Talk:Depleted uranium: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively ← Previous edit Next edit →Content deleted Content addedVisual WikitextInline

Revision as of 20:57, 24 March 2017 editFlorentPirot (talk \| contribs)122 edits →Edit on the biological effects of uranium weapons ← Previous edit		Revision as of 19:25, 25 March 2017 edit undoFlorentPirot (talk \| contribs)122 edits →Edit on missiles and bombs and uranium: new sectionNext edit →
Line 134:		Line 134:

	{{reflist talk}}		{{reflist talk}}

			== Edit on missiles and bombs and uranium ==

			Hello,
			I would like also to suggest an edit including the following elements :
			- It has been demonstrated that the Baghdad Al Amariyah bunker destroyed in 1991 by two GBU 27s (killing more than 400 civilians that had taken shelter there, in a fire) was still radioactive in 2002 (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsX41A8JiBw&feature=youtu.be&t=8m47s video] from movie Irak, d'une guerre à l'autre, on ).
			- There are reports that uranium is being used as a counter-ballast in missiles - for instance, this on the Balkans, in the annex. The "Depleted Uranium Hazard Awareness" training video for the US military that Doug Rokke had to make also included the mention of the use of uranium in missile ballasts (see ).
			- The BBC also reported that GBU bunker buster are believed to contain depleted uranium (see ).

			To me the detection of peaks of uranium in Aldermaston air filters (see https://pyrophor.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/aldermaston.png?w=768), that rise when battles are waged in Afghanistan / Iraq, also is a good demonstration of the use of uranium in missiles and bombs : take the Anaconda Op in Afghanistan, tanks weren't involved so no possibility that the uranium detected in the filters comes from APFSDS shells, and it is very unlikely that dust from 30 mm straffing rounds would be able to rise at several kilometers of altitude and travel across the world. Compare with clouds of dust from missiles / GBU bombs.

			Best regards,--] (]) 19:25, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Revision as of 19:25, 25 March 2017

Skip to table of contents

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Military history: Technology / Weaponry

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Military science, technology, and theory task force
	Weaponry task force

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Chemistry Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chemistry, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of chemistry on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChemistryWikipedia:WikiProject ChemistryTemplate:WikiProject ChemistryChemistry
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed. Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary.

Archives

1 2 3 4 5

6 (Jan–May 2006)
7 (May–Jun 2006)
8 (Jun–Sep 2006)
9 (Sep–Apr 2007)
10 (Apr–Dec 2007)
11 (2008—)

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Depleted uranium article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13Auto-archiving period: 3 months

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 12 external links on Depleted uranium. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 09:07, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

US confirms DU use in Syria

Last month US CENTCOM confirmed that two incidents where it had previously been reported that DU was used in Syria in November 2015 were A10 strikes on Islamic State fuel convoys. Foreign Policy/Airwars investigation here: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/14/the-united-states-used-depleted-uranium-in-syria/ News that the US had used DU in Syria first appeared on IRIN in October 2016, following an investigation by journalist Samuel Oakford and ICBUW, coverage here: https://www.irinnews.org/investigations/2016/10/06/exclusive-iraq-war-records-reignite-debate-over-us-use-depleted-uranium However at the time CENTCOM did not confirm the targets that it had been used against. The situation was of particular interest as fuel tankers are not armoured targets. In 2016 an analysis of A10 strikes in Iraq 2003 by PAX and ICBUW revealed that fewer than half of all targets struck were armoured vehicles, see: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/targets-of-opportunity ICBUW (talk) 11:57, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@ICBUW: the third source fails WP:RS and doesn't mention Syria, but the other two seem adequate. Due coverage for Syria would be to add to the sentence in the history section: "The US and NATO militaries used DU penetrator rounds in the 1991 Gulf War, the Bosnia war, bombing of Serbia, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and 2015 airstrikes on ISIS in Syria." Sound good? VQuakr (talk) 17:02, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@VQuakr: works for me, thanks ICBUW (talk) 17:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit on the contamination of uranium with other isotopes

Here are the edits I want to integrate in the page re. contamination of uranium with other isotopes :

Natural uranium contains about 0.72% U-235, while the DU used by the U.S. Department of Defense contains 0.3% U-235 or less, according to the US Mod, but this is debated. In urine tests of civilian populations in Afghanistan, for which the mean concentration of uranium was found to be considerably greater than what is regarded as a reference range, the U234/U238 ratios were consistant with natural uranium (not depleted)

Asaf Durakovic found several occurences of uranium 236 contamination in veterans.

DU used in US munitions has 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium, according to the US army. The radioactivity near tanks destroyed by these weapons, however, can reach at least up to 1000 times the average background radiation. Trace transuranics (another indicator of the use of reprocessed material) have been reported to be present in some US tank armor as well as in weapons.

One formulation has a composition of 99.25% by mass of depleted uranium and 0.75% by mass of titanium, but there is a debate regarding the isotopic composition or the uranium that is used because of the findings of non depleted uranium in battlefields

Please tell me where does that violate ANY Misplaced Pages policy. I have been undoed by https://en.wikipedia.org/User:VQuakr. Thanks. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

References

Koeppel, Barbara. "More Evidence Suggests Radiation Caused Illness in U.S. War Zones". Washington Spectator. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
Durakovic, Asaf (2005). "The quantitative analysis of uranium isotopes in the urine of the civilian population of eastern Afghanistan after Operation Enduring Freedom". Military Medicine. PMID 15916293. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
Simons, Marlise. "Doctor's Gulf War Studies Link Cancer to Depleted Uranium". New York Times.
^ "Properties and Characteristics of DU" U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense
"High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south". IRIN. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
"Remains of toxic bullets litter Iraq". Christian Science Monitor.
"Iraq, Depleted Uranium Contaminated with Deadly Plutonium". Democracy Now.
Koeppel, Barbara. "More Evidence Suggests Radiation Caused Illness in U.S. War Zones". Washington Spectator. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
Durakovic, Asaf (2005). "The quantitative analysis of uranium isotopes in the urine of the civilian population of eastern Afghanistan after Operation Enduring Freedom". Military Medicine. PMID 15916293. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
"UN Press Release UNEP/81: Uranium 236 found in depleted uranium penetrators". UN.
Simons, Marlise. "Doctor's Gulf War Studies Link Cancer to Depleted Uranium". New York Times.
"Iraq, Depleted Uranium Contaminated with Deadly Plutonium". Democracy Now.

Edit on shaped charge warheads and uranium

Here are the changes I want to bring on the "Ammunition" section re. shaped charges and uranium :

It is known since the years 70s that uranium can be used as a liner in shaped charge warheads. Many shaped charge warheads patents include uranium as a liner. The "K-charge" patent EP 1164348 A2 notes that "other metals that have been disclosed as useful for shaped charge liners include depleted uranium and their alloys". Another patent seems to acknowledge that it is better, for incendiary (reactive) purposes, to use non-depleted uranium as it differenciates "depleted uranium" used for kinetic purposes and "uranium" used for incendiary purposes.

Please tell me where does that violate any Misplaced Pages policy. Thanks. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Claiming that a specific warhead must contain uranium because a patent application says uranium could be used violates common sense, WP:PRIMARY, and WP:SYNTH. Claiming natural uranium is more flammable/pyrophoric than DU based on a patent application indicates a pretty remarkable lack of knowledge of chemistry, and of course also violates the same content policies. VQuakr (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

It does not says that uranium IS used in liners, it only says it COULD. It was thoroughly studied ( see for instance here http://www.arl.army.mil/arlreports/2007/ARL-SR-150.pdf on page 86). Jane's also reported once that uranium is used in "some guided weapons" which could include shaped charge warheads. https://web.archive.org/web/20011108102307/http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdw/jdw010108_1_n.shtml

Regarding the effects of radioactivity on inflammability (the latent heat of the radioactivity acting as the activation energy), two chemists (one in a metallurgy lab, and one "agrégé" (French high exam for professors)) have told me that I am right, so I thought that simply making mention of the patent without explaining could be meaningful, but I acknowledge this contradicts WP:SYNTH.FlorentPirot (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

"which could"

Andy Dingley (talk) 23:23, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

If you read the uranium liner shaped charge patent for drilling wells https://www.google.ch/patents/US4441428, you'll see that "tests show that the penetration of such a Uranium jet is about 87 centimeters, a factor of 3.5 greater than expected and a factor of 5 times that measured for the copper jet and for an iron jet 5.4 times greater." In this regard claims that the main metal used in shaped charges is copper is highly dubious. FlorentPirot (talk) 20:43, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

References

Trends in the use of depleted uranium. National Academy of Science. 1971. p. 38.
"Building characteristics into a shaped charge to achieve unique performance requirements". International Journal of Impact Engineering. 17 (1–3): 121–130. 1995. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
"K charge patent". Google patents.

Edit on the biological effects of uranium weapons

Since the Ammunition section of the article mentions the dangerousness of alternatives to uranium, I found it meaningful to integrate as well information on the dangerousness of uranium itself. Here is what I propose to add :

The carcinogenic effect of uranium weapons comes from the alpha particles that induce tumors when inhalated or ingested in the body, because of the high relative biological effectiveness of alpha particles (up to 20 times the RBE of gamma rays : for the same amount of energy, alpha particles will create up to 20 times more damage than gamma rays) - a 2,5 microns pellet in the body, with a RBE of 10, will deliver 1,7 Sievert per year to the body, that is a level of severe radiation poisoning, sometimes fatal.

WHO statistics available for 2004 (downloadable here) show that Iraq has the highest levels of leukemias and lymphomas in the world. Afghanistan is almost second. Both countries were heavily bombed before (Iraq was bombed in 1991 and 2003-2004, Afghanistan in 2001-2002). Leukemias and lymphomas are both blood cancers which are suspected to be related with uranium contamination. Uranium is sprayed as a fine powder by these weapons at impact or explosion. The clouds of oxidised dust are able to travel and represent a danger when ingested or inhalated. Uranium is able to travel in the body - for instance from the nose to the brain of the rat, in a study published by Toxicology Letters.

The chart comes from XKCD but this XKCD carefully provided all of its sources on the chart !

So please tell me again where do I violate any Misplaced Pages policy. FlorentPirot (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

The UMRI source is incorrect by about 9 orders of magnitude, unsurprising since it fails WP:RS. XKCD is a great webcomic, but is unusuable as a source for anything except itself. Claiming a causal relationship between DU weapons use and cancer mortality rates based on generic WHO disease rates violates WP:SYNTH. VQuakr (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I have another source of calculation which provides very similar results (60 milliSieverts per year for a 1 micron particle, 7,5 Sieverts per year for a 5 microns particle : http://bienprofond.free.fr/hiroshi/2005/IrradiationUA.htm (in French)). These calculations (in the article in French) were made by Maurice Eugène André, who was NBCR protection instructing officer for NATO. The XKCD chart, as I said, mentions its sources but if you want here is a page by the insurer Allianz which says exactly the same https://www.allianz.com/en/about_us/open-knowledge/topics/environment/articles/110407-radiation-how-much-is-harmful.html/#!m07960b8c-086f-4934-829d-1ed6bff167ab

To me the causal relationship between use of uranium weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan and the high rate of leukemias / lymphomas is simply common sense. It confirms everything that has been noted - the actual article says "Epidemiological studies and toxicological tests on laboratory animals point to it as being immunotoxic, teratogenic, neurotoxic, with carcinogenic and leukemogenic potential. A 2005 report by epidemiologists concluded: "the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU."" FlorentPirot (talk) 22:57, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Ah, at least that site shows their work. When a dose/fatality chart talks about exposure, they are talking about whole body instantaneous dose not exposure of a 50 μm sphere around a particle over the course of a year. The French-language source still fails WP:RS, anyways. VQuakr (talk) 03:01, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Yet 7,5 Sieverts over the course of a year for a 5 microns particle is well above all accepted yearly levels of exposure, even for nuclear industry workers. The actual work of Maurice Eugène André, who made the calculations in the French language link, was to command NATO missiles while based in the Black Forest, so he also had to calculate where the fallout of a nuclear attack would come, in order to protect civilians and soldiers. (as you know fallout contains high levels of plutonium which works like uranium in the body since it also emits alpha particles, a lot more than uranium 238 - btw here is an example taken with the body of a monkey http://nonuclear.se/images/deltredici.d5.particl.of.pu650px.jpg "Hot" or radioactive particle in lung tissue", photo by Del Tredici, Burdens of Proof by Tim Connor, Energy Research Foundation, 1997) FlorentPirot (talk) 20:45, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

References

Facts and Figures. Uranium Medical Research Institute http://www.umri.link/research/scientific-facts-figures/. Retrieved 21 March 2017. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Edit on missiles and bombs and uranium

Hello, I would like also to suggest an edit including the following elements : - It has been demonstrated that the Baghdad Al Amariyah bunker destroyed in 1991 by two GBU 27s (killing more than 400 civilians that had taken shelter there, in a fire) was still radioactive in 2002 (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsX41A8JiBw&feature=youtu.be&t=8m47s video] from movie Irak, d'une guerre à l'autre, on IMDB). - There are reports that uranium is being used as a counter-ballast in missiles - for instance, this UNEP report on the Balkans, in the annex. The "Depleted Uranium Hazard Awareness" training video for the US military that Doug Rokke had to make also included the mention of the use of uranium in missile ballasts (see here). - The BBC also reported that GBU bunker buster are believed to contain depleted uranium (see article).

To me the detection of peaks of uranium in Aldermaston air filters (see https://pyrophor.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/aldermaston.png?w=768), that rise when battles are waged in Afghanistan / Iraq, also is a good demonstration of the use of uranium in missiles and bombs : take the Anaconda Op in Afghanistan, tanks weren't involved so no possibility that the uranium detected in the filters comes from APFSDS shells, and it is very unlikely that dust from 30 mm straffing rounds would be able to rise at several kilometers of altitude and travel across the world. Compare with clouds of dust from missiles / GBU bombs.

Best regards,--FlorentPirot (talk) 19:25, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Categories: