DV8 2XL

I have tried shaking the tree for a few hours now and no one I have contacted can confirm that this Fin was carrying DU trim weights in the first place. If it was it would be highly unlikely that they would burn in this sort of incident. Anyway the stab is still in a big chunk, doesn't look like it burned completely. Oh, and yes I do have a bit of an agenda; because I worked with this stuff I need the truth. Wild claims and back-of-the-envelope calculations by those that think that the same arithmetic that applies to finance applies to dosimetry, anecdotes, anecdotal evidence, hysteria from people that are making a living from FUD in this matter, doesn't help me at all. Let's assume for the moment that stuff is as dangerous as is claimed; boy would I have a case for Compensation, wouldn't I? Why should I work for the next fifteen years when I could retire now. The Fact is that I have no case because this stuff isn't all that dangerous. Hell, the cadmium and beryllium that I worked with gives me more pause than the uranium. This stuff has been use in ordinance since 1958, but it wasn't till two tin-pot dictators tried using the issue to discredit NATO in general and the U.S. in particular that anyone noticed it. Never mind Iraq, why hasn't epidemiological studies been done to the populations near test ranges in the U.S., the U.K. and France? Why would anyone want to run a study under conditions where the confounding variables will make any conclusion scientifically suspect? It's a political issue and we all know it, not a scientific one, and while one of you claims to be a policy flak for Her Majesty's Government in New Zealand, (which I still don't believe, BTW) and the other doesn't think peer review is a good way of practicing science (which I do believe) I have to ask myself if either of you is capable of a technical discussion on this topic.

link is from: IDUST - International Depleted Uranium Study Team In their own words: IDUST is a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) of international researchers, activists and scientists dedicated to stopping the use of Depleted Uranium U-238 (DU) in military weapons by the year 2010. To disseminate information and coordinate advocacy efforts worldwide; To bring about a total ban on weapons that contain depleted uranium. Another totaly unbiased source

jesus weeps

Your link is from: Institute for Energy and Environmental Research: Where Science and Democracy Meet In their own words: IEER is dedicated to increasing public involvement in and control over environmental problems through the democratization of science. While scientists write for each other, they do so largely in "peer-reviewed" journals. When the process works well it means that a number of qualified people have looked over the research and commented on it before publication. But the very term "peer review" means that the people who are affected by those decisions are not only left out of the review, they are generally not even a part of the audience. IEER's aim is to provide people with literature which has a quality equal to that in scientific journals, but which doesn't require you to go back to college to get a degree in science to understand it. Our audience is that of the determined activist concerned about the world, the concerned policy-maker, and the knowledgeable journalist. We choose our subjects so that they are relevant to environmental protection and other aspects of human well-being.

Thomas, while I applaud your diligence in getting down to the fine mechanics of this issue, there in really no need to re-invent the wheel. Dosimetry is an established field and the fundamentals there have been worked out. I suggest that you turn your inquiries there and save yourself some time. Also, if you look into it, you will find that there are several “acceptable limits” schedules in force, and some of them seem to be in conflict with each other. You have to look closely at exposure tables and what radiometric models they are using and what questions that they are trying to answer.

Since the publication of Roger Penrose's two books The Emperor's New Mind (1989), and Shadows of the Mind (1994), there has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in exploring possible connections between quantum mechanical phenomena and consciousness. But there have been those who have been exploring the connection for many decades. In this essay, I will first briefly run through Penrose's main ideas, especially as they have been developed in collaboration with Stuart Hameroff. I will then discuss some of the reasons that people have had for trying to defend some such connection since long before the Penrose-led resurgence. Penrose's main argument Penrose's main argumentative line can be summed up as follows (this summary is taken from Grush and Churchland (1995)): Part A: Nonalgorithmicity of human conscious thought. A1) Human thought, at least in some instances, is sound , yet nonalgorithmic (i.e. noncomputational). (Hypothesis based on the Gödel result.) A2) In these instances, the human thinker is aware of or conscious of the contents of these thoughts. A3) The only recognized instances of nonalgorithmic processes in the universe are perhaps certain kinds of randomness; e.g. the reduction of the quantum mechanical state vector. (Based on accepted physical theories.) A4) Randomness is not promising as the source of the nonalgorithmicity needed to account for (1). (Otherwise mathematical understanding would be magical.) Therefore: A5) Conscious human thought, at least in some cases, perhaps in all cases, relies on principles which are beyond current physical understanding, though not in principle beyond any (e.g. some future) scientific physical understanding. (Via A1 - A4) Part B: Inadequacy of Current Physical Theory, and How to Fix It. B1) There is no current adequate theory concerning the 'collapse' of the quantum mechanical wave function, but an additional theory of quantum gravity might be useful to this end. B2) A more adequate theory of wave function collapse (a part, perhaps, of a quantum gravity theory) could incorporate nonalgorithmic, yet nonrandom, processes. (Penrose hypothesis.) B3) The existence of quasicrystals is evidence for some such currently unrecognized, nonalgorithmic physical process. Therefore: B4) Future theories of physics, in particular quantum gravity, can be expected to incorporate nonalgorithmic processes. (via B1 - B3) Part C: Microtubules as the means of harnessing quantum gravity. C1) Microtubules have properties which make certain quantum mechanical phenomena (e.g. super-radiance) possible. (Hameroff/Penrose hypothesis.) C2) These nonalgorithmic nonrandom processes will be sufficient, in some sense, to account for A5. (Penrose hypothesis.) C3) Microtubules play a key role in neuron function. C4) Neurons play a key role in cognition and consciousness. C5) Microtubules play a key role in consciousness/cognition (by C3, C4 and transitivity). Therefore: C6) Microtubules, because they have one foot in quantum mechanics and the other in conscious thought, provide a window for nonalgorithmicity in human cognition. Conclusion: D) Quantum gravity, or something similar,via microtubules, must play a key role in consciousness and cognition. Part A takes up a large chunk of Penrose (1994), and although I think his argument ultimately fails, I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job of trying to make that argument. Part B gets into much of Penrose's non-consciousness-related thought, in particular a theory of quantum gravity that he has been working on for some time. Part C is due mostly to Stuart Hameroff (see, e.g. Hameroff (1994)), who has been conjecturing on the computational capacities of microtubules for a while, but was inspired by Penrose's work to work out a theory of quantum mechanical effects in microtubules. Details on Penrose's argument are best found in his Shadows of the Mind (1994), and details of the criticisms can be found in Grush and Churchland (1995) [a draft of this paper is available here]. Penrose and Hameroff (1995) is a brief reply to the criticisms of Grush and Churchland. Furthermore, there are on-line papers by both Penrose and Hameroff, listed below, that will provide more details from the proponents themselves. Motivations for quantum theories of consciousness Apart from Penrose's work, there are many who have drawn connections between quantum mechanics and consciousness. There are a number of motivations that have driven people to look for such a connection. Here are a few of the more influential: 1. Free will. Many people are convinced that humans have free will, and yet are also convinced that the Newtonian-mechanical goings-on of things as large as neurons makes no room for free will. They thus turn to quantum mechanics in the hope that the non-determinism of the collapse of the wave function will provide a foot in the door for free will. Of course the wave function collapse is, according to current theory, random, and it is not clear that this is any better than determinism when it comes to explaining free will. Nevertheless, the hope seems to be that, at least in some cases, consciousness exerts its influence on the world through effecting some collapses, presumable some in the brain somewhere, in one way rather than another. 2. The unity of consciousness. It is claimed that consciousness has a unity, or wholeness to it, that cannot be explained by reducing consciousness to a scattered group of neurons. Rather, many think that quantum mechanical coherence (a phenomenon whereby many different objects can share a single wave function, and in some respects behave as a single particle) gives an explanation for this. Of course, it could be objected that this line of reasoning rests on a blatant content/vehicle confusion. From the fact that some of our introspections have a content with certain properties (we perceive our consciousness to be non-scattered, for example), it is concluded that the vehicle of this content must also have these properties (being non-scattered, for example). Of course this line of reasoning fails horribly. The bank's computer represents my checking account as a more or less unified entity, but the electromagnetic objects that constitute the vehicle of that representation are scattered widely, and could be scattered over a large geographic area -- perhaps even distributed with parts of record from other accounts --, depending on how their computer hardware is set up. One can write the word 'red' in blue ink. In general, there need be no match between the properties that characterize a content, and the properties of the vehicle that carry that content. Given this, there seems to be little motivation to try to explain the unity of consciousness via quantum mechanical coherence. 3. The mysteriousness of consciousness. Consciousness appears to be an extremely mysterious phenomenon. It is not clear how a collection of molecules whose chemical composition is not unlike that of a cheese omelet could be aware of anything, to feel pain, or see red, or dream about the future. Quantum mechanics also seems to be very mysterious -- particles going traversing two paths at the same time, for example. So perhaps they are the same mystery. Nobody phrases it that way, of course, but this seems to be a line of intuition that motivates many people. It is often argued that mere neurons could not be conscious or aware, and this seems to be because one can imagine all the working of of a neuron, or even a large group of neurons, without seeing how consciousness could be implicated. But because the mechanisms underlying quantum mechanical phenomena are less viaualizable, or comprehensible, or whatever, it seems not to be as clear that something as mysterious as consciousness couldn't work its way into the machine somehow. Clearly, this intuition survives only as long as the mechanisms of quantum mechanics are mysterious to the person making the argument. Rick Grush

You realy didn't get it did you? I'm not full of hate, I'm killing myself laughing, your the one going off the deep end. This has gone far enough, it's over now

This is a prevalent misconception. The issue is a 1974 atomic test explosion by India, which led to an immediate severance of international cooperation in India's nuclear technological development that exists to this day (similar sanctions were placed on Pakistan as well). The plutonium used in this explosion was manufactured in a small research reactor near Bombay, India, which Canada supplied as part of a larger "technology-transfer" program in the late 50's, early 60's. The Indian research reactor, CIRUS, was based on Canada's NRX design, a heavy-water-moderated, light-water-cooled research reactor commissioned in 1947 at AECL Chalk River Laboratories (2 hours west of Ottawa). The main role of the NRX, which was decommissioned in the late 1980's, centred around materials testing, solid-state physics research, and isotope production, although it initially served as a prototype heavy-water plutonium production reactor, conceived during the days of the WWII Manhattan Project under a tripartite agreeement between Canada, the U.S., and Britain (see related FAQ, also "Early Years of Nuclear Energy Research in Canada" by Dr. G.C. Laurence, and the author's article, "Entering the Nuclear Age", published in Legion Magazine). The heavy water and the financing for the Indian CIRUS reactor were both provided by the United States; hence the "US" in the title. As an issue affecting CANDU reactors, the matter is irrelevant. The technology for producing electricity with a CANDU reactor is highly incompatible with the production of weapons-grade plutonium (see related FAQ). However, because of the highly technical differences between research reactors and power reactors, along with the regrettable fact that the Indian affair is linked to Canadian technology, the incident has caused some confusion. From the Canadian Nuclear FAQ: http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionF.htm#x1

-the fallacy of personal attack -the fallacy of false authority and compare the last quote to the following one for extra points: I rest my case

Would you please show me where I made that assertion. The entire thrust of the argument I presented in post #84 is that there is a lack of objective data. Read post #86 again, I am not defending it's use - I am criticizing propaganda masquerading as science. Yes, I have defended CANDU technology elsewhere and at great length, however it's not so much US propaganda as it is the unsuitability of CANDUs for the production of weapons-grade fissionables. India by the way made it's bombs from fuel bred in a series of "research" reactors charged with HEU from American and French sources. Go look at my profile; unlike you I don't pretend to be. You have discredited yourself because based on your posts in this thread. I have to come to the conclusion that you are one of the following: a. you are using your scientific training to advance an ideological agenda. b. you're a youngster who knows just enough about the subject to think he can sound like an expert because you can fool the ignorant around you into believing you know what you are taking about. c.you are parroting concepts you do not understand and that you do not have the foundation to put into any scientific context. As to my knowledge, you will recall that I started in this thread pointing out that I have worked with DU for over thirty years. Do you think in that time I haven't developed a good working knowledge of dosimetry or the properties of this material? That's how I can tell most of what you have written here is ill-informed. Now start addressing some of the specifics rather than engaging in ad hominem mud slinging – I'll respond to nothing else. And yes, I am Canadian.

I would just like to make it clear at this point that I do not support the use of DU in weapons; and I do not support the current war in the Mid-East; I am not a supporter of the current U.S. administration. I just dislike propaganda wrapped in a tissue of science. DU is not mother's milk, nor will it kill you by looking at it. But there is a real lack of good studies that have been carried out and with results published in mainstream refereed journals. As far as heath and environmental impacts both long and short term, I am reminded of a poster common in my youth by a group of women who called themselves Another Mother for Peace : "War is not healthy for children and other living things." Rather than arguing for the disuse of one type of round, we should insist that war cease.

Rubbish Most of the pyrolized compounds of uranium from coal burning and impact burning of DU rounds are the same.

AntiN, I note that you filled this as doc. stripped of authors and source. Why, because it is a screed from one of the antiDU groups? Hardly an unbiased source. Since it is painfully obvious that science is only a political tool for you, useful only to advance whatever ideological agenda that you have at the moment, (keeping a “proudly Nuclear free country”) let’s look at the background of the debate over depleted uranium.] Depleted uranium first emerged as a social, political, and scientific issue after the 1991 Gulf War. The decline of rational discourse about DU can be traced to the 1999 Kosovo conflict. At that time, the DU issue took on a more overtly political role. The Yugoslav government under Sloboban Milosevic suggested the use of DU in the Balkans would have genocidal effects, and when the U.S. government refused to release information about its use of DU following the war, activists and propagandists alike suggested that the United States was responsible for causing widespread and severe effects from its use of DU munitions. Saddam Hussein similarly blamed the United States (and DU) for a sharp increase in cancers and birth defects, and Yasser Arafat joined the chorus by accusing Israel of using DU in Palestinian territories. In the years since 1999, politicians, propagandists, and activists have intoxicated each other with heart-wrenching but extremely misleading and unsubstantiated claims about the effects of DU munitions, radicalizing the issue in a way that has had a chilling effect upon serious debate. Ironically, U.S. propaganda fueled the uncertainty surrounding the effects of DU munitions on Iraqis, which in turn facilitated the Saddam Hussein regime’s own propaganda. A policy of “proponency” to prevent DU munitions from becoming “politically unacceptable” was recommended shortly as the war ended, and in the subsequent years, Pentagon spokesmen dismissed concerns about DU munitions in the same breath as they overstated its success in defeating the Iraqi tank corps. The hype helped create the impression that the battlefield was far more contaminated by DU dust than it probably was, thereby enabling the Iraqi government to effectively exploit an reported rise in cancers and birth defects by blaming the effects on DU munitions and, more importantly, the United States. The scientific debate is now bogged down in confusion over the extent and severity of DU exposures, but many of the statements made by extremists have become a muddled mixture of verifiable facts, speculative assertions, and politically motivated falsehoods. Prior to the use of DU munitions in combat, large quantities – probably on the order of thousands of tons of DU – were shot at testing ranges in the United States, United Kingdom, and as well as in the former Soviet Union and other countries. In addition to the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel, it is possible and even probable that other countries or armed forces have used DU munitions in combat. Some anti-DU activists have claimed the quantities of DU shot by U.S. forces are orders of magnitude higher than the figures released by militaries and governments. While such deception is not outside the realm of possibility, the figures released by some activists, such as the claim that the U.S. released 900,000 kg (2,000,000 lbs) of DU in Afghanistan, lack any supporting data, and in some cases are complete fabrications. Some activists also started to advance claims based more on assertion than proof. These activists, including some with science backgrounds, started to exploit the scientific uncertainties and decry DU as a “crime against God and humanity.” Cults of personality formed around activists who spread a dire gospel based on a blend of fact and fiction as they marched forward, ever forward, in a messianic haze. A new crop of self-proclaimed DU experts emerged in the wake of the Kosovo conflict exploiting the DU issue to raise money for their organizations, and others pointed to DU as a manifestation of the evils of the United States and NATO. Some of these new activists joined forces with more seasoned experts to claim not only proof of widespread and severe effects from DU, but also to assert that these effects were an intentional consequence of the U.S.use of DU munitions. A few marginal scientists marred their professional reputations by becoming scientist-activists who made claims and interpreted data to create misleading and intellectually dishonest assessments of DU’s actual and potential effects. The fantastic claims of well-known activists have grown progressively more extreme since 1999. Without any credible health or environmental studies in post-war Iraq on DU, activists have claimed the effects are comparable to those of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion. Some prominent activists have claimed that not only has the use of DU already caused genocidal effects in Iraq, but that the US uses DU munitions to intentionally inflict genocide on populations. In some cases, one lie leads to another, such as when one activist asserted – without supporting data – that U.S. missiles and bombs contain large quantities of DU, and then a publicity-seeking, fund-raising organization calling itself the Uranium Medical Research Centre used this claim to advance its own unsupported assertion that the U.S. had spread uranium contamination across Afghanistan, resulting in severe health effects. The prize for the most outlandish claim about DU to date goes to activist Leuren Moret. Moret, who works closely with Doug Rokke and other anti-DU extremists, has uttered some of the most bizarre and uninformed statements about DU, including the following statement made in February 2004: Anyone within 1,000 miles of Iraq; anyone within 1,000 miles of Afghanistan is potentially contaminated now. It’s not just the people [living] in the country Anyone going to Iraq or Afghanistan now will become contaminated. There’s no way to escape it. Such certainty is the hallmark of the DU extremists. However, Moret’s most distinctive and substantial contribution to the decline of rational discourse about the effects of DU is her claim that the use of DU munitions has resulted in atmospheric pollution by radioactive dust equal to the detonation of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Of course, there are differences of opinion even among the most irrational and uninformed extremists another activist says the use of DU is equal to only 250,000 Nagasaki bombs. When moderate activists raised concerns about the accuracy of the increasingly alarmist claims about DU, they became the target of character assassination campaigns. In fact, the debate over DU has declined to the point where the simple act of questioning a claim made by Doug Rokke, Asaf Durakovic, or other prominent activists is labeled a heresy by a small jury of vocal extremists who operate mainly through the Internet. Rational discourse about the use and effects of DU munitions has become increasingly difficult and rare. Oh and if the New Zealand Leadership is depending on the likes of you for policy assessments, (which I doubt) do they know that you are discussing it with the likes of us?

I don't know where to start... Effective dose coefficients for adults cannot be converted directly to mass. To start off with they are time-weighted values for exposure, not body-burden values which would be more consistent with your interpretation. Typical TLV/TWA for natural Uranium 0.2 mg m-3; typical STEL 0.6 mg m-3, which is more of a hazard than DU. These are standard exposures from the natural uranium MSDS. Again these figures cannot be converted into body-burden values via simple calculations. As I said above: things are complicated by issues like solubility and retention issues. "ICRP's current dose rate standard" (to address the quote) This is not a protective standard. Even if it were a protective standard, it is not a standard that is capable of protecting any given individual. This is because it is derived and applied using averages. It is quite allowable for some people to get 10 times more radiation, just so long as they are balanced by as many who get ten times less. In terms of its own claims, ICRP does not offer recommendations of exposure limits based on worker and public health criteria. Rather, it offers a risk/benefit trade-off suggestion. And finally: no one can actually verify either a milliSeivert or a millirem directly anyway. I think you have a lot more background reading to do before you start drawing conclusions

A good overview of the subject can be found here: http://www.wise-uranium.org/utox.html The answers are not that straghtforward, as one must look at both soluble and unsoluble compounds of uranium, plus factor in the radiological hazards of the more active isotopes.

Photoelectric and thermoelectric aplications are the ones being researched.

There is also some work being done with Depleted Uranium Semiconductors and also with using Depleted Uraniun Catalysts in Fuel Cell Systems N.B. these link to PDF files

Depleted uranium is also used in a number of civilian applications, generally where a high density weight is needed. Such applications include sailboat keels, as counterweights and sinker bars in oil drills, gyroscope rotors, and in other places where there is a need to place a weight that occupies as little space as possible. Tungsten could be used instead, but it is much more expensive. Aircraft may also contain depleted uranium counterweights (a Boeing 747 may contain 400–1,500kg). An unexpected application is in Formula 1 racing cars. The rules state a minimum weight of 600kg but builders strive to get the weight as low as possible and then bring it up to the 600kg mark by placing depleted uranium where needed to achieve a better balance. Because of its high density, depleted uranium can also be used in tank armour, sandwiched between sheets of steel armor plate. For instance, some late-production M1A1HA and M1A2 Abrams tanks built after 1998 have DU reinforcement as part of its armour plating in the front of the hull and the front of the turret and there is a program to upgrade the rest. From the Wikipedia entry: Depleted uranium

Try again. The center in that cross section is rather small. Just how many neutrons are going to be captured? Appeal to Authority is a rhetorical vice, I'm sure you can do better than that. What that worthy person will or will not do is not germane to this issue. For all I know he might be the type that washes his hands fifty time a day or puts on rubber gloves before using the john. I not saying this is the case you understand, just that his option carries little weight in this matter just because of his post.

"...simple electromagnetic separation..." Putting the word "simple" in front of a process name doesn't make it so antiN. Squeezing weapons-grade material out of scrap DU is a fool's errand if I ever heard one. Do the math and see how much mass and how much time and how much energy you would have to pump into this process. Terrorists aren't building a bomb outa spent shells they dig up from the desert anytime soon. Oh right, I forgot all of the DU was aerosolized after it was fired

Thomas, I have been debating this issue on the net for several years now in various places, and I have found that it is best to probe my opponents a little before engaging them fully. Some like you it would seem, truly seek an understanding of the issues and the physics, others are only interested in using half-truths and outright dissemination to discredit nuclear energy and have been using the issue of DU munitions to further that agenda. To this end I admit to using a bit of dissemination myself. I commend you for delving into this outside this discussion and making yourself more familiar with this topic; and you are right that the term “fissile” is burdened with a bit of a usage issue. However, I sill think that you have a bit of a way to go. You said: “ I see three things that it can do: Split a nucleus and have one child neutron. Be absorbed and produce a fissile nucleus that can produce excess neutrons. Escape. When escape is not possible, the first two will occur according to their probabilities.” Yes. Please look in the probabilities, when you do you will find that escape is the most likely one, and by a wide margin. Quite simply this isotope does not manifest a significant amount of chain-reaction activity. And the situation will not be any better for a “a nice thick chunk”, do the math and you will see why. Your reasoning is good, you just need to factor in some more data. “The behavior of U-238 in a bomb can be used to some extent to predict the behavior of DU” Only inside a bomb. The density of the neutron fluxes in that environment, plus the other factors that come into play are very different than natural spontaneous decay. Consider this. While I suppose that one could keep solders in the dark about the radiation hazards from their equipment, (tho I don't know why you would) it is not that easy to hide that sort of thing during the manufacturing cycle. Trade Unions, Workman's Compensation Agencies, and Group Insurance Underwriters, not just in the US but in other jurisdictions have a vested interest in this issue, yet I haven't seen any of them up in arms over DU. In fact the only groups that I have seen making a fuss are those with an ideological objection to the war in the Mid-East, or those who are begging money to carry on their work. Even without any knowledge of the science involved, that alone would give me pause. antiNarcism: it is the first link in post #47 in this thread. I wouldn't be too quick to draw the conclusion that the radioactive components are solely to blame.

In which case you have exposed yourself as a propagandist, not a scientist. I suspected as much. You are not interested in the truth in this matter only advancing an ideological position. The noun balderdash has one meaning: trivial nonsense. And that is what the statement: "Certainly it should be easy to make a low tech Pu breeder out of the DU in one airliner (u235 content 0.35%)" is, particularly since you do know what you are talking about. You know it and I know it. Now I made a statement above about radionuclides released in coal burning, yet nether you or Mr. Kerby have chosen to address this, nor have ether of you commented on the epidemiological study on radiation exposure and health I posted. Perhaps you would care to now.

There are none.

With you too antiNarcism, some better background in neutronics would help you understand that your last two posts are full of conceptual errors. The physics in an neutron efficient system such as a CANDU or a fission-fusion-fission bomb cannot be used to predict the behavior of DU away from those systems. I would also like to know where you got the numbers in post #52, if they are yours, I must tell you you have left several important variables out of this calculation. I suggest that you Google the term: “Nuclear cross section.” You will find that the term refers to the probability that a neutron-nuclear reaction will occur. This factor when applied to the figures you quoted will yield a much less alarming conclusion. If, of course, the truth is what you are after. Oh, and your statment: "Certainly it should be easy to make a low tech pu breeder out of the DU in one airliner (u235 content 0.35%)" is balderdash.

Thomas: CANDU reactors use natural uranium for fuel but any burn of the U-238 isotope mass comes after it has been transmuted to Pu-239; that is also true of nuclear weapons. However, the fact that U-238 daughters can fission is not material to the argument of if DU is a radiation hazmat or it is not. The point I was trying to make with the link on coal is that I am surprised at the number of web sites and the amount of bile that is being emptied on the use of DU munitions in the Mid-East, and not over coal burning plants in the US and UK. If there were any of the terrible effects that are supposed to have been visited on the populations expose to DU why haven't they shown up in spades in America and Great Britain, since the mass of radiating material distributed is much greater there than in the combat zones in question. Yes that's right According to NCRP Reports No. 92 and No. 95, population exposure from operation of 1000-MWe nuclear and coal-fired power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/years for coal plants (vs.4.8 person-rem/years for nuclear plants, BTW). Worldwide releases of uranium and thorium from coal burning in total are about 37,300 tonnes (metric tons) annually (the annual U.S. share of those releases is about 7,300 tonnes). [Gabbard (1993)] More radioactive heavy metal is released into the environment every two years by coal burning than the total spent fuel waiting to be buried from all U.S. nuclear power production and most U.S. nuclear weapons production. [Lehman (1996] I note that you did not chose to address the contents of the second link that I posted. I put that in to put the health effect of radiation into some perspective. By the way, no one is in “danger from transmutation,” ionizing radiation when it does do harm to living tissue, does so by breaking chemical bonds. Please do not take this as an insult, but it is apparent that your knowledge of nuclear physics has some gaps, and it is not possible to carry on a conversation with you on this topic until you have taken steps to fill them. I would also suggest that you review some texts on neutronics for a clearer understanding of the physics of fast vs. slow neutrons, and an grasp on the concept of flux density.