to shoot at the USofA?
A lot of badly biased blab, wolfie. More science on the other side of
the issue.
> This might give you an inkling of why you Americans are in Iraq
> "Killing for democracy". It had absolutely nothing to do with 911.
>
> http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html
>
> An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President
> Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in
> the last year, RAW STORY can reveal.
>
> Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth
> $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The
> former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged
> to give proceeds to charity.
> ....
Same as Gates!?! What a guy! Actually do you believe that Chaney had
anything to do with Iraq? Bush, sure, but Chaney is just a VP.
Mark Kent
Sinister Midget <sini...@noidshack.com> espoused:
Not entirely following where you're going there - are you suggesting
that the press/journalists are feeling guitly about what they do, and
are attempting to 'spread the blame'?
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
Flirting is the gentle art of making a man feel pleased with himself.
-- Helen Rowland
Sinister Midget
> begin oe_protect.scr
> Sinister Midget <sini...@noidshack.com> espoused:
>> On 2006-04-02, Lobo <n...@here.com> posted something concerning:
>>
>>> I don't think so. Only the Americans with their politically controlled
>>> press don't realize what is going on in the world. I can't tell you
>>> how many times Americans I know say "I don't know why so many
>>> countries hate us."
>>
>> Lay that one at the feet of nearly intentional ignorance on the part of
>> the ignorant.
>>
>> I know a lot of countries hate us. I know the reasons they espouse for
>> it as well. The press won't quit telling me. Even when I'm not paying
>> close attention I can't miss it.
>>
>> IMHO the press mostly hates us, too. Especially our own. They can't
>> wait to cast aspersions. Not directly, but through the eyes and actions
>> of others so they don't have to answer to any scrutiny of the part they
>> themselves play.
>>
>
> Not entirely following where you're going there - are you suggesting
> that the press/journalists are feeling guitly about what they do, and
> are attempting to 'spread the blame'?
No. I'm stating they use the opportunity of quoting others to say what
they think instead of stating what they think themselves. That way they
can pretend all they're doing is telling us what others say instead of
taking responisbility for providing their own ideas and beliefs. But
what some of them "report" is predictable to the point that they're
really no longer needed to report anything.
--
If at first you don't succeed, you must be using Windows.
Ray Ingles
> Inside human bodies, DU
> attacks the gene pool, bombarding surrounding tissues and damaging
> chromosomes in successive generations -- for eons.
This is a very confused statement. I don't know too many people
who've managed to live for "eons". It's not going to get into someone's
gametes and be passed on like an inherited trait. Even if by chance some
U-238 dust *did* get into, say, an egg cell, the odds of it making it
from there into *that* child's gametes... well, don't put money on it.
And if you really expect such a dust particle to make it through
thousands of generations, I wonder if you also expect lead to
spontaneously turn into gold.
Now, if you're talking about a chance mutation of a gene *in* a gamete,
that becomes inheritable? Well, okay, technically that can persist for
eons. But (a) genes that are conserved for eons tend to be highly useful
so you're almost by definition talking about a beneficial mutation, and
(b) almost no *species* last for eons, so you're apparently worried
about whatever subspecies humanity will evolve into. I don't have quite
that long a timeframe for planning...
If U-238 were as toxic as is claimed, then its effects on subsequent
generations would be miniscule, as the people poisoned with it would die
before they reproduce.
> Uranium-238 is a heavy metal toxin, like lead or mercury, with a
> radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years.
And that means it's just not terribly radioactive. If you have a lump
of the stuff, our sun will probably burn out before half of it has
decayed.
Is it nasty stuff? Well, I wouldn't want to live in a house made out of
it. But I just haven't seen solid evidence it's any more poisonous than
any of a dozen substances you find on a battlefield.
> About 700,000 tons of DU was produced at government-owned uranium
> enrichment plants in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Paducah. Kentucky; and
> Portsmouth, Ohio.(12) The government gives this waste uranium metal
> free to weapons merchants.(13) The sharks then turn around and sell
> the shells to the government.
Standard government stupidity, sure, but *not* an argument against DU
use - just a change of the rules regarding disposition and sale.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"We don't necessarily want accurate maps, we want useful ones.
But accuracy is *extraordinarily* useful." - David Gerrold
Mark Kent
Aha, yes, I comprehend you. This is little different from what I see
our internal politicians do in $employer.
Ray Ingles
> One way the Americans and Brits have found to get rid of some of this
> waste is to use it in spent fuel munitions.
DU isn't "waste" from nuclear power plants. It's naturally-ocurring ore
that has had the U-235 (the actually highly radioactive, useful stuff)
removed.
> There's been a sharp increase of the rates of cancer in these areas as
> well as in soldiers using these munitions. The use of this type of
> munitions is in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. You are not
> supposed to leave stuff behind that can endanger the civilian
> population.
>
> The military knows all about this stuff yet continued to use DU. Read
> this secret memo from 1991
> http://www.spidersmill.com/gwvrl/los_alamos.htm
Um... that doesn't say what you imply it does. All it says is that they
want more data about how effective DU is *as a munition*. If it's not
effective enough, they might stop using it out of "political" concerns.
This doesn't even mean that they think DU is a biohazard - just that
some people *think* it does, and if the usefulness in battle doesn't
outweigh the political cost in agitators alleging "poisoning", it would
make sense to stop using them.
> Nuclear energy is extremely expensive if you add in massive government
> subsidies for building and maintaining plants, producing fuel,
> transportation, disposal, insurance and other hidden costs. It has
> never proved itself to be a viable source of energy. If you were to
> pay the true cost, your electric bill would quadruple.
It's *politically* expensive, not technically so. It is, from an
engineering perspective, highly efficient. But, I'd far prefer it to be
used for space travel (where its massive power-to-weight advantage over
chemical fuels is overwhelmingly critical) and put up satellites to
collect solar power. As a bonus, you really *can* get rid of the waste
in space - dropping it into the sun if you pick the right vectors.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"[In programming, if] you know what you're doing, three layers is
enough; if you don't, even seventeen layers won't help." - Padlipsky
Lobo
<sorc...@localhost.localdomain> wrote:
>On 2006-04-02, Lobo <n...@here.com> wrote:
>
>> Inside human bodies, DU
>> attacks the gene pool, bombarding surrounding tissues and damaging
>> chromosomes in successive generations -- for eons.
>
> This is a very confused statement.
Re-read it...
> I don't know too many people
>who've managed to live for "eons". It's not going to get into someone's
>gametes and be passed on like an inherited trait. Even if by chance some
>U-238 dust *did* get into, say, an egg cell, the odds of it making it
>from there into *that* child's gametes... well, don't put money on it.
>And if you really expect such a dust particle to make it through
>thousands of generations, I wonder if you also expect lead to
>spontaneously turn into gold.
Once the genes are damaged by radiation, that damage is passed on to
the next generation and to the next... Any damage done to the DNA is
permanent. The particle itself is left behind. It is the code in the
DNA that is modified and passed on.
> Now, if you're talking about a chance mutation of a gene *in* a gamete,
>that becomes inheritable? Well, okay, technically that can persist for
>eons. But (a) genes that are conserved for eons tend to be highly useful
>so you're almost by definition talking about a beneficial mutation, and
>(b) almost no *species* last for eons, so you're apparently worried
>about whatever subspecies humanity will evolve into. I don't have quite
>that long a timeframe for planning...
If you consider having one eye and webbed fingers useful....
> If U-238 were as toxic as is claimed, then its effects on subsequent
>generations would be miniscule, as the people poisoned with it would die
>before they reproduce.
Some of the DU used was found to be "dirty". It had traces of
plutonium and other highly radioactive materials. A solid hunk of pure
U238 is relatively harmless. That's why they use it in bullets and
tank shells. A thin covering on the shells stops the alpha radiation.
On impact, the shell is designed to burn it's way through armor. This
plus the tremendous forces vaporize the DU and produce an extremely
fine uranium oxide dust that can even penetrate dust masks. When it
gets into the lungs, it is so fine it can pass into the blood stream
and can even pass the blood-brain barrier. Urine tests will show
radiation for years. Low level alpha radiation is very dangerous when
it is in intimate contact at the cellular level.
This dust is then blown about by the wind. It is insoluble and will
continue to emit radiation for millions of years. It will settle and
then be blown around again during subsequent dust storms.
>> Uranium-238 is a heavy metal toxin, like lead or mercury, with a
>> radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years.
>
> And that means it's just not terribly radioactive. If you have a lump
>of the stuff, our sun will probably burn out before half of it has
>decayed.
That's the problem. The damage to the environment is permanent.
Have you considered the daughter elements in the decay chain of U238
on it's way to becoming lead? As it is a continuing process, you will
also find beta and gamma radiation being produced.
> Is it nasty stuff? Well, I wouldn't want to live in a house made out of
>it. But I just haven't seen solid evidence it's any more poisonous than
>any of a dozen substances you find on a battlefield.
The battlefields are cities, towns and villages where people live. Not
some fenced off desert testing ground. Would you let your children
play in YOUR dusty backyard after your village was bombarded with
dozens of 10 pound DU shells and thousands of 30 mm DU rounds?
There was no justifiable reason for the American or British military
to be using this type of munitions in Iraq I, Bosnia/Serbia or Iraq
II. Extremely few of the targets were hardened. At present, none are.
(But, it is a good way to get rid of the hundreds of thousands of tons
of this waste the Brits and Americans have accumulated over the cold
war.)
>> About 700,000 tons of DU was produced at government-owned uranium
>> enrichment plants in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Paducah. Kentucky; and
>> Portsmouth, Ohio.(12) The government gives this waste uranium metal
>> free to weapons merchants.(13) The sharks then turn around and sell
>> the shells to the government.
>
> Standard government stupidity, sure, but *not* an argument against DU
>use - just a change of the rules regarding disposition and sale.
"Disposition"? Like dumping the crud in some other nation's backyard?
In any event, the American soldiers returning from war zones will be
like the "canary in the mine". Several states have now enacted
legislation for mandatory tests.
http://www.ngwrc.org/?Page=Topic&rsWebTopicID=8&CFID=1702027&CFTOKEN=86914153
This site contains a good argument against the use of DU. And this
site is trying to look after your vets... the very same guys who lost
life and limb to "protect" America.
You can bet the US administration is going to fight the following bill
with all it's might.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-2410
109th U.S. Congress (2005-2006)
H.R. 2410: Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act
Ray Ingles
> the next generation and to the next... Any damage done to the DNA is
> permanent. The particle itself is left behind. It is the code in the
> DNA that is modified and passed on.
If, and *only* if, that mutation happens in a gamete (i.e. a sperm in a
male or an egg in a female). Generally speaking, that doesn't happen
very often, particularly not for an *inhaled* particle, and particularly
not for something as nearly radiologically inert as U238.
Genes are damaged inside particular cells, and only a tiny percentage
of cells in a human body are gametes and therefore heritable. Mutations
in other cells (*any* other cells) can cause damage, cancer, etc. But
they *cannot* cause heritable mutations.
>> Now, if you're talking about a chance mutation of a gene *in* a gamete,
>>that becomes inheritable? Well, okay, technically that can persist for
>>eons. But (a) genes that are conserved for eons tend to be highly useful
>>so you're almost by definition talking about a beneficial mutation, and
>>(b) almost no *species* last for eons, so you're apparently worried
>>about whatever subspecies humanity will evolve into. I don't have quite
>>that long a timeframe for planning...
>
> If you consider having one eye and webbed fingers useful....
You either don't understand genetics, or don't care if what you're
saying is accurate. That's at least two separate mutations at once.
>> If U-238 were as toxic as is claimed, then its effects on subsequent
>>generations would be miniscule, as the people poisoned with it would die
>>before they reproduce.
>
> Some of the DU used was found to be "dirty". It had traces of
> plutonium and other highly radioactive materials.
I really haven't seen any solid evidence of this.
> This dust is then blown about by the wind. It is insoluble and will
> continue to emit radiation for millions of years.
...at a very low level that is practically indistinguishable from the
background. At the levels you're talking about, you'd do worse living in
Denver or any other city at high elevation.
>> And that means it's just not terribly radioactive. If you have a lump
>>of the stuff, our sun will probably burn out before half of it has
>>decayed.
>
> That's the problem. The damage to the environment is permanent.
...and, from everything I've seen, negligible. At least it certainly
hasn't been measured yet. The *only* examples I've heard of *possible*
radiological damage from DU weapons were in the people regularly
handling and using them, not in people they were fired at or near.
> Have you considered the daughter elements in the decay chain of U238
> on it's way to becoming lead? As it is a continuing process, you will
> also find beta and gamma radiation being produced.
...at extremely low levels. Again, it's more worrisome to live at high
elevations.
>> Is it nasty stuff? Well, I wouldn't want to live in a house made out of
>>it. But I just haven't seen solid evidence it's any more poisonous than
>>any of a dozen substances you find on a battlefield.
>
> The battlefields are cities, towns and villages where people live. Not
> some fenced off desert testing ground. Would you let your children
> play in YOUR dusty backyard after your village was bombarded with
> dozens of 10 pound DU shells and thousands of 30 mm DU rounds?
I'd rather not live in a warzone. But to prevent battlefields from
being produced you'll have to stop war in general, and good luck with
that one.
>>> About 700,000 tons of DU was produced at government-owned uranium
>>> enrichment plants in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Paducah. Kentucky; and
>>> Portsmouth, Ohio.(12) The government gives this waste uranium metal
>>> free to weapons merchants.(13) The sharks then turn around and sell
>>> the shells to the government.
>>
>> Standard government stupidity, sure, but *not* an argument against DU
>>use - just a change of the rules regarding disposition and sale.
>
> "Disposition"? Like dumping the crud in some other nation's backyard?
Um... I'm not sure who you're arguing with here, but it isn't me.
> In any event, the American soldiers returning from war zones will be
> like the "canary in the mine". Several states have now enacted
> legislation for mandatory tests.
Fine with me. Actual data can only help.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"In the Third World, they call people in such situations 'the
Disappeared.'" - Joe Hill, on the hundreds of detainees currently
being held incommunicado with no rights by the United States.
Lobo
<sorc...@localhost.localdomain> wrote:
>On 2006-04-01, Lobo <n...@here.com> wrote:
>> One way the Americans and Brits have found to get rid of some of this
>> waste is to use it in spent fuel munitions.
>
> DU isn't "waste" from nuclear power plants. It's naturally-ocurring ore
>that has had the U-235 (the actually highly radioactive, useful stuff)
>removed.
You have to process 1000 pounds of natural uranium to get 2 pounds of
U-235. Fresh reactor fuel contains mostly natural uranium (U-238),
enriched with between 2% and 4% neutron-emitting U-235 uranium
isotope.
.....
Depending upon the power-plant design, the heat created in the
fissioning chain reaction produces steam or boiling water, which in
turn drives a turbine connected to electric generators. The fission
fragments, although radioactive, produce too few fast-moving neutrons
to continue to support fission. When this happens, the fuel is
considered spent–even though it still contains a large amount of
U-238.
Because some of the material in spent fuel remains radioactive for
thousands of years and can also be used in making nuclear weapons, the
law requires that spent fuel be stored in a permanent repository. By
2020, the Department of Energy estimates, 85,000 tons of spent fuel
will have accumulated. A repository to hold it still hasn't opened, so
it is backing up in the local pools.
The intitial waste from processing uranium to make fuel rods in the
first place is in addition to the 85,000 tons of spent fuel. There are
hundreds of thousands of tons of DU to get rid of. In addition, there
is even more DU from processing for nuclear weapons as the ration of
the "good" stuff to the "waste" is even greater.
>> There's been a sharp increase of the rates of cancer in these areas as
>> well as in soldiers using these munitions. The use of this type of
>> munitions is in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. You are not
>> supposed to leave stuff behind that can endanger the civilian
>> population.
>>
>> The military knows all about this stuff yet continued to use DU. Read
>> this secret memo from 1991
>> http://www.spidersmill.com/gwvrl/los_alamos.htm
>
> Um... that doesn't say what you imply it does. All it says is that they
>want more data about how effective DU is *as a munition*. If it's not
>effective enough, they might stop using it out of "political" concerns.
>This doesn't even mean that they think DU is a biohazard - just that
>some people *think* it does, and if the usefulness in battle doesn't
>outweigh the political cost in agitators alleging "poisoning", it would
>make sense to stop using them.
The military did know about the hazzards of DU at that time.
http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_library/du_ii/du_ii_tabn.htm
DU munition's usefullness is only in it's ability to penetrate
hardened targets - ie those such as Abrams tanks which have a layer of
DU in their skins. The Iraq's had old russion armor that conventional
munitions would have destroyed.
http://www.wise-uranium.org/dgvd.html
How the U.S. Military Views the Safety of DU Munitions
In a letter to Senator Sam Nunn, a representative of the U.S. Air
Force stated, "...these projectiles are no more hazardous to store,
transport, or employ than those composed of lead or copper" (Ref. 39).
This view is echoed in the U.S. Army report to Congress that states,
"The health risks associated with using DU in peacetime are minimal.
This includes risks associated with transporting, storing and handling
intact DU munitions and armor during peacetime" (Ref. 40). Neither the
Air Force nor the Army has publicly presented an analysis of the
health risks to soldiers and to others who inhale or ingest
radioactive fallout particles of DU, or the health risks of living in
an environment contaminated with DU after these munitions have been
fired: these are the real safety issues they ignore.
>> Nuclear energy is extremely expensive if you add in massive government
>> subsidies for building and maintaining plants, producing fuel,
>> transportation, disposal, insurance and other hidden costs. It has
>> never proved itself to be a viable source of energy. If you were to
>> pay the true cost, your electric bill would quadruple.
>
> It's *politically* expensive, not technically so. It is, from an
>engineering perspective, highly efficient. But, I'd far prefer it to be
>used for space travel (where its massive power-to-weight advantage over
>chemical fuels is overwhelmingly critical) and put up satellites to
>collect solar power. As a bonus, you really *can* get rid of the waste
>in space - dropping it into the sun if you pick the right vectors.
At $1000/lb (future) into high orbit that would be $1,400,000,000,000
for 700,000 tons (US alone). You can multiply that by 1000 to get the
stuff to the sun. BTW, it's illegal by world treaties to use space as
a dumping ground for uranium waste.
DU munitions are made of the SAME stuff that people are objecting to
being stored in the US. Would you object to a 10 pound hunk of DU in
your backyard?
http://www.klastv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4670065&nav=168XDWn7
Nevada Files New Federal Lawsuit in Yucca Mountain Fight
March 23, 2006, 08:25 PM
Nevada filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing the federal Energy
Department of withholding documents that state officials say will show
the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository can't be built
safely.
Lobo
<sorc...@localhost.localdomain> wrote:
>On 2006-04-03, Lobo <n...@here.com> wrote:
>> Once the genes are damaged by radiation, that damage is passed on to
>> the next generation and to the next... Any damage done to the DNA is
>> permanent. The particle itself is left behind. It is the code in the
>> DNA that is modified and passed on.
>
> If, and *only* if, that mutation happens in a gamete (i.e. a sperm in a
>male or an egg in a female). Generally speaking, that doesn't happen
>very often, particularly not for an *inhaled* particle, and particularly
>not for something as nearly radiologically inert as U238.
If you would have read some of the documentation you would find that
the particles are so small that they can even pass the brain-blood
barrier. The radio-active particles are being carried in the blood
stream and urine test show positive.
> Genes are damaged inside particular cells, and only a tiny percentage
>of cells in a human body are gametes and therefore heritable. Mutations
>in other cells (*any* other cells) can cause damage, cancer, etc. But
>they *cannot* cause heritable mutations.
The health risks from DU are multiple, heavy metal poisoning,
radiation sickness, cancer, leukemia as well as mutations.
>>> Now, if you're talking about a chance mutation of a gene *in* a gamete,
>>>that becomes inheritable? Well, okay, technically that can persist for
>>>eons. But (a) genes that are conserved for eons tend to be highly useful
>>>so you're almost by definition talking about a beneficial mutation, and
>>>(b) almost no *species* last for eons, so you're apparently worried
>>>about whatever subspecies humanity will evolve into. I don't have quite
>>>that long a timeframe for planning...
>>
>> If you consider having one eye and webbed fingers useful....
>
> You either don't understand genetics, or don't care if what you're
>saying is accurate. That's at least two separate mutations at once.
There is no direct one-on-one link between a particular gene and
presented traits. It is you who doesn't understand genetics.
>>> If U-238 were as toxic as is claimed, then its effects on subsequent
>>>generations would be miniscule, as the people poisoned with it would die
>>>before they reproduce.
>>
>> Some of the DU used was found to be "dirty". It had traces of
>> plutonium and other highly radioactive materials.
>
> I really haven't seen any solid evidence of this.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0709-07.htm
As early as January 2000, the DOE admitted that its DU munitions are
spiked with plutonium, neptunium and americium – "transuranic"
(heavier than uranium) fission wastes from inside nuclear
reactors.(19) The health consequences here are fearsome: americium --
with a half-life of 7,300 years -- decays to plutonium-239, which is
more radioactive than the original americium.
>> This dust is then blown about by the wind. It is insoluble and will
>> continue to emit radiation for millions of years.
>
> ...at a very low level that is practically indistinguishable from the
>background. At the levels you're talking about, you'd do worse living in
>Denver or any other city at high elevation.
>
>>> And that means it's just not terribly radioactive. If you have a lump
>>>of the stuff, our sun will probably burn out before half of it has
>>>decayed.
>>
>> That's the problem. The damage to the environment is permanent.
>
> ...and, from everything I've seen, negligible. At least it certainly
>hasn't been measured yet. The *only* examples I've heard of *possible*
>radiological damage from DU weapons were in the people regularly
>handling and using them, not in people they were fired at or near.
-- A 1991 study by Britain's Atomic Energy Authority found that use of
DU weapons in the Gulf War could eventually lead to half a million
"potential deaths from cancer." The report was suppressed by the
British government until 1998.
There are hundreds of sites documenting radiological damage from DU
which you conveniently snipped.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=594
We recommended care for anybody downwind of any uranium dust, anybody
working in and around uranium contamination, and anyone within a
vehicle, structure, or building that’s struck with uranium munitions.
That’s thousands upon thousands of individuals, but not only US
troops. You should provide medical care not only for the enemy
soldiers but for the Iraqi women and children affected, and clean up
all of the contamination in Iraq.
And it’s not just children in Iraq. It’s children born to soldiers
after they came back home. The military admitted that they were
finding uranium excreted in the semen of the soldiers. If you’ve got
uranium in the semen, the genetics are messed up. So when the children
were conceived—the alpha particles cause such tremendous cell damage
and genetics damage that everything goes bad. Studies have found that
male soldiers who served in the Gulf War were almost twice as likely
to have a child with a birth defect and female soldiers almost three
times as likely.
>> Have you considered the daughter elements in the decay chain of U238
>> on it's way to becoming lead? As it is a continuing process, you will
>> also find beta and gamma radiation being produced.
>
> ...at extremely low levels. Again, it's more worrisome to live at high
>elevations.
>
>>> Is it nasty stuff? Well, I wouldn't want to live in a house made out of
>>>it. But I just haven't seen solid evidence it's any more poisonous than
>>>any of a dozen substances you find on a battlefield.
>>
>> The battlefields are cities, towns and villages where people live. Not
>> some fenced off desert testing ground. Would you let your children
>> play in YOUR dusty backyard after your village was bombarded with
>> dozens of 10 pound DU shells and thousands of 30 mm DU rounds?
>
> I'd rather not live in a warzone. But to prevent battlefields from
>being produced you'll have to stop war in general, and good luck with
>that one.
There was no pressing need to use DU munitions in fighting third world
countries - THEY DO NOT HAVE ARMORED VECHICLES THAT REQUIRE THE
PENETRATING POWER OF DU MUNITIONS!!!
It is simply an ideal way to dump radioactive waste into these
countries. I consider the use of DU to be a war crime. The same for
Agent Orange.
http://www.miltoxproj.org/DU%20Fact%20Sheet.htm
"Depleted" Uranium Munitions: Nuclear Waste as a Weapon
Enrichment of uranium for use in nuclear weapons and reactors produces
various waste byproducts, including so-called "depleted" uranium (DU).
For over twenty-five years, the U.S. Department of Defense has
produced ammunition using this nuclear waste, which is both
radioactive and chemically toxic. Evidence of environmental and human
health damage caused by "depleted" uranium has steadily increased,
despite Pentagon assertions that such impacts would not occur. There
is now significant evidence that DU can cause or accelerate cancer,
mutate genes, and affect the kidneys, immune system, nervous system,
respiratory system, and reproductive system, The United Nations Human
Rights Commission considers DU munitions to be "weapons of mass
destruction or with indiscriminate effect" incompatible with
international humanitarian law.
>>>> About 700,000 tons of DU was produced at government-owned uranium
>>>> enrichment plants in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Paducah. Kentucky; and
>>>> Portsmouth, Ohio.(12) The government gives this waste uranium metal
>>>> free to weapons merchants.(13) The sharks then turn around and sell
>>>> the shells to the government.
>>>
>>> Standard government stupidity, sure, but *not* an argument against DU
>>>use - just a change of the rules regarding disposition and sale.
>>
>> "Disposition"? Like dumping the crud in some other nation's backyard?
>
> Um... I'm not sure who you're arguing with here, but it isn't me.
>
>> In any event, the American soldiers returning from war zones will be
>> like the "canary in the mine". Several states have now enacted
>> legislation for mandatory tests.
>
> Fine with me. Actual data can only help.
108th U.S. Congress (2003-2004)
H.R. 1483[108]: Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003
Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003 - Requires the Director
of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the
Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct
jointly and report to Congress on:
(1) a comprehensive study of the health effects of exposure to
depleted uranium munitions upon uranium-exposed veterans and upon
their children born after such exposure; and
(2) a public health assessment of persons who are thought to have an
epidemiological link to any U.S. military installation or production
facility at which depleted uranium munitions have either been, or
currently are being used or produced.
Directs the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to
conduct and report to certain congressional committees on a
comprehensive environmental evaluation of possible contamination of
the soil, air, water, and vegetation by depleted uranium at sites
listed by the Secretary of Defense where depleted uranium munitions
have been used or produced.
Requires the Secretary of Defense to:
(1) develop and implement a plan for the mitigation and cleanup of
depleted uranium at the pertinent sites; and
(2) submit annual progress reports to the Administrator and such
congressional committees.
NOTE:
This is a House bill, indicated by the "H.R." before its number. A
bill is a legislative proposal before Congress. A bill must be passed
by both the House and Senate and then be signed by the President
before it becomes law.
FAT CHANCE OF THAT HAPPENING IN THE NEXT 2-3 YEARS
You can expect this DU problem to be a hot potato in five years when
the effects of exposure become apparent in the veterans (and their
families) of Iraq II.
BTW, I don't believe you've checked any of the sites I've given in
this thread.
Let me repeat this one more time:
There was no pressing need to use DU munitions in fighting third world
countries (Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan) -
THEY DO NOT HAVE ARMORED VECHICLES THAT REQUIRE THE PENETRATING POWER
OF DU MUNITIONS!!!
I can also envision terrorists incorporating chunks of DU to fabricate
"dirty" bombs for use against the US in the future. All one has to do
is grind the shit up and mix with ordinary explosives. There's tons of
it all over those countries because the US hasn't cleaned it up.
Ray Ingles
> If you would have read some of the documentation you would find that
> the particles are so small that they can even pass the brain-blood
> barrier.
I have seen that asserted, yes. I have not seen any actual evidence
presented to back that assertion up, though. How exactly would that be
tested? Examining slices of brain post-mortem?
>> Genes are damaged inside particular cells, and only a tiny percentage
>>of cells in a human body are gametes and therefore heritable. Mutations
>>in other cells (*any* other cells) can cause damage, cancer, etc. But
>>they *cannot* cause heritable mutations.
>
> The health risks from DU are multiple, heavy metal poisoning,
> radiation sickness, cancer, leukemia as well as mutations.
You misspelled "alleged health risks".
>>> If you consider having one eye and webbed fingers useful....
>>
>> You either don't understand genetics, or don't care if what you're
>>saying is accurate. That's at least two separate mutations at once.
>
> There is no direct one-on-one link between a particular gene and
> presented traits. It is you who doesn't understand genetics.
The formation and development pathways of eyes and fingers are quite
separate. Different genes involved, different embryonic precursors, etc.
Hence my statement "at least two separate mutations".
And btw, I note that you still haven't attempted to justify the figure
of mutations persisting for "eons".
>>> Some of the DU used was found to be "dirty". It had traces of
>>> plutonium and other highly radioactive materials.
>>
>> I really haven't seen any solid evidence of this.
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0709-07.htm
> As early as January 2000, the DOE admitted that its DU munitions are
> spiked with plutonium, neptunium and americium – "transuranic"
> (heavier than uranium) fission wastes from inside nuclear
> reactors.(19) The health consequences here are fearsome: americium --
> with a half-life of 7,300 years -- decays to plutonium-239, which is
> more radioactive than the original americium.
No numbers at all. *Quantities* of these "traces", please?
>>> That's the problem. The damage to the environment is permanent.
>>
>> ...and, from everything I've seen, negligible. At least it certainly
>>hasn't been measured yet. The *only* examples I've heard of *possible*
>>radiological damage from DU weapons were in the people regularly
>>handling and using them, not in people they were fired at or near.
>
> -- A 1991 study by Britain's Atomic Energy Authority found that use of
> DU weapons in the Gulf War could eventually lead to half a million
> "potential deaths from cancer." The report was suppressed by the
> British government until 1998.
Error bars or anything?
> There are hundreds of sites documenting radiological damage from DU
> which you conveniently snipped.
I certainly didn't snip "hundreds" of cites from you... and I haven't
seen anything that quotes an actual medical journal or anything - your
"commondreams" cite above contains a lot of footnotes, all of which are
from the press, *not* peer-reviewed journals.
>> I'd rather not live in a warzone. But to prevent battlefields from
>>being produced you'll have to stop war in general, and good luck with
>>that one.
>
> There was no pressing need to use DU munitions in fighting third world
> countries - THEY DO NOT HAVE ARMORED VECHICLES THAT REQUIRE THE
> PENETRATING POWER OF DU MUNITIONS!!!
I seem to recall Iraq having Soviet tanks...
>> Fine with me. Actual data can only help.
>
> 108th U.S. Congress (2003-2004)
> H.R. 1483[108]: Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003
As I said, "fine with me". Sounds like a good idea. There's a lack of
definite figures all over this issue.
> This is a House bill, indicated by the "H.R." before its number. A
> bill is a legislative proposal before Congress. A bill must be passed
> by both the House and Senate and then be signed by the President
> before it becomes law.
>
> FAT CHANCE OF THAT HAPPENING IN THE NEXT 2-3 YEARS
No kidding. (If you think I'm a fan of Bush, or have an unwavering
trust in the US military, you're quite mistaken.)
> BTW, I don't believe you've checked any of the sites I've given in
> this thread.
I have, actually. But I used to debate creationists, and I don't accept
purely partisan sources without independent confirmation and actual
measurable data, *in context*.
For an example:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/0ad3f44d87f24103
To be honest, the arguing style of the DU critics uncomfortably
resembles the creationists I've encountered. I don't see many actual
numbers and the ones I see aren't presented with any context and no
alternative explanations are discussed or examined.
That doesn't mean they are wrong, but it does mean I want more proof
before I accept they are right.
> There was no pressing need to use DU munitions in fighting third world
> countries (Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan) -
>
> THEY DO NOT HAVE ARMORED VECHICLES THAT REQUIRE THE PENETRATING POWER
> OF DU MUNITIONS!!!
So the tanks seen on the news reports were in fact mock-ups on a
soundstage or something?
> I can also envision terrorists incorporating chunks of DU to fabricate
> "dirty" bombs for use against the US in the future. All one has to do
> is grind the shit up and mix with ordinary explosives. There's tons of
> it all over those countries because the US hasn't cleaned it up.
That's actually a good idea. It really amazes me that terrorists aren't
*more* effective than they currently seem to be. I can think of any
number of ways that a small group could do real damage to a country, let
alone ideas like yours which would be politically damaging regardless of
the actual physical damage done.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
Reporters were kept out to make sure there would be no dangerous
question-and-answer period that might show Bush gloating. "If I
had my way, the president wouldn't answer any questions between
now and the election," said one Republican political operative.
- http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/nwx-nws-novak15.html
Lobo
<sorc...@localhost.localdomain> wrote:
>On 2006-04-03, Lobo <n...@here.com> wrote:
>> If you would have read some of the documentation you would find that
>> the particles are so small that they can even pass the brain-blood
>> barrier.
>
> I have seen that asserted, yes. I have not seen any actual evidence
>presented to back that assertion up, though. How exactly would that be
>tested? Examining slices of brain post-mortem?
>
>>> Genes are damaged inside particular cells, and only a tiny percentage
>>>of cells in a human body are gametes and therefore heritable. Mutations
>>>in other cells (*any* other cells) can cause damage, cancer, etc. But
>>>they *cannot* cause heritable mutations.
>>
>> The health risks from DU are multiple, heavy metal poisoning,
>> radiation sickness, cancer, leukemia as well as mutations.
>
> You misspelled "alleged health risks".
Even the military acknowledges health risks from DU munitions. They
have special procedures to follow when dealing with it.
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/p700_48.pdf
>>>> If you consider having one eye and webbed fingers useful....
>>>
>>> You either don't understand genetics, or don't care if what you're
>>>saying is accurate. That's at least two separate mutations at once.
>>
>> There is no direct one-on-one link between a particular gene and
>> presented traits. It is you who doesn't understand genetics.
>
> The formation and development pathways of eyes and fingers are quite
>separate. Different genes involved, different embryonic precursors, etc.
>Hence my statement "at least two separate mutations".
>
> And btw, I note that you still haven't attempted to justify the figure
>of mutations persisting for "eons".
You are rather pedantic, aren't you? Unless you believe in
creationism, genetic mutations (provided they are not so great as to
kill or reduce genetic viability) will be passed on to future
generations. All life on earth share some genetic sequences that came
from eons ago.
>>>> Some of the DU used was found to be "dirty". It had traces of
>>>> plutonium and other highly radioactive materials.
>>>
>>> I really haven't seen any solid evidence of this.
>>
>> http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0709-07.htm
>> As early as January 2000, the DOE admitted that its DU munitions are
>> spiked with plutonium, neptunium and americium – "transuranic"
>> (heavier than uranium) fission wastes from inside nuclear
>> reactors.(19) The health consequences here are fearsome: americium --
>> with a half-life of 7,300 years -- decays to plutonium-239, which is
>> more radioactive than the original americium.
>
> No numbers at all. *Quantities* of these "traces", please?
That is classified material and I don't think the governments of the
UK or the US will find it politically prudent to reveal.
>>>> That's the problem. The damage to the environment is permanent.
>>>
>>> ...and, from everything I've seen, negligible. At least it certainly
>>>hasn't been measured yet. The *only* examples I've heard of *possible*
>>>radiological damage from DU weapons were in the people regularly
>>>handling and using them, not in people they were fired at or near.
>>
>> -- A 1991 study by Britain's Atomic Energy Authority found that use of
>> DU weapons in the Gulf War could eventually lead to half a million
>> "potential deaths from cancer." The report was suppressed by the
>> British government until 1998.
>
> Error bars or anything?
>
>> There are hundreds of sites documenting radiological damage from DU
>> which you conveniently snipped.
>
> I certainly didn't snip "hundreds" of cites from you... and I haven't
>seen anything that quotes an actual medical journal or anything - your
>"commondreams" cite above contains a lot of footnotes, all of which are
>from the press, *not* peer-reviewed journals.
I can think of many environmental/health disasters that were exposed
by the press and were originally denied by "experts" from government
agencies as well as involved companies using "peer-reviewed" journals
- Love Canal, Minamata (Canada, Japan), tobacco, asbestos to name a
few.
>>> I'd rather not live in a warzone. But to prevent battlefields from
>>>being produced you'll have to stop war in general, and good luck with
>>>that one.
>>
>> There was no pressing need to use DU munitions in fighting third world
>> countries - THEY DO NOT HAVE ARMORED VECHICLES THAT REQUIRE THE
>> PENETRATING POWER OF DU MUNITIONS!!!
>
> I seem to recall Iraq having Soviet tanks...
>
>>> Fine with me. Actual data can only help.
>>
>> 108th U.S. Congress (2003-2004)
>> H.R. 1483[108]: Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003
>
> As I said, "fine with me". Sounds like a good idea. There's a lack of
>definite figures all over this issue.
>
>> This is a House bill, indicated by the "H.R." before its number. A
>> bill is a legislative proposal before Congress. A bill must be passed
>> by both the House and Senate and then be signed by the President
>> before it becomes law.
>>
>> FAT CHANCE OF THAT HAPPENING IN THE NEXT 2-3 YEARS
>
> No kidding. (If you think I'm a fan of Bush, or have an unwavering
>trust in the US military, you're quite mistaken.)
>
>> BTW, I don't believe you've checked any of the sites I've given in
>> this thread.
>
> I have, actually. But I used to debate creationists, and I don't accept
>purely partisan sources without independent confirmation and actual
>measurable data, *in context*.
It
> For an example:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/0ad3f44d87f24103
>
> To be honest, the arguing style of the DU critics uncomfortably
>resembles the creationists I've encountered. I don't see many actual
>numbers and the ones I see aren't presented with any context and no
>alternative explanations are discussed or examined.
You will never win an argument with faith based science. It's an
exercise in futility.
> That doesn't mean they are wrong, but it does mean I want more proof
>before I accept they are right.
As far as DU is concerned, I look to the military's requirements when
handling DU contaminated sites and the steps they take to
decontaminate vehicles and personnel who have come in contact with it.
>> There was no pressing need to use DU munitions in fighting third world
>> countries (Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan) -
>>
>> THEY DO NOT HAVE ARMORED VECHICLES THAT REQUIRE THE PENETRATING POWER
>> OF DU MUNITIONS!!!
>
> So the tanks seen on the news reports were in fact mock-ups on a
>soundstage or something?
The majority of Iraqi tanks were old Russian and Chinese tanks w/o
latest armor enhancements. The were sold a lot of junk by former
Soviet block countries. They didn't have a good supply infrastructure
so they dug them in and became sitting ducks.
Pre-1990 American penetrators would have had no problem in destroying
them, especially when delivered with current military technology.
>> I can also envision terrorists incorporating chunks of DU to fabricate
>> "dirty" bombs for use against the US in the future. All one has to do
>> is grind the shit up and mix with ordinary explosives. There's tons of
>> it all over those countries because the US hasn't cleaned it up.
>
> That's actually a good idea. It really amazes me that terrorists aren't
>*more* effective than they currently seem to be. I can think of any
>number of ways that a small group could do real damage to a country, let
>alone ideas like yours which would be politically damaging regardless of
>the actual physical damage done.
The "law of unintended consequences" - which is something all military
and political strategists pay little heed to. They put too much
emphasis on Sun Tzu - "The Art of War" which leads to disasters such
as Vietnam and the current situation in Iraq.
The 911 targets were "military" in the sense they attacked the symbol
of multinational corporations (WTC) and the pentagon. If you know the
history of the multinationals in creating the current conditions in
the middle east you would understand why this was a target. Both the
American and European governments were complicit in using military
force to further the agendas of these multinationals.
BTW, if those planes had hit any of the nuclear reactors/storage
sites, the costs to American society would have been orders of
magnitude greater. I doubt that any current reactor is hardened to
withstand two hits from fuel laden 767's.
As a close to this discussion, I'll leave you with these thoughts.
If DU munitions become politically acceptable, the military will find
more and more uses for it. They are testing it for use in small arms
now. Pure U238 is expensive to produce and limited in quantities so
they have started to use "dirty" uranium. They have admitted to this,
but they will not publish the percentage of contaminants. I can see
these steadily increasing with time.
It's a slippery slope to embark on as it opens up a Pandora's box for
other nations (some not too friendly to the US) to retaliate in kind.
Will we next have UN resolutions on the "legal" amount of trace
elements that DU's can contain so as not be classified as a "Weapon of
Mass Destruction"?
The American people are worried about DU waste being stored in their
own backyards. Why should it be acceptable to shoot tons of the stuff
into the backyards of other countries?
nes...@wigner.berkeley.edu
don't know much about the controversy over DU munitions, I can add a
few technical points...
Natural uranium contains less than 1% of the 235 isotope...I forget the
exact number, but I recall 1 part in 140. Let's say for the sake of
argument it is 1%. Then to create one ton of 3% enriched uranium,
you'd need 3 tons of natural uranium, leaving behind 2 tons of DU.
Actually the DU left behind is not completely depleted, so the ratio is
even more. So the mass of DU created in enriching uranium is larger
than the mass of enriched uranium created. The latter goes into the
reactors and becomes radioactive.
The purpose of DU munitions is to concentrate the kinetic energy of the
projectile. Uranium has a density of over 20 gms/cm^3, while I think
lead is around 11. I see no purpose in adulterating DU obtained from
the enrichment process by nuclear waste (enriched uranium that has
passed through a reactor and thereby become intensely radioactive),
unless you wanted to make a radioactive weapon. For that purpose you
could just fire projectiles or drop bombs made of radioactive waste,
and forget the DU.
Both isotopes of natural uranium 235 and 238 are radioactive, but with
long half-lives (about 1 and 4 billion years, respectively, I think),
so the actual activity is low. The largest danger would come from
inhaling the uranium as dust, so it would become lodged in the lungs.
There the alpha emissions are very effective in inducing lung cancer.
Radon gas (from the uranium decay chain) has the same effect. I
believe that transporting metallic DU should be reasonably safe--after
a traffic accident you would just pick up the pieces, for example.
After a battle in which there have been lots of explosions and high
energy impacts---I don't know how much uranium will have been converted
into dust (perhaps uranium oxide), but I can see that it could be a
serious problem. If you wanted to just pick up the metallic pieces, it
wouldn't be hard to find them with a geiger counter. As for chemical
toxicity, I doubt that uranium is any worse than lead, which has been
used in abundance in battles going back before the Civil war.
People don't want nuclear waste in their back yard and probably don't
want DU either, but these two things are in different ball parks in
terms of danger.
I recall from the days I was interested in this subject that the total
amount of high level waste created by the nuclear weapons industry is
far more than the amount created by the civilian nuclear energy
program. This was about 20 years ago and the numbers could be
different now. The nuclear weapons program really makes a lot of mess
because they have to chemically process the highly radioactive contents
of a reactor (to extract the plutonium). Other countries that follow
this route (eg Iran) will have their own versions of Hanford,
Washington to deal with.
Lobo
<nes...@wigner.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>With some trepidation I stick my nose into this discussion...although I
>don't know much about the controversy over DU munitions, I can add a
>few technical points...
>
>Natural uranium contains less than 1% of the 235 isotope...I forget the
From what I've read it is 0.2%
>exact number, but I recall 1 part in 140. Let's say for the sake of
>argument it is 1%. Then to create one ton of 3% enriched uranium,
>you'd need 3 tons of natural uranium, leaving behind 2 tons of DU.
At 0.2% to get 1 ton of fuel @ 4% you would be left with 20 tons of DU
(spiked with other trace radioactive materials).
>Actually the DU left behind is not completely depleted, so the ratio is
>even more. So the mass of DU created in enriching uranium is larger
>than the mass of enriched uranium created. The latter goes into the
>reactors and becomes radioactive.
At 1% U235 the fuel rods are considered "spent". But, there is now
also about 1% plutonium and other highly radioactive products of
fission in the spent rods. These can be then used for weapons
manufacturing (Korea, India, USA, UK, France, Russia, etc) and for
making more fuel rods.
Unfortunately, the DU from this secondary process has traces of many
highly radioactive materials not found in natural uranium that are
extremely expensive to remove completely. This is what is called
"dirty" DU. This mixed process is more likely as the amount of reactor
and other nuclear waste builds up.
>The purpose of DU munitions is to concentrate the kinetic energy of the
>projectile. Uranium has a density of over 20 gms/cm^3, while I think
>lead is around 11. I see no purpose in adulterating DU obtained from
>the enrichment process by nuclear waste (enriched uranium that has
>passed through a reactor and thereby become intensely radioactive),
>unless you wanted to make a radioactive weapon. For that purpose you
>could just fire projectiles or drop bombs made of radioactive waste,
>and forget the DU.
DU munitions are self sharpening and because DU is pyrophoric the
particles and fragments that are formed during and following impact
and perforation will spontaneously ignite. This creates a lot of fine
uranium oxide dust and smoke particles.
The pyrophoric properties and relative availability are what make it a
good choice for terrorists to make "dirty" chemical bombs.
>Both isotopes of natural uranium 235 and 238 are radioactive, but with
>long half-lives (about 1 and 4 billion years, respectively, I think),
>so the actual activity is low. The largest danger would come from
>inhaling the uranium as dust, so it would become lodged in the lungs.
>There the alpha emissions are very effective in inducing lung cancer.
>Radon gas (from the uranium decay chain) has the same effect. I
>believe that transporting metallic DU should be reasonably safe--after
>a traffic accident you would just pick up the pieces, for example.
Unfortunately, if there is a fire....
>After a battle in which there have been lots of explosions and high
>energy impacts---I don't know how much uranium will have been converted
>into dust (perhaps uranium oxide), but I can see that it could be a
>serious problem. If you wanted to just pick up the metallic pieces, it
>wouldn't be hard to find them with a geiger counter. As for chemical
>toxicity, I doubt that uranium is any worse than lead, which has been
>used in abundance in battles going back before the Civil war.
Up to 80% of tank rounds will be converted into dust in a direct hit.
The angle of hit must be within several degrees of ideal for
penetration or (like any other round) it will glance off. For aircraft
it is much lower as only about 10% of the rounds actually hit the
target.
From government studies, DU is about twice as bad as lead. All the
heavy metals are bad for cellular life. It also appears that, other
than salvaging their own equipment for reuse, the military are not
doing much cleanup at battle sites. They have even left US tanks, that
weren't worth fixing or too contaminated to return to the US, on the
battlefield in Iraq.
>People don't want nuclear waste in their back yard and probably don't
>want DU either, but these two things are in different ball parks in
>terms of danger.
Who controls the amount of nuclear waste products that ends up in DU?
I certainly don't trust the DoE or the American military. They denied
using any "dirty" DU until they were actually caught.
>I recall from the days I was interested in this subject that the total
>amount of high level waste created by the nuclear weapons industry is
>far more than the amount created by the civilian nuclear energy
>program. This was about 20 years ago and the numbers could be
>different now. The nuclear weapons program really makes a lot of mess
>because they have to chemically process the highly radioactive contents
>of a reactor (to extract the plutonium). Other countries that follow
>this route (eg Iran) will have their own versions of Hanford,
>Washington to deal with.
The US doesn't have to make as much nuclear weapons grade material now
that they are bringing it over from Russia. But, they still have the
problem of storage and conversion. It's an expensive problem that will
last for centuries.
It also seems that a significant amount has "gone missing".
nes...@wigner.berkeley.edu
saying is that I don't see any reason why the military would want to
use :dirty" DU, since the total mass of DU obtained from the initial
enrichment process is so much larger than the mass of uranium that goes
into the reactor. Are they that hard up for supplies of DU?
You seem to be defining "dirty DU" as uranium 238 that has been
extracted from reactor waste. People process reactor waste chemically
in order to extract the plutonium. This is only done for weapons
production, although if breeder reactors ever become common it will
also be done for commercial power generation. It's an expensive and
dangerous process, because the waste is so highly radioactive. Are
you saying that the weapons people also extract (chemically) the
uranium from the reactor waste? If so, it would already be partially
enriched (1% 235 as you say), so would be ahead of the game if you
wanted to enrich it further and feed it back into reactors (instead of
just creating new enriched uranium from natural uranium). I can see
that the uranium extracted this way would be more radioactive than
natural uranium, because the chemical separation would be imperfect and
some of the highly radioactive other elements would contaminate it.
Also I can see that if you fed this 1% stuff into a centrifuge chain to
bring it up to 3%, you would end up contaminating the DU byproduct with
uranium that came out of the reactor (because at each stage you
separate the sample into two parts, one that is more enriched than you
started with, and one that is less. So the contaminated stuff would
diffuse back to the beginning of the chain and emerge as DU, although
it would be only a fraction of the contaminated 1% stuff that started.)
Is this what you mean by "dirty DU"? And is this what is actually
done? If so, one question would be, how much radioactivity is added by
the contaminants? And what are the principal contaminants and what are
their half-lives?
Lobo
<nes...@wigner.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>Again, I admit I don't know about the controversy, but part of what I'm
>saying is that I don't see any reason why the military would want to
>use :dirty" DU, since the total mass of DU obtained from the initial
>enrichment process is so much larger than the mass of uranium that goes
>into the reactor. Are they that hard up for supplies of DU?
The figures I gave before was for the amount of U235 in DU and NOT
ordinary uranium so here are the proper figures. (1 ton to 12 tons)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
1 kg of 5% enriched uranium requires 11.8 kg of natural uranium,
leaving about 10.8 kg of depleted uranium with 0.3% U-235.
You can find information about your comments below at that site.
>You seem to be defining "dirty DU" as uranium 238 that has been
>extracted from reactor waste. People process reactor waste chemically
>in order to extract the plutonium. This is only done for weapons
>production, although if breeder reactors ever become common it will
>also be done for commercial power generation. It's an expensive and
>dangerous process, because the waste is so highly radioactive. Are
>you saying that the weapons people also extract (chemically) the
>uranium from the reactor waste?
That was done in the states until Carter banned it. It is still done
in Europe. There are hundreds of tons of the stuff still around the
US.
> If so, it would already be partially
>enriched (1% 235 as you say), so would be ahead of the game if you
>wanted to enrich it further and feed it back into reactors (instead of
>just creating new enriched uranium from natural uranium). I can see
>that the uranium extracted this way would be more radioactive than
>natural uranium, because the chemical separation would be imperfect and
>some of the highly radioactive other elements would contaminate it.
>Also I can see that if you fed this 1% stuff into a centrifuge chain to
>bring it up to 3%, you would end up contaminating the DU byproduct with
>uranium that came out of the reactor (because at each stage you
>separate the sample into two parts, one that is more enriched than you
>started with, and one that is less. So the contaminated stuff would
>diffuse back to the beginning of the chain and emerge as DU, although
>it would be only a fraction of the contaminated 1% stuff that started.)
>Is this what you mean by "dirty DU"? And is this what is actually
>done? If so, one question would be, how much radioactivity is added by
>the contaminants? And what are the principal contaminants and what are
>their half-lives?
This stuff has been accumulating since 1945 and has been processed in
many different ways. It has also been mixed up and I don't think that
even the DoE knows what is in their inventory. The DoE is actively
looking for ways to get rid of the stuff (600,000 tons?). They give it
away for free.
Maybe the US could have a few more wars and the problem would be
solved.
Lobo
Ray Ingles
> The figures I gave before was for the amount of U235 in DU and NOT
> ordinary uranium so here are the proper figures. (1 ton to 12 tons)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
Ah-ha! That site admits that the radioactivity of depleted uranium is
quite low, and attributes the alleged health effects to unanticipatedly
high *chemical* toxicity. Now *that* makes more sense; as I said, with a
half life in the billions of years it just isn't a serious radiation
hazard unless in improbably large quantities.
I'd be willing to believe (given appropriate evidence) that it's a more
hazardous chemical than had been previously thought. Radiation doesn't
make sense - as the article notes, DU with a bit of coating to limit its
own alpha emissions is actually a better radiation shield than lead.
--
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317
"Engineering is like having an 8 a.m. class and a late afternoon
lab every day for the rest of your life." - Anonymous