Started by [deleted user] at 03:43pm Jan 10, 2001 GMT

Guardian defence expert Richard Norton-Taylor, Malcolm Hooper - emeritus professor of medicinal chemistry at Sunderland University and Terry Gooding of the Gulf War Veterans' association (http://www.editor.uk-gwvn.desert-storm.com/) will debate the issues around the depleted uranium controversy. Read more at http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uranium and post your messages here - now.

The debate will begin at 1.30pm.

Simon Rogers Guardian Unlimited

Indeed we can calculate the radiation effects - although there are still arguments over the seriousness of any given dose, with estimates of seriousness varying by around an order of magnitude. There are similar variations in the estimates of seriousness of heavy metal poisoning.

Calculating any such effects depends on knowing the amounts ingested anyway - and that's impossible. It could certainly be hundreds of milligrams or even several grams for a child playing on or near a tank that had been hit, if the uranium had burnt to an oxide dust - I believe each shell contains of the order of 4 kg of DU.

What is clear is that for any isotope of uranium or plutonium, if the material remains within the body for any significant period of time, the radiation effects far outweigh any other kind of toxicity. The typical residence time of these materials in the body depends crucially on their chemical form, route of ingestion, and particle size if insoluble. In almost any form, their residence time will be "significant" in the these terms. When people say plutonium is so fantastically toxic, what they mean is that it's bad for you if you ingest it, but pretty harmless if it irradiates you from outside.

Watch out for the term "radioactive toxicity" (see today's Guardian article, "UN finds Kosovo nuclear danger" for example). The apologists for the nuclear industry like to distinguish three types of hazard: external irradiation, chemical toxicity, and radioactive toxicity (internal irradiation) - and then lump the two "toxicities" together to give the impression that the problem is chemistry rather than radioactivity.

Certainly a lot of uranium was sprayed around at Chernobyl, but its effects will have been totally overshadowed by the effects of the relatively small quantities of very much more radioactive fission products. Although these have shorter half-lives, some of them are long enough that they will outweigh the effect of the uranium for a very long time to come.

It is indeed an absurdity that NATO should poison Kosovo in the name of saving its people. I'm not inclined to go into the cock-up versus conspiracy argument; I'm more inclined to observe that the US (and the UK) value their own servicemen rather a lot higher than the local population of Kosovo, whether nominally friend or foe.

I don't know who knew how much. I hope some kind of inquiry is set up to find this out. Sadly, the whole thing seems to be fairly typical, rather than being unusual. Given the choice of becoming unemployable or toeing the line, how many in the nuclear industry are going to blow the whistle?

I see that the Swiss laboratory responsible for testing some of the samples taken from Kosovo has found that samples contain Uranium 236. This is not a naturally occuring isotope, it is produced in nuclear reactors - and is, in fact, one of the components that are supposed to have been removed in the process that produces DU. It is around 200,000 times more radioactive than U238(the main isotope found in DU).

It also seems that Carla del Ponte will investigate charges of war crimes and breaches of rules of war by Nato on this issue. However, is there really any chance of it going further than last year's attempt which was abandoned because Nato wouldn't cooperate with the investigations.

This is indeed an interesting development.

Of itself, the U236 does not constitute a significant worsening of the hazard, since the amounts will be tiny. It's actually only 200 times more radioactive than U238, not 200,000, and its decay products aren't significant either.

However, the implication that "dirty" uranium is being used is more damaging to the nuclear lobby's case. It also raises the question of how effectively even more radioactive reactor products are removed from the material.

Thanks, csemmens. That's what comes of copying numbers from an Italian paper. They like to add three zeros to everything - they're used to it with the money!

Personally I don't see any need for a 'debate'. DU was (is) used because it is cheap and plentiful, given that it is a by-product of the nuclear power industry, and is a substance that literally no-one else wants.

There are other, inert, metals with equal penetrative capacities in the anti-armour role. They just happen to be more expensive.

We just have to put DU in the category of someone's bright idea that had unfortunate side-effects. Like chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas.

And stop using it. Tomorrow.

Nearly 2 weeks has passed we still do not when,where & how we are going to be tested , pressure must be kept on the minsters to honour statements made. Yet another staling tatic in place , the veterans communitty needs testing and a health care plan put into operation NOW . BEST WISHES TO ALL TERRY

Dear GulfWarVeterans

You are aware, I hope, of the parallel Depleted Uranium thread in the Science area?

Dear csemmens It has been explained to me in the past , but my memory being what it is , could you please remind me ! best wishes Terry

GulfWarVeterans: here, on Guardian Online, in addition to this online debate about depleted uranium, is another debate about depleted uranium under the Science heading. You might find the content interesting and/or useful, but it seems unnecessary to repeat it all here.

That was all I was referring to.

Cheers

Clive

Remember, it's not just war vetrans who are at risk, as, if I'm correct, the half-life of this material is measured in thousands of years, and if it is found to be harmful then the citizens living in the contaminated areas will also be affected until the sites are cleaned up.

America in particular has a pretty shameful record in contaminating other countries and leaving them to clear up the mess, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Kuwait/Iraq and now Yugoslavia, of course Nato says there is no danger from DU, but I wonder how NATO governments would react to people trying to repartriate the material back to it's countries of origin.

goldwing3: more than just thousands of years! 4.6 billion years for U238, 0.7 billion for U235 (of which there is still some in depleted uranium).

Almost half the radioactivity of natural uranium comes from U234, which has a much shorter half-life, but which is only present in tiny amounts - produced by the decay of the U238. A large proportion of this is removed along with the U235 in the process that produces the depleted uranium as a by-product.

The quantity of U234 in depleted uranium increases as the U238 decays, until equilibrium is reached with the U234 decaying as fast as it's produced. This means the radioactivity of depleted uranium goes up over the first quarter million years or so, to almost twice what it is when it's first produced, only decreasing thereafter very slowly over billions of years.

Clive

Fluff

You are Simon Rogers and I claim the 50p reward

Heh.

No, I just fancied being the first poster on this thread for four years.