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On Fri 1 Jul 1994, A.APPLEYARD wrote: > A large power station has its own scuba diving club among its staff and employees. Many of its diving weights are about twice as heavy for their size as lead (handy, they use less space for the same weight), and sound different when tapped, and are warm to the touch. What sort of power station is it? Richard Servadei replied:- You wouldn't happen to know were I could get some depleted Uranium 238 from, would you ? Iraq perhaps ... North Korea . Someone told me they use it in airforce planes for ballast . It's supposed to be ok as long as you dont powder it ( so they say ). On Sat 2 Jul 94 20:03:04 +1000, ROB CASON <rcason@oz*.co*.au*> replied: I believe that it is also used in the projectiles fired from Naval CIWS Close In Weapons Systems) such as Phalanx and Goal Post. Rob Oh do they!?!?!? Inexcusable waste of our future energy resources!!! The world needs energy, and when natural fresh uranium runs short, we will have to reprocess old fuel; and then when natural U-235 runs short we will need all possible U-238 to have been kept in store so it is available to be put in a fsst breeder and turned to Pu-239 to use as reactor fuel to make power. (And after that, to breed thorium-232 to U-233.) By reprocessing and breeding, the supply of nuclear energy can last up to 100 times more! I am sorry to flame about a matter unconnected with diving, but I feel angry about wasting more and more of the world's fresh uranium using only 0.7% of it (the natural U-235 in it) and throwing the rest away as AMMUNITION!!! when our grandchildren will need it as Pu-239 in power stations to make electric power for their lives <including> to run scuba gear factories and diving centres and public transport to diving sites. Plutonium has become a `dragon-word' because of its misuse in atom bombs. It is perfectly good reactor fuel. E.g. Sellafield in Cumbria in UK is already making imitation slightly-enriched uranium oxide called `MOX' by mixing some plutonium with natural or depleted uranium. If we don't need the U-238 now, KEEP IT ASIDE FOR LATER!!, if you want mass electric power supply to last so that your great grandchildren can live in a world with enough power to support enough industry to support scuba diving. There is the next decade to consider, and the next decades, and the next century, and the centuries after that, and the millenia after that, and in all that time the world will need power.
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