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Uranium Munitions - devastation to our planet and humanity



How America Nukes Its Own Troops

The Horrible Truth About U.S. Military's Use of Depleted Uranium




"I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville,
that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth;
to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them,
is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself."


– Philip Berrigan


"Up to 1,300 million people have been killed, maimed or diseased by nuclear power
since it's inception. The industry's figures massively underestimate the real cost
of nuclear power, in an attempt to hide its victims from the world.."


-- Dr. Rosalie Bertell --


Planet Earth As Weapon and Target

by Leuren Moret



"Depleted uranium weapons are an unacceptable threat to life,
a violation of international law, and an assault on human dignity.
We have an obligation to do what is right for our servicemen and women,
for our children and our grandchildren, and for all citizens of the world.
We must ban the use of depleted uranium in our military and worldwide;
we must provide medical care to all DU casualties; and we must clean up
all the places where we've used this poison that has the power to kill
for countless generations, far into the future."

– Dennis J. Kucinich



"Depleted (DU) uranium is one of the largest categories of radioactive waste produced for the nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor industry. It is highly toxic to humans, both chemically as a heavy metal and radiologically as an alpha particle emitter which is very dangerous when taken internally. . . When used in war, the DU bursts into flame from the impact when it hits a target. It can pierce tanks and armoured cars, releasing inside of them a deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything seen before. It can kill everyone in a tank. This ceramic aerosol is much lighter than uranium dust. It can travel in air tens of kilometres from the point of release, or be stirred up in dust and resuspended in air with wind or human movement. It is very small and can be breathed in by anyone: a baby, pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick. This radioactive ceramic can stay deep in the lungs for years, irradiating the tissue with powerful alpha particles within about a 30 micron sphere, causing emphysema and/or fibrosis. The ceramic can also be swallowed and do damage to the gastro-intestinal tract. In time, it penetrates the lung tissue and enters into the blood stream. It can be stored in liver, kidney, bone or other tissues, again for years, irradiating all of the delicate tissues located near its storage place. It can effect the blood, which is the basis of our immune system, and do damage to the renal system as it is eventually excreted in the urine. It can also initiate cancer or promote cancers which have been initiated by other carcinogens."

- Dr. Rosalie Bertell


Occupational Hazards of War

Questions About DU and GULF WAR SYNDROME Not Yet Answered

by Rosalie Bertell

Above link is to article published by the International Journal of Health Services,
Volume 36, Number 3, Pages 503–520, 2006 © 2006, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.



"NO SAFE DOSE"


May 11, 1999, John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology, one of the leaders of the "Plutonium Group" at the University of California, Berkeley, (which managed to isolate the first milligram of plutonium from irradiated uranium), wrote: "By any reasonable standard of biomedical proof, there is no safe dose, which means that just one decaying radioactive atom can produce permanent mutation in a cell's genetic molecules. My own work showed this in 1990 for xrays, gamma rays, and beta particles (Gofman 1990: Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure). For alpha particles, the logic of no safe dose was confirmed experimentally in 1997 by Tom K. Hei and co-workers at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) Vol.94, pp.3765-3770, April 1997, 'Mutagenic Effects of a Single and an Exact Number of Alpha Particles in Mammalian Cells')."

For the entire statement, see:
"Letter of Concern"
from Dr. John Gofman



Depleted Uranium resource links:

November 13, 2008
Israeli Bombs-Uranium Source at Shelled Site?

July 8, 2008 - Item 2
Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens - Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD

“The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable,
and a crime against humanity. Consequently the citizens of the world
and all governments must force cessation of uranium weapons use."


-- Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD

May 23, 2007 - Item 2
Hawaii Depleted Uranium - US Army has contaminated paradise

November 8, 2006 - Item 3
From DU to Uranium Munitions to a Dying Planet
- - What’s the relationship between 9/11 and DU?
- - Bob Nichols on weaponized uranium gas

February 27, 2006 - Item 3
DU SCANDAL EXPLODES

- - The Queen's Death Star: Depleted Uranium Measured in British Atmosphere
from Battlefields in the Middle East
by Leuren Moret

The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured
in the atmosphere in Britain, were transported on air currents
from the Middle East and Central Asia; of special significance
were those from the Tora Bora bombing in Afghanistan in 2001,
and the "Shock & Awe" bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003.

October 14, 2005 - Item 2
The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children

August 9, 2005 - Item 1
Depleted Uranium is WMD

February 2, 2005 - Item 2
High Uranium Levels Found in Troops and Civilians

October 11, 2004 - Item 1
- - Daughter of Soldier Contaminated with Depleted Uranium

August 30, 2004 - Item 4
Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets

August 12, 2004 - Item 4
"The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children"

March 22, 2004 - Item 3
Kucinich to reveal details of secret U.S. nuclear wars

February 16, 2004 - Item 6
First award for depleted uranium poisoning claim

July 22, 2003 - Item 2
Mysterious Diseases Haunt U.S. Troops In Iraq

June 5, 2003 - Item 1
The Silent Genocide from America

May 24, 2003 - Item 3
When DU Burns Through a Target

May 3, 2003 - Item 3
Kennedy Warns on Nuclear Tests

April 30, 2003 - Item 4
When the Depleted Uranium dust settles

April 21, 2003 - Item 2
Royal Society Urges DU Clean-Up In Iraq

April 15, 2003 - Item 1
US rejects Iraq DU clean-up

March 13, 2003 - Item 6
Pentagon Seeks Freedom to Pollute Land, Air and Sea

February 27, 2003 - Item 2
The War Against Ourselves - an Interview with Major Doug Rokke

February 27, 2003 - Item 2
The War Against Ourselves - an Interview with Major Doug Rokke

January 9, 2003 - Item 1
Afghanistan: The Nuclear Nightmare Starts

January 4, 2003 - Item 1
Doug Rokke - Depleted Uranium - War Hazard

December 7, 2002 - Items 1 & 2
O death, where is your sting? Phil Berrigan's Last Statement * U.S. Gulf War 'crime'

November 11, 2002 - Item 3
Veteran Doug Rokke and Depleted Uranium

January 9, 2001 - Item 3
Maybe Iraq Is Right Re Depleted Uranium

Also, read this statment (next to last item, near the botton of the page) from an April 23, 1999 Cassini NoFlyby newlestter:
Dr. Rosalie Bertell on Depleted Uranium [DU] Weapons

For updated extensive resources on DU, Major Doug Rokke, Gulf War Casualties, and 'Depleted' Uranium, see:
Traprock Peace on DU

The National Gulf War Resource Center:
www.ngwrc.org

Veterans for Common Sense:
www.veteransforcommonsense.org



Britain used DU in 1950s 'nuclear guinea pig' tests
SUNDAY HERALD [Glasgow]
By Rob Edwards Environment Editor

Tonnes of depleted uranium (DU), the toxic radioactive metal blamed for causing cancers in the Gulf and Balkan wars, were blasted into the environment by Britain's nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific and Australia in the 1950s, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The disclosure has shocked veterans of the nuclear tests, who now suspect that DU may be implicated in the illnesses that many of them have suffered in the years since. And scientists are calling for the government to reopen its inquiry into the health of the 21,000 British servicemen who took part in the tests on Christmas Island and at Maralinga in the Australian desert.

'It beggars belief,' said Sheila Gray, the secretary of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association. 'They gave us the impression that DU had never been used before the Gulf war and now it turns out it was used in the 1950s. It's yet another hazard our men had to face.'

Last week the Sunday Herald revealed that the government had a top-secret plan, code-named Operation Lighthouse, to put hundreds of British and Australian troops 'as close as possible' to nuclear explosions at Maralinga in 1959 to test the effects of the bomb. On Wednesday, that prompted the Australian federal government to launch an inquiry into whether servicemen had been used as radiation guinea pigs.

Bruce Scott, the veterans affairs minister, was seeking an urgent briefing on 50 classified documents posted on the internet which outlined the planned operation. He is also investigating another disclosure by the Sunday Herald in April that two dozen soldiers tested protective clothing by crawling, marching or driving through a fall-out zone three days after a nuclear test at Maralinga in 1956.

The first confirmation that DU was present in the Pacific tests came in a private letter last month from the Ministry of Defence to a Scottish veteran from Fraserburgh, Bob Brown. 'There were quantities of depleted uranium used in the weapons tested at Christmas Island,' wrote an MoD officialfrom Whitehall. The official said that much of the DU would have been consumed in the nuclear explosion, but that some would have been shot upwards in a fireball and contained in the mushroom cloud. Brown, who was at Christmas Island in 1957 and 1958 and now chairs a veterans' research group known as G2, feared that DU could turn out to be the cause of much illness.

The uranium was wrapped around the core of bombs to boost their yield because it was cheap and available, said Brown. 'But they have kept it under wraps until now. I believe the MoD knew about the effects of the weapons, including DU, long before the Gulf war but they kept it quiet.'

Evidence that DU was also used at Maralinga came in an e-mail to an Australian veteran, Major Alan Batchelor, from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. The agency's Geoff Williams said that more than eight tonnes of uranium was 'dispersed' by explosions at Maralinga. The British government had admitted that this consisted of 7.4 tonnes at Kuli, 47.3kg at Taranaki and the rest at a series of 'minor trials'.

The uranium, which included both the 235 and 238 isotopes, 'formed very fine particles under implosion'. According to Batchelor, the British bombs contained up to 20 times as much uranium as plutonium. 'These materials, when vaporised in the fireball, would condense out as finely divided invisible oxides of these metals, potentially lethal or capable of causing cancer in the lung, liver, kidney or blood-forming bone marrow.'

The uranium from a bomb would form much smaller particles than the DU from a shell and would be easier to inhale, argued Batchelor. If DU had harmed soldiers in the Gulf, he said, 'this could have been worse for servicemen working in areas close to ground zeros (the sites of nuclear explosions), and with no follow-up action would have gone unnoticed.' However, last week the MoD argued that there was no comparison between the DU used in armour-piercing shells during the Gulf and Balkan wars in the past decade and that exploded in nuclear tests during the 1950s. Except in the most extreme circumstances, the metal posed no significant threat to human health, a spokeswoman claimed. But Malcolm Hooper, emeritus professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, disagreed. 'You can't distribute small aerosol particles of DU and then deny there is a hazard,' he said. 'They are trying to belittle what is a serious problem.'


Please note above article and following items were originally posted, May 31, 2001.

2) White House says nuclear reactors in US could double
3) Solar Festival in Vermont
4) Technology Development for Sustainable Energy Generation




2) White House says nuclear reactors in US could double
USA: May 18, 2001

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said yesterday the United States could increase its use of nuclear power by doubling the number of reactors at many nuclear power plant sites already licensed by the federal government.

As part of its recommendations for a comprehensive national energy policy unveiled by President George W. Bush in St. Paul, Minnesota, a White House task force said building more nuclear reactors at existing locations avoids "many complex issues" associated with finding new sites.

"Many U.S. nuclear plant sites were designed to host four to six reactors, and most operate only two or three; many sites across the country could host additional plants," the task force said in its report to Bush.

There are currently 103 nuclear reactors operating in 31 states. Nuclear energy accounts for 20 percent of all U.S. electricity generation and more than 40 percent of power generation in 10 states.

No new nuclear plants have been built since the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant, where the failure of the plant's water cooling system led to the partial melting of a reactor's uranium core. That $1 billion accident effectively halted the U.S. nuclear industry in its tracks.

Some environmental groups have said they will try to block any new nuclear plants.

In addition to safety issues, the green groups contend that a key problem is what to do with all the highly radioactive waste from the 103 plants now in operation.

The cabinet-level task force said about 12,000 megawatts of additional nuclear electricity generation could be derived from "uprating" plants, a process that uses new technologies and methods to increase the level that a plant could operate without decreasing safety.

One megawatt provides enough power for about 1,000 homes.

The task force recommended that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission speed the approval process for licensing new nuclear reactors that use advance technologies. The report also said the agency should facilitate the industry's efforts to expand power generation by uprating existing nuclear plants safely.

Many nuclear utilities are planning to extend their licenses for another 20 years, and the task force said the administration should encourage the NRC to relicense existing nuclear plants that meet or exceed safety standards.

As many as 90 percent of the licenses for current operating plants may be renewed, the task force said.

Separately, the task force said 2,000 megawatts of power could be added by increasing the operating performance of nuclear plants to 92 percent capacity, up slightly from the current industry average of 90 capacity.

The White House panel acknowledged that storing spent fuel from nuclear reactors remains a problem and urged the administration to use the "best science" when deciding on a permanent waste storage site.

The task force made no recommendation on where a storage site should be located, but noted the administration will continue to study whether spent nuclear fuel should be stored at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

It also urged Congress to renew the Price-Anderson Act, which expires in August 2002 and shields nuclear power plants from catastrophic liability costs.

A nuclear industry trade group praised the White House energy report.

"The White House rightly has recognized that nuclear energy plays an essential role in helping our nation achieve its economic and environmental goals," said Joe Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute. "It sends an important message to Wall Street ... that national policy at the highest level envisions continuing and even greater reliance on nuclear power as part of our long-term energy strategy."

Story by Tom Doggett
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE



3) Solar Festival in Vermont

SolarFest: Energy Education Through the Arts is a homegrown 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to sustainable living. SolarFest's Seventh Annual Solar-Powered Music Festival and Sustainable Future Fair -- July 14 and 15, 2001, is a weekend celebration of the performing arts, renewable energy, and sustainable living, featuring over 25 performers on two solar-powered stages, Chelsea Green's Convocation of the Invisible Universe (presentations by their authors and friends), and over 16 workshops on renewable energy topics. There will also be over 25 sustainable future exhibitors, a singer/songwriter competition, story tellers, open mic, Frank Asch's Theater-in-the-woods, children's activity tent, solar site tours, food and craft vendors, and more. For complete performer and workshop descriptions, directions and ticket prices, please visit the website at SolarFest.org



4) Technology Development for Sustainable Energy Generation

Stirling engines are external combustion engines that can use most any fuel (including biomass, solar, geothermal, fossil or anything that produces heat), and can drive a generator for onsite electrical power. Stirling engines are inherently efficient, since they use regenerators that recycle heat back to the power stroke of its piston. The following article was recently published on the developmental efforts of an early stage company seeking to revolutionize the power industry with cost-effective onsite power generation that could significantly reduce pollution entering our atmosphere. Who needs nukes when you have innovative technologies dating back 200 years waiting to be developed for today's energy and environmental standards.

= = = = = = = = =

Athol company on cutting edge with 200-year-old engine concept
May 24, 2001 The Recorder, Greenfield, MA, page 1.

By RICHIE DAVIS
Recorder Staff

ATHOL -- Try to imagine an unlikely setting for a high-tech, energy-efficient engine. You'd be hard-pressed to come up with anything that beats the old vise factory here where Ricardo Conde and company are revving up their Stirling engine prototype.

In fact, it's hard to imagine how the Stirling engine -- a nearly 200-year-old contraption that once powered tractors and fell into disuse when the internal combustion engine came into vogue -- can be looked on as innovative at all.

This is an EXTERNAL combustion engine, which Conde and other principals in Stirling Advantage Inc. have rescued from the automotive uses that have attracted most researchers over the years.

Instead, the 6-year-old company has been working on developing a Stirling engine to generate 200-kilowatts of power for hospitals, hotels, factories and similar uses. It produces both heat and electricity, can be fueled with solar power, biomass, natural gas or other fuels and gives off low nitrous emissions.

``We said, `Let's forget trying to make it fit under the hood of a car and (instead) make it for what it's best suited,''' said Conde, who hopes to have 20 test model generators ready in about a year or two, if he can raise the capital. So far, they've spent about $1 million researching and developing the technology he sees as Stirling gold.

Conde is among the participants in this afternoon's renewable energy Tour de Sol-related Green Futures workshops at Greenfield Community College. He is the 40-year-old president and chief executive officer of Stirling Advantage. With training at New York City Technical College, Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and Parsons School of Design, the New Salem resident has had a lifelong interest in technology development and worked with Athol's solar-power research octogenarian, Alvin Marks, before turning to optical films and polarizers and ultimately the engine first invented in 1816 by Scottish minister Robert Stirling.

Using a heat source external to the engine, his invention pushes a power piston when hot air expands, not unlike the exploding gases inside a car engine pushing a piston. The Stirling engine's 16 percent greater potential efficiency -- allegedly the highest of any heat engine -- comes from using heat exchangers to cool the hot expanded gas while retaining some of that heat to power the next cycle. Those pushes of the piston are converted to mechanical motion by rods and a flywheel, and eventually drive an electric generator. The heat that is recovered in the cooling cycle then can be recycled, to heat a building, for example. (In a car's internal combustion engine much of that heat is simply wasted through hot exhaust and the radiator.)

Stirling Advantage began focusing on the technology 3$B%)(B years ago, after consulting with a team of businesses trying to develop a 2-megawatt generator for a building on New York's Times Square, Conde said.

The project proved too expensive, ``but we realized there were flaws in the basic premise of using the technology,'' said Conde. By reworking a Swedish military design, Conde was able to home in on a plan based on industrial rather than automotive needs.

While other Stirling developers are busy working on solar-powered 25-kilowatt generators that require a 35-foot dish to capture the sun's rays, the Athol team is concentrating on a much larger generator that burns natural gas in the United States and biomass in Third World countries. Biomass is fuel derived from corn, wood or other crops, or from methane gases from landfills, for example.

Using the power directly, along with heat, makes this technique much more efficient, said Conde. Instead of driving up costs through transmission of electricity from a central generating plant or storing the electricity produced, Conde said, ``Our solution is just don't generate the power when you don't need it.''

Lowering the combustion rate to reduce nitrous oxide emissions, Stirling Advantage's design produces drastically less pollution than an internal-combustion engine. The design also introduces a hydraulic motor rather than depending on a crankshaft.

``So far, it's all theoretical,'' said Conde. ``But these are all improvements of a state-of-the-art design. Most people are scared to take the approach we are: to get into a 200-kilowatt should require millions and millions of dollars for research. We can do it for $1 million. That's what makes people very skeptical.''

After manufacturing a 20-kilowatt, one-cylinder demonstration engine for testing over the next couple of months, the company plans to begin turning out 20 test models of the 200-kilowatt size -- 6-by-6-foot engines that are about 8-feet high -- to customers that are already lined up, said Conde. One of those customers is the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

In about two years, if funding works out, the company hopes to turn out engines at a wholesale price of $90,000, or about $450 per kilowatt. Those models can get as large as 800 kilowatts before the company has to begin manufacturing components, Conde said, and can get as large as 5 megawatts before the technology becomes impractical.

But with potential applications seen at landfills-- where methane gases could generate power as the engine's heat helps evaporate lechates $B!&(Band sewage treatment plants, as well as factories, hotels and hospitals, Conde believes there's a ready market for technology that's been easier to develop than to capitalize.

With the aim of raising an additional $7 million in investment over the next two years, he says, ``As always, a lot of big people want to get involved, but they want to see it first.''

* Richie Davis
The Recorder
rdavis@recorder.com

*For additional information, visit ReGen Power Systems web site!


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