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AW: Re DU source and Gulf Illness
I may be off base, but it seems to me that
irradiated fuel from a reactor would contain sufficient fission products
that it could not be used for enrichment and therefore not be used to
produce DU. If one taleks material from Pu production (which stopped
14 years ago) and .strips out the fission products (essentially, material
that has been reprocessed) there might be some actinides left.
However, all actinides do not form hexafluorides like uranium. The
biggest non-natural component of DU is most likely another uranium isotope.
But these would be present in trace amounts and on;ly U232 has a specific
activity of any significance at all. Uranium forms UF6 because the +6
odixation state of U is quite stable, unlike the +6 oxidation state of Pu,
for example.
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Ruth,
This was a big issue some time ago at RADSAFE. What I remember and
what my common sense dictates is the
following:
The separation of fission products is without doubt chemically no
problem. During the process of enrichment potentially remaining traces of
fission products will be very effectively removed, since they do not form
volatile hexafluorides - as you state correctly. According to the discussion
some time ago, I recall, that extremely small amounts of Pu-239 might be
still present in spite of the very different chemical behaviour of Pu and U.
If I recall correctly, even data were presented. (Sorry, it is almost 1 am:
in Austria and I do not want to search the
files.)
I am also reluctant to search for the data, because as with the silly
"Tooth Fairy Project" and the forwarding of Sternglass-nonsense,
somebody pretends to be interested in a certain subject, poses questions,
for which he (or she) could find the answer by for instance looking at the
RADSAFE files, where all of my reasoning regarding to this project to raise
money for a certain clique of non-professionals, which includes all kind of
"celebrities", but no scientists (or is anybody going to call
Sternglass a scientist???) is well
documented.
So, dear RADSAFErs, repeat your arguments, repeat the facts: You will
face the same "questions" again and
again.....
Franz