Florida couple bought a Cylinder of depleted uranium at auction by mistake

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060524-124655-5463r
PALATKA, Fla., May 24 (UPI) -- A Putnam County, Fla., couple cleaning a box they bought at an auction found a cylinder with the words "depleted uranium" and "freaked out," the wife said.

Lance Greninger scraped off rust on the cylinder the size of a child's fist Tuesday to find the warning and "it went downhill from there," Susan Greninger told the Jacksonville (Fla.) Times-Union.


I cant believe some government flunky let this slip thru the cracks.:nuke:

His kind thrives on instruments of death.

W been lookin' fer dat!

don't you think? :rofl:

You can buy it without any sort of background check or anythin. It is not very radioactive.

:toast:

Why are a bunch of people having a cow over it in the Middle East where little King George is waging his un-Holy war?

that when aerosolized, can be easily inhaled, where it becomes a very significant health risk. Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, which means it is very stable.

Sid

Sid

And police Major Riddick is an ass who doesn't know what he's talking about. One would have to walk around with that cylinder in your pocket for the rest of your natural life to get radiation sickness from it, if not longer.

Psst, hey folks, your smoke alarms are radioactive also, and some of them are probably hotter than this cylinder of DU:rofl:

in an electron microscopy lab. They had all kind warnings, and we were careful to minimize potential contacts.

Not because the stuff was radioactive (although we had that kind of stuff too), but because uranium is toxic. If you think they guy's such an ass for being concerned, maybe you should take the stuff off his hands.

Scorn is a really unflattering characteristic ~ few wear it well.

Do with these observations what you will.

In a reactor no less, and while I oppose the use of nuclear energy as a power source, and have been part of many no nukes protests in my life, I still find find such unfounded hysteria to be abhorent. It is entirely too easy to use such unfounded hysteria as one more example to tar the whole anti-nuke movement as no nothing hysterics who are entirely upset over nothing. Such incidents, followed by such scorn allows the real dangers of nuclear energy to be brushed under the rug.

And frankly, if the sheriff wants to get rid of this DU, I would gladly take it off his hands. In fact I would be willing to travel down to Florida, put that cylinder in my pocket, and travel all the way back to the Midwest with it. Why, because I know how little, if any harm it would cause me. DU is primarily an alpha emitter, which is easily blocked by one's skin. The other emission from DU is beta, which is easily blocked by cloth or a piece of paper even.:shrug:

You are correct in saying that DU is toxic, like every other heavy metal on the chart. But one has to ingest or inhale it in order to become effected. It isn't absorbed through the skin, nor does it emit any noxious vapors.

And let me guess, those uranium compounds you were using, you were storing them in a DU container. After all, that is one of DU's primary civilian applications, to shield off other more active isotopes.

Again, I'm deadset against the use of nuclear power for power generation. But such hysteria as was displayed here is simply baseless fear, and actually hurts the anti-nuke cause.

Sid