AW: [ RadSafe ] Depleted uranium dust from 2003 Gulf War in Berkshire

[Franz Schönhofer]

Fred,

Thank you for the information which takes up my own thoughts about the
non-isotopically defined "uranium". Since the approval of the moderator,
which my messages are now subjected to take at least the night in Europe you
will receive my own comment and this message at the earliest tomorrow
morning GMT. 

I do not think one has to go as far as dust from African uranium mines or
phosphate mining in Africa. From my reasonings in my comment it comes clear
that these rises are not at all statistically significant. 

I suppose that 99 % of RADSAFErs are lured by the impressive titles of
"Committee", "European", "Agency", "Brussels" and would not recognize the
simple deliberately delusive misuse of these terms. I hope I have shown in
my comment, that behind this façade there is nothing but a militant green,
antinuclear and deceptive nucleus, which uses a pseudo-scientific style to
distribute non-scientific self-serving opinions. I have noticed recently
that those groups try to place their unacceptable "scientific papers" in
"peer reviewed journals" in order to be able to cite them as proof of their
"peer reviewed published and therefore scientifically accepted articles".
(More information available only on request.)

Back to your message!

Your reference of wise-uranium is fully supported by me. The website is an
openly declared antinuclear one. Nothing bad about this web-site: It gives
to my knowledge the by far best information about uranium and most aspects
of nuclear energy. It is impartial, it gives the facts and does not
distribute any propaganda. I have before had good contacts with one of the
persons maintaining this site (a German), but after computer crashes I lost
track (if you read this, please contact me!). I had very good and fruitful
discussions with him. I can only recommend this site. 

Franz Schoenhofer
PhD, MR iR
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
AUSTRIA
phone -43-0699-1168-1319


> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] Im
> Auftrag von Dawson, Fred Mr
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 22. Februar 2006 13:03
> An: srp-uk at yahoogroups.com; radsafe at radlab.nl
> Betreff: [ RadSafe ] Depleted uranium dust from 2003 Gulf War in Berkshire
> 
> Interesting criticism by the "World Information Service on Energy" on
> the recent report by Busby, of particular note is the reference to the
> large uranium mines etc in North Africa
> 
> http://www.wise-uranium.org/dissgw.html
> 
> Elevated uranium concentrations found in air sampling data collected
> around the AWE Aldermaston plant in Berkshire, United Kingdom, in
> March/April 2003 are attributed by authors C.Busby and S.Morgan to
> depleted uranium dust blown from Iraq.
> While such a connection might be worth considering if an isotopic
> analysis of the dust would have revealed that it actually were depleted
> uranium, there apparently is no isotopic data available.
> It is not even clear what actually was measured, since Busby & Morgan
> only report numbers converted by themselves to nBq "uranium" per cubic
> meter. They use the figure of 12.5 MBq/kg for the activity conversion of
> "uranium", while this figure is valid only for the isotope U-238 alone.
> The three uranium isotopes present rather would give depleted uranium a
> specific activity of approx. 14.7 MBq/kg. It is also unclear whether any
> uranium decay products were present and what mineralogic composition the
> dust had.
> Even if one accepts the possibility that uranium dust may have been
> airlifted to Europe the same way as Sahara sands sometimes in fact are,
> no evidence is presented that this actually has happened with the
> depleted uranium dust released in Iraq, in spite of the use of this term
> in the title. The authors spend no thought on ruling out other possible
> origins of uranium that might have been transported to the United
> Kingdom, as for example: the two large uranium mines in Arlit and
> Akouta, Niger, experiencing a notorious dusting problem, and the huge
> phosphate mines in Morocco and Rio de Oro, exploiting a mineral that is
> well known to be associated with elevated levels of uranium. Without an
> isotopic analysis, no distinction can be made between such sources of
> natural uranium dust and any dust produced from the use of DU weapons in
> Iraq.
> 
> Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2 result in contamination of
> Europe? Evidence from the measurements of the Atomic Weapons
> Establishment, Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK. Chris Busby, Saoirse Morgan,
> Occasional Paper 2006/1, January 2006, Abersytwyth: Green Audit (618k
> PDF - LLRC)
> 
> 
> Fred Dawson
> Fwp_dawson at hotmail.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> You are currently subscribed to the RadSafe mailing list
> 
> Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood
> the RadSafe rules. These can be found at:
> http://radlab.nl/radsafe/radsaferules.html
> 
> For information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe and other settings
> visit: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/