The Silent Genocide From America: Depleted Uranium

Almost all M1A1 Abrams Tanks fire 120mm depleted uranium rounds.

Soldiers of the Future? Might be necessary if we are to continue DU use.

The “Silver Bullet” (30 mm DU round)

WHAT IS DEPLETED URANIUM (DU)?

Before we can analyze the ethical use of DU ammunition, it is important to first establish the technology behind DU and DU weapons. Uranium is one of the heaviest elements found in nature and is emits alpha, beta, and gamma particles. It is 1.7 times denser than lead.12 The half-life of U238 (DU is 99% U238) is 4.5 billion years!13 Uranium byproducts(such as Thorium (Th232)) have even longer half-lives, making uranium an element that gets more radioactive during its own decay process.5 Natural uranium is 99.274% U238, 0.720% U235, and 0.0055% U234.14a Uranium is enriched when its contents of U235 reaches 3.2-3.6% (since U235 is fissible). Weapon-grade uranium is +90% U235.14a What is depleted uranium? We start out with natural uranium and extract enriched uranium for nuclear fuel and weaponry. The leftover from the extraction process is something very similar to natural uranium, known as “depleted uranium”. The only difference is that DU has 0.202% of U235 and 0.0008% of U234.14a How much DU do we currently have? As of June 1998, we have around 57,800 huge steel cylinders of DU or 496,000 metric tons. 14b Storage of DU is very complicated and problematic since corrosion of DU storage cylinders often occurs over relatively short periods of time.15 >>>cont

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