Mediterranean Sea To Possibly Become Site of Chemical Weapons Dump 174
An anonymous reader writes "The organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has proposed destroying at least 1000 tons of the confiscated Syrian chemical weapon stockpile out at sea, which some fear will destroy delicate ecosystems vital to sea and human life alike. The OPCW claims the plan is 'technically feasible' and is apparently willing to risk ecological disaster to destroy the toxic contents of the weaponry in or above the sea. Members of the press were told, 'the group is considering whether to destroy the chemical weapons in the ocean, either on a ship or by loading them onto an offshore rig.'"
Send them to mars (Score:5, Funny)
send them to washington DC (Score:4, Insightful)
unlike DC, we're still not sure if there's intelligent life on mars.
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unlike DC, we're still not sure if there's intelligent life on mars.
I see multiple errors with that statement, as it's got multiple parsing options. First, if we all "unlike" DC, it'll still have a FaceBook preference.
Next, not quite sure what the official name of a "dangling prepositional phrase" is, but you could read that is "DC is sure there's life on Mars even though we aren't" as opposed to "we're sure there's no intelligent life in DC."
Meanwhile, what sort of /. moron thinks "Insightful" means either "funny" or "agrees with my political point of view"?
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There are worse places than the Fukushima area. Several places in what used to be the Soviet Union are badly contaminated, some so bad that it's still a state secret.
No matter where you dump it - it will be a problem. A closed off area that is already contaminated or rendered unusable would be the best.
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No matter where you dump it - it will be a problem. Really nasty crap could be disposed of by packing it into (very) rugged barrels and dropping into a deep ocean trench, over times the waste will be sucked back into the Earth's mantle along with the ocean floor and everything on it. Japan has one such trench running along it's east coast. The problem with this solution is expense, governments will gladly spend trillions to create this scourge on humanity, but will bicker for decades about spending a few million to clean up the mess.
Also, as a self-proclaimed "greenie" since the 70's I see nothing wrong with hunting whales for food, it becomes a problem when they are hunted to the point of extinction. The Japanese factory ships are "bad PR", they take few whales but are a potent reminder of the bad old days, people in general are much less disturbed by natives doing the same thing in a deer skin canoe.
The environment ultimately provides everything for mankind, for example the Atlantic and North sea Cod fisheries have basically collapsed due to overfishing, it will be a century or more before they return to the bounty the provided to both the US and Europe during the 19th and early 20th century. Our oceans could be alive with fish again. If just 5% of the world's reefs were to become (patrolled) marine parks then the fishing industry might have something to do again in 10-20yrs. Having said that I've worked on a multi-million dollar fishing trawler in the "roaring 40's" (circa 1980), the owner is not interested in tomorrow, he wants to "Fill up the hold and feed his kids today!".
As for the Japan bashing, can I know your country of origin? Nothing personal, I just need someone to blame for all the fucked up shit that emanates from where ever you live.
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I didn't know that 'destroy' is another word for 'dump.'
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You can't just use any area, it has to be somewhere that is geologically stable and offers a way to bury the waste at a reasonable cost. You can't keep it above ground because no building can be reasonably expected to last long enough. We are talking about 100,000+ years storage here.
Contaminated areas are not easy to build in because of the contamination. Excavating a large underground area would be hard enough, but before you even start you have to do extensive geological surveys. We already know that Fuk
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That's true even for buildings vastly more complex than the pyramids! The Pantheon in Rome is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, and it's almost 2000 years old.
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There are not "dumping" the chemicals. They want to build a secure, floating, facility for destroying the chemicals. Building this facility in an environmentally sensitive area doesn't seem that bright. I would have expected it to be better to build it somewhere dry, like an isolated desert.
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There are not "dumping" the chemicals. They want to build a secure, floating, facility for destroying the chemicals. Building this facility in an environmentally sensitive area doesn't seem that bright. I would have expected it to be better to build it somewhere dry, like an isolated desert.
Transportation is a problem, one which is somewhat tied to security. A floating facility makes sense because you only have to transport the chemicals to the coast. Securing such a facility is easier as well.
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So what you're saying is that a literal drop in the ocean isn't good enough to be a figurative drop in the ocean?
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I was thinking of shooting Sol with them, but I fear we'd fuck up somewhere and it'll phoenix out of the star all ISON-like, if the rocket doesn't blow up en launchpad first.
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For reference, it takes less deltaV to reach Alpha Centauri than Sol.
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Assuming you're in a perfectly circular orbit around something with no atmosphere, if you shoot a bullet directly at it (perpendicular to orbit), the bullet will still keep losing altitude - because what other relative force would t
Re:Send them to mars (Score:5, Informative)
Short answer is "no". Orbital mechanics don't work like that. (Big disclaimer- I'm not an expert, and while what I'm about to type should be basically correct, I can't guarantee (at this time in the morning) that I haven't made some mistakes).
Your basic mistake is assuming that the bullet you're firing is stationary before you fire it, so all you're having to do is propel it towards it's target. It isn't. The bullet (and the gun, and the marksman) are all orbiting the sun at 29.8 km/s (which is the speed that the Earth is orbiting at). By "orbiting at 29.8 km/s", what we mean is "travelling in such a way as to miss the Sun at 29.8 km/s". So if you want your bullet to hit the Sun, you need to cause it to stop doing that- you need it to lose 29.8 km/s of orbital speed. I know you were only using it as a metaphor, but for reference- a bullet from a typical gun travels (i.e. changes velocity) at less than 0.5 km/s.
Counter intuitively, travelling to Alpha Centauri would be much easier (although of course it would take a long time!). Solar escape velocity starting from Earth is only 42.1 km/s, which means that you only need to at ~13 km/s before you're away from the Sun's gravitational grip. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, Earth's orbital velocity is already quite fast, so getting to escape velocity means adding a relatively small amount (albeit to get to an overall high speed). Secondly, gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance- that is, moving 100 km closer to the sun will increase the gravity you experience by more than moving 100 km away from the sun will decrease it. Without getting into the messy details of it, this means that the necessary changes in velocity get sharper the closer you get to the sun- hence why Earth (which seems quite close to the Sun, in the grand scheme of things) is in a stable orbit at 29.8 km/s, but could escape completely for a mere 13 km/s more.
Clear as crystal?
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Works for me, but, I also played way too much Kerbal Space Program. I think XKCD described it best: http://xkcd.com/1291/ [xkcd.com] at least in the alt text:
"Shoot for the Moon. If you miss, you'll end up co-orbiting the Sun alongside Earth, living out your days alone in the void within sight of the lush, welcoming home you left behind."
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If you've got an object in the same orbit as Earth, can't you just reduce its tangential velocity a little bit (say, 10% or so) and wait for it to spiral into the Sun? Or would it do something else, like stabilize at a closer orbit or slingshot or something?
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Or would it do something else, like stabilize at a closer orbit or slingshot or something?
That's it exactly. If you were to fire your gun in the perfect direction to maximise the likelihood of getting the bullet to the Sun, all you will do is reduce the bullet's orbital velocity by 0.5 km/s. That is, instead of orbiting the Sun at 29.8 km/s, it will now be orbiting the Sun at 29.3 km/s. The upshot of which, it will still be a completely stable orbit, only marginally closer to the Sun than the shooter is.
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I like the other responses explanation but try this one too.... the sun is a moving target. If your delta-V is fixed (so you have a fixed final speed relative to your starting position but, can choose the direction) ie, you have a gun, a gun which can bring an object to earth escape velocity. Score.
Now you are shooting a moving target, so you have to lead it. The faster its moving, and further away it is, the more you need to lead it. The required lead angle is directly proportional to both relative speed a
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How do you detonate something in an anaerobic environment?
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Easily, most explosives don't require air, even black powder comes with its own oxidizer, and others don't even require that. In High school we were shown the decomposition reaction for nitroglycerin (or as the teacher used to point out: if you follow normal naming conventions it is glycerol trinitrate). No oxidation needed, one big unstable molecule that is liquid at normal temps/pressures breaks down into 6 smaller molecules which are in gaseous.... resulting pressure change is just immense.
Or.... even ea
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Short answer: https://kerbalspaceprogram.com// [kerbalspaceprogram.com]. Not completely accurate, but a great way to learn basic orbital mechanics anyway.
Long answer: no, because you're moving sideways and so will the bullet. If you were to shoot a bullet towards the Sun
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Re:Send them to mars (Score:5, Informative)
here's a nice summary:
http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/shooting_for_the_sun/ [csicop.org]
From Earth's surface it only takes 16 km/sec to reach escape velocity for Sun (and your rocket can just fall into Alpha Centauri) because Earth's velocity around Sun gives you head start, but from earth's surface it takes 32 km/sec to cancel Earth's orbital velocity and reach Sun.
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How much would that cost for 30-40.000 tons?
About 500 Delta 4-Heavy rockets would suffice to do the job.
Only 20 rocket failures to be expected according to current failure rates. (1 in 23)
Compared to filling an old ship with the stuff and sinking it like the US, Russia and the rest have been doing it for 60 years.
http://www.environet.eu/pub/pubwis/rura/00232.pdf [environet.eu]
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Umm, no.
A Delta 4-heavy can't put 60-80 tons into anything other than Low Earth Orbit. And things in LEO do eventually come back down unless you give them a boost now and then....
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Let's see, take an old reliable workhorse like Delta II. It can take about 2,200lb outside Earth orbit, so it would need about 100 launches to lift 100 tonnes of Syrian chemical weapons, at $50 million per launch. The success rate of Delta II (most reliable ever) is about 98%.
So if we are willing to spend $5 billion and live with the likelihood of two launch failures, possibly spreading chemical agents all over the place, we could do it. Or we can just dump it into the sea.
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an easier way. place the stuff on the launch pad and press launch... I don't think they even have any weapons that would do much if released at several kilometers up.
Re:Send them to mars (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/shooting_for_the_sun/ [csicop.org]
This is why Sol is the worst target possible.
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Assuming no atmosphere if you want to get from a perfectly circular orbit around an object to the objects surface and you don't care about surviving you don't have to reduce your velocity. All you have to do is to head directly towards the object (perpendicular to orbit). Barring outside interference (other objects) there would be no force increasing your altitude so you will eventually crash at a hi
Re:Send them to mars (Score:4, Informative)
No, you have not studied orbital mechanics and so make hilarious statements. Let's pretend we're looking at the solar system as a "clock" in your living room, from the north star's direction, looking south. The earth is moving counter-clockwise and is at 6 o'clock, when you launch your rocket "right at the sun". so your rocket picks up speed in the upward, 12 o'clock direction, even while it still has velocity to the right that it got from earth. Your rocket initially moves inside earth's orbit but in direction of say 2 oclock. By the time earth gets to 3'oclock, your rocket has previously crossed earth's orbit and is flying off the clock upward and to the right, past your ceiling and if it hasn't reached solar escape velocity winds up in a cool orbit from up and to the right, down into the dial of your clock, around the center somewhat inside the dial (moving very fast) and then slowing as it goes up and to the right again.
The right way? Against the orbit, before six o'clock we fire to the left and lose most the earth's delta-v, and fall into or near the center. That's the most expensive orbit to make from earth, one that is close to the Sun. Leaving the solar system only takes half the velocity.
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The rocket won't fly off any more than the earth will.
Say you launch something at the sun at 100kph (while going around at orbit speed) and then you cut the rockets. Relative to the sun there's will be no increase in orbit speed except from whatever it gets from reducing its altitude relative to the sun (potential energy), but as you get lower you need higher and higher speeds to maintain orbit. There is no other force except from the sun and that is always towards the sun's direction. So how can it fly off
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I'm slightly confused. Mostly because I don't see the need to 1. get the payload into the sun immediately and 2. get the payload into the sun period. As far as I'm concerned I don't see much value in attempting to keep most of the space between Earth and Sol clear of debris so if the delta-v necessary to get a payload into an orbit around Sol is cost effective, then why not?
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we send probes including our solar-weather ones there, even inside the orbit of Mercury (Helios A and B for example). But it takes more energy to just reach Mercury than to launch something out of the solar system
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YES!!!!!!!!!!
And that's the *hard* bit - you have to cancel *all* of our orbital speed, which is huge.
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That's only the case if you want to go into a controlled orbit very close to the sun. But we don't want to do that.
To crash something into the sun, we'd be happy with any orbit which is elliptical enough such that the perihelion is inside the sun's radius. We don't care what velocity we have at that point, even if it's theoretically high enough to send us back out to the orbit of Earth (or even Neptune) on the other side of the orbit, because the act of hitting the surface of the sun will remove any problem
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launchpad explosion might be actually a good way to neutralize a lot of the agents though? mustard gas disintegrates at fairly low temperature, sarin they could just not mix up(I'd guess they would have used the shells that mix it up in flight..).
and mediterranean becoming a "dump" implies that they would be just dumping them there, instead of converting them to less hazardous material. it's not like their chemical weapon of choice was polonium anyways. most of the stuff is relatively easy to convert into s
Not going to ... (Score:2)
We'll never go.
That's probably true of the Mediterranean Sea, for many middle-income families in North America.
...
... Of course, that's not the only consideration
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Nah. It would be cheaper just o release them in a major Chinese city where no one will notice the difference.
Homeopathic Terrorism! (Score:5, Funny)
Its a trap! They are trying to kill us all!
Iran has some nasty toxic natural gas wells. (Score:3, Interesting)
Iran has some nasty toxic natural gas wells.
They are not alone but pyrolysis using these H2S rich poison gas feeds
could just burn the stuff up.
A strong draft up a tall stack maintained by a natural gas burner could
keep any dis-assembly location in a negative pressure condition and
burn up almost any toxic gas. Many toxic gas weapons have a minimum
bursting charge and may simply be detonated on a sand pit in a largish
coffin , think reactor containment vessel.
Sulfuric acid recovered could be used to detoxify the pit. Fuse up the
weapon.... roll it down a ramp.... a min later thump and the fumes are
pulled up the stack.
Sure stuff could go wrong but the risks seem to be the lesser of evils.
Yes time is an issue, building something like this might take a lot of time
say 3-5 years but there is no EPA in Syria so perhaps 14 months.
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That's pretty scrump.
Isn't there a way of destroying them in place (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no good place on land or sea to dump this stuff, unless maybe the Russians accepted huge sums of money for dumping in Siberia.
Destroy the munitions in place with the proper personnel on hand to verify the destruction.
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Destroy the munitions in place with the proper personnel on hand to verify the destruction.
I tought that was the main point for which they took them from Syria: to stop destroying them by dumping on civilian population under army/insurgents (not sure which) supervision.
Not a good one: (Score:2)
It's difficult to set up that kind of large scale destruction facility safely in the middle of a war zone.
Add to that: There are people on the various sides who would be sorely tempted to shoot up the place and release the chemicals while wearing the uniforms etc of the other side.
The alternative is putting in a large and well armed security force (read that as some nation's troops) to stop the war.
The whole course of the past two years of UN and other negotiations have revolved around not being able to do
the key word is "destroy" (Score:2)
Sounds like they aren't planning on just dumping the weapons into the ocean, they are going to literally destroy them. As another poster said, probably by incineration. So no, you won't be fishing up rusted nerve gas canisters.
Re:the key word is "destroy" (Score:5, Informative)
For a better and less inflammatory description of what is proposed, see http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/30/21686393-us-to-destroy-syrias-chemicals-at-sea-weapons-watchdog-says [nbcnews.com]
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Some seem's.
Re:the key word is "destroy" (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like they aren't planning on just dumping the weapons into the ocean, they are going to literally destroy them. As another poster said, probably by incineration. So no, you won't be fishing up rusted nerve gas canisters.
You hit it on the head.
The thing to balance here isn't the threat of all that stuff being dumped into the ocean, but the ecological consequences should a more-accessible site for consolidation and destruction of the weapons be attacked. An attack would almost certainly release some agent into the atmosphere, and of course should the attackers make off with any of the weapons or chemicals then you'd probably have an even larger release down the road. Despite what the Call of Duty franchise of games put forth, isolated military sites in the middle of open ocean are quite easy to defend, and make it very difficult for an attacker to abscond successfully with anything of significant weight. The defenders can easily establish a no-go zone that extends for quite some distance, and use active means (divers, passive sensors, sonar) to detect anything larger than a fish that approaches either above or below the surface. It's a lot harder to deny access to such a large area on land, and even harder still to find a country willing to accept such a large stockpile on their own territory (which means transporting the hazardous materials through their territory, starting with either a large airport or a seaport...both of which would suffer greatly in the event of a spill). This way, the materials can leave Syria and stop posing a major threat to civilians as soon as they are over the water.
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"So no, you won't be fishing up rusted nerve gas canisters."
So now how am I supposed to build up my stockpile? Being an evil genius post 9/11 is getting harder and harder these days. If it gets any worse i'll have to lay off my staff of henchmen, sell the assets to al qaeda and get a union job.
"technically feasible"? (Score:2)
They need to get with Paul Stamets (Score:2)
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just a simple gas furnace takes care mos of the compounds.
most chemical weapons are quite volatile. that's why nobody has take a continent out with them. you can't, unless you have some kind of james bond villain delivery mechanism to deploy a millions and millions of canisters.
It already is (Score:2)
Better solution: (Score:2)
How about the Dead Sea? (Score:2)
You pretty much can't cause an ecological disaster in a place that's already too toxic for life. Err.. most life.
Another Samzenpus fuckup. (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is so bad it can be considered a troll.
How dare this shit get by the editors, even on Farkdot.
Is it known what these chemicals actually are ... (Score:2)
and what the exact plan to neutralize or destroy them is?
Without that information, it is completely useless to discuss the issue of whre it will be done.
Sounds fishy... (Score:2)
obligatory xkcd (Score:2)
This will raise hell out of the premise of 1190. Or maybe not, if we view Cuegan & clan as a mutated line of posthumans.
VERY Misleading (Score:2)
Almost criminally so. No one is dumping anything in the Med (or at least one would hope not). Building the plant on a ship avoids a lot of political and public issues that might happen if you wanted to build it on land somewhere.
We (the US) dumped a HELL of a lot of chemical agents (and other dangerous stuff) into the oceans after WW II. I hope we've learned our lesson.
Why isn't destruction happening in Syria? (Score:2)
They're destroyed first...that's the whole idea (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole idea is that the chemical weapons are destroyed FIRST...they are being destroyed AT SEA, not "destroyed" by simply dumping them into the ocean.
The fact that the other blog entries hosted at the same site as TFA include:
- Rihanna Displays Illuminati Hand Gesture at Latest Music Award Performance
- SSDI Death Index: Sandy Hook 'Shooter' Adam Lanza Died One Day Before School Massacre?
- 15 Citizens Petition to Secede from the United States
- Will U.S. Troops Fire On American Citizens?
- Illuminati Figurehead Prince William Takes the Stage with Jon Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift
- Has the Earth Shifted â" Or Is It Just Me?
- Mexican Government Releases Proof of E.T.'s and Ancient Space Travel ...should give you a hint as to the veracity of the content. (And yes, I realize it's simply a blog site with a variety of authors and content.)
As should the first comment, from "LibertyTreeBud", saying:
"Why not add it to some new vaccine? Or, perhaps add it to the drinking water and feed it to the live stock? These creatures will do anything for profits. Lowest bidder mentality rules."
What "creatures", exactly? The international organization explicitly charged with the prohibition and destruction of chemical weapons? What alternatives are people suggesting, exactly?
If you want a real article discussing this situation factually, not the tripe linked in the summary, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25146980 [bbc.co.uk]
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apropos of nothing, but the "creatures" are probably "reptilians" [wikipedia.org].
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But if they're just harmless water and carbon, why do they need to be dumped beyond easy reach? Hmmmm?
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"U.S. Disposal of Chemical Weapons in the Ocean: Background and Issues for Congress"
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33432.pdf [fas.org] has a nice list of US efforts after WW2. Pages 8,9,10 gives an idea of what happens when you just 'dump'.
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Destroying the chemicals in Syria is not an acceptable option. They are still dealing with a Civil War and attempting to bring in outsiders to conduct the destruction is a problem. Syria gets the responsibility of transporting the weapons to a Syrian port (meaning Syria is taking the largest risk) where they are loaded onto a cargo ship or US military vessels with warship escorts.
No other neighboring nation would likely want the weapons transported in or across their country for fear of an accident and even
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Wow, that's incredible, I didn't even think about that.
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The average depth of the Mediterranean Sea is 1500 m, that of the Atlantic Ocean is 3900 meters, and that of the Pacific Ocean is at least 4000 m. Or the deepest piont is 5300 m, 8400 m, and 10,900 m respectively. Are you suggesting that there is any difference in suitability from a depth standpoin
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What do you think the remains will be? What part of "incinerated into their component chemical elements" do you not understand? Does the phrase "chemical element" frighten you? Are you afraid of oxygen? Carbon? Hydrogen? What do you think your body is composed of?
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why don't you then go read about chemical weapons then.
just storing them so that they don't go bad in few weeks is a chore for most. I would think the sarin shells they have don't even have sarin in them. just the two chemicals (easily acquired) to make sarin, because they have a longer shelf life.
mustard gas itself they could pump into the water.
is the whole europe wasteland? no? how come, even if they pumped a lot of these things in ww1? none of them are for long term area denial, which is part of the cha
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"The Mediterranean wasn't even there 5 or 6 million years ago"
Not sure if I understand the implications.
Are you suggesting that because the Mediterranean wasn't there 5 million years ago we shouldn't care all that much what happens to it tomorrow?
Or are you suggesting that the environmental disaster of having Syria's chemical weapons actually deployed would be smaller than the disaster of making the Mediterranean uninhabitable?
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TFA (and I emphasize the 'F') is titled "Sea hosting 100-million year old species..."
It is filled with misinformation and hyperbole. And it fails to account for the largest environmental hazard posed by these weapons: their being stolen and used by a third party, or the disposal plant being attacked, causing the uncontrolled release of the toxins. The navy can operate safely in the sea, much safer than anyone can operate a land based plant anywhere on the globe.
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"sea hosting 100-million year old species", when the sea wasn't even there 5 or 6 million years ago
Cars are built to support decades-old individuals, irrespective of the age of the car. It is not impossible that the article's statement is correct - these species could have moved...
Re:Oh yes, such a good idea.. (Score:5, Informative)
The entire article is a troll. Nobody's talking about dumping the chemical weapons into the sea. They're going to move the chemicals to a U.S. Navy ship where they'll be neutralized by incineration. By cooking them hot enough, the molecular bonds will break and all they'll be left with are the constituent elements.
Despite the scary suppositions about performing this task over the sea ("what if there's a leak???"), it's actually far safer for the world if the U.S. Navy disposes of them right there in the middle of the Med. If they wanted to dispose of them on land, they'd have a couple of challenges -- the first of which is finding a stable country willing to accept a chemical weapons processing plant. Guarding the lines hauling the weapons to the processing site would be an ongoing problem. And securing the site against local attacks is another. One thing the U.S. Navy can do very very well is guarantee the security of one of their naval ships at sea. The chemicals will have a much safer journey to neutralization than anywhere else.
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even if they did dump the stuff in the sea, there's so little of it that it would be diluted so quickly it would be entirely harmless. and chemicals like sarin and mustard gas break down very quickly in seawater.
Re:Oh yes, such a good idea.. (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently you are unfamiliar with homeopathy. If you were, you would know that diluting a substance makes it vastly more potent, not harmless. With the amount of dilution they'd be looking at, the whole planet would be quickly rendered too toxic to sustain life.
(Tongue planted firmly in cheek.)
Re:Oh yes, such a good idea.. (Score:5, Funny)
even if they did dump the stuff in the sea, there's so little of it that it would be diluted so quickly it would be entirely harmless.
Unless you're a homeopath, at which point you can make millions selling mediterranean seawater as an antidote for use in the event of a chemical attack.
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I'm confused, what does it do? there's two replies to the post both at +5!
I want my so.. homeopathy degree! does it make the ocean a killer or a cure!?
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Shame the moderation isn't homeopathic :P
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I'm confused, what does it do?
It depends on who you give it to. If the person you give it to is a gullible idiot, it'll do whatever you tell them it will do within limits of the placebo effect. Otherwise it'll do absolutely nothing.
The reason that homeopaths will tell you that it works goes something as follows:
"symptoms" are generally seen as your bodies natural defense against whatever is messing with it. e.g. if you have the flu, you get a fever as one of the symptoms. The fever is your bodies immune response to fighting the patho
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You are obviously unversed in homeopathy, all forms of dilutions of this nature are rendered "normal dosages based on chemistry" by the far more powerful and far more diluted water in the ocean. We are all rendered immune to H20 from dilutions of over 4 billion years. You'd know this if you studied harder. So hard your eyes bleed, obviously due to the diluted blood in your tears.
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Right. This is simply that it's easier to move a shipboard steam/incineration plant to where the toxics are than to move the toxics to an existing plant.
There aren't many such plants. The U.S. Army had a chemical weapons disposal plant [army.mil] until July 2013. It was closed, after it had been used to destroy the US's old stockpiles of chemical weapons. Demolition of the plant is underway.
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This is what I was thinking: people are panicking over nasty-shit-at-sea. How is disposal actually handled, what are the actual environmental impacts, etc? Imagine dumping barrels of Vitamin A into the ocean: people wouldn't bat an eye; but that shit is toxic as living hell and would cause a localized ecological disaster, possibly mass extinction. Nuclear reactor water? A thousand gallons isn't going to hurt anything; but people are panicking about how if Fukushima leaks a few liters into the ocean i
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Disposal at sea and open pit burning (both of which were practiced by the British and the Soviets) are now prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention. So they won't be dropping barrels of anything over the sides of the ship, or simply pouring the weapons into a fire. They have to be broken down carefully so that what remains is much less dangerous than what they started with.
The weapons are mostly organic compounds, so the bulk of the waste is hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. Some weapons have
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The Tooele base in Utah successfully destroyed over 13000 tons of nerve and blister agents over the last few decades, without causing any problems to the environment or the people involved. They take this with the seriousness it deserves.
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What, you want it returned to Syria? They didn't order it from China on alibaba.com, you know.
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A gov convoy arrives at your engineering site, you sign off and each load is inspected, signed off again and paperwork stamped and gov is 'happy'.
You are been paid for energy use, expert skills, time, danger, new filters, chemicals used, clean up and have a clearance level for the paperwork.
Another truck arrives and drives the
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Such a thing!
Re:Specific chemicals please? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, if you'd actually read the article, you'd see that they do in fact propose to burn it.
They simply plan to burn it 'at sea' instead of 'on land'.
Re:Specific chemicals please? (Score:4, Insightful)
Read TFA. You'll be pleasantly surprised at what they actually plan to do vs what everyone assumes they are doing.
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Why is that I only ever see 'delicate' attached to eco-system and never 'robust'?
As a species, our power is such that all eco-systems are delicate when compared to our might. And we're talking about some of the worst stuff we know how to make...
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Something just licked its chops...