Re: DU in Iraq

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@HOTMAIL.COM>]

The calculation below seems to be correct to me (thank you Stewart). May be 

that Lord

Marshall instead had 6 kg of U and 2 kg of Th (I really don't know). If so 

my underestimate

would have landed at about 1.8E6 tons instead. The bottom line is the same - 

that

75 tons of DU is a tiny fraction added to the uranium that is already there.



Then there is a question of bioavailability depending on the form of the 

uranium

-still one should have little reason to be worried about it (the worst case 

scenarios

that we discussed here earlier were: 1/ someone who entered an armored 

vehicle

that just had been hit  2/ a kid ingesting soil next to an armored vehicle 

that had been

hit (with ordinary cars the DU rounds would just go right through I have 

been told).



My personal ideas only,



Bjorn Cedervall     bcradsafers@hotmail.com

-----

>the first 0.3 meters only, this estimate would equate to 5.1E6 metric tons

uranium vs. Bjorns derived estimate below of 0.6E6 metric tons, about 8.5 

times

less. Does Iraq's surface area have uranium at the crustal average of 2.5 

ppm? No

idea but it's a good starting point for a crude estimate of total uranium in 

the

surface layer of the country.



Since our good friend Norm Cohen in an earlier post stated a rough estimate 

of

military action in Iraq having scattered 75 tons of depleted uranium rounds 

in

Iraq, by my estimate derived above the uranium content of Iraq's surface one

meter of soil will have been increased by an average of less than 0.0004 

percent

on average.



Stewart Farber

farbersa@optonline.net

==============



5/18/03 5:10:34 AM, Bjorn Cedervall <bcradsafers@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:



 >>Have you made any progress on Otto's question about calculating the 

amount

 >of naturally occurring uranium in Iraq?

 >

 >---

 >Here is an estimate of the magnitude - please double check, critisize or

 >correct

 >if necessary (I am doing the calculation directly on the sqreen as I am

 >typing this):

 >

 >Area of Iraq: 434,925 km2 = approx 4.34 E11 m2.

 >

 >Amount of uranium and thorium in a "typical English garden" taken from my

 >memory of the video film by and with Lord Marshall some 15 years ago:

 >8 kg - I am uncertain about the relative parts but it may be 2 kg U + 6 kg

 >Th.

 >The garden was given for a depth of 1 m and an area of 10 m x 40 m.

 >

 >For a depth of 0,3 m this gives us an "area density" of

 >2,4 kg/400 m2 = 0,6 kg/100 m2 = 0,006 kg/m2.

 >

 >Assume the same percentage of U and Th for Iraq as for England (I have no

 >idea

 >whether this is reasonable - can any geologist or just well read Radsafer

 >comment?)

 >

 >Finally: 4.34 E11 x 6 E-3 = 2.6 E9 kg = 2.6 E6 tons.

 >

 >Now if 25 % of that is uranium we would land somewhere around 0,6 E6 tons.

 >

 >My personal initiative only,

 >

 >Bjorn Cedervall         bcradsafers@hotmail.com

 >

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