Work
OK, OK.After numerous queries from folks back home, I will talk about my work. I intentionally do not talk about work on this blog because I sincerely doubt that people want to hear about it. When you read a blog it is for entertainment purposes, not information. At least, that is how I see it.
However, it appears that an unintended consequence of this approach is that a lot of people seem to think I am just goofing off over here, skiing and orienteering and sitting on my ass. So this post is hopefully going to put those impressions to rest.
Sweden has passed legislation banning lead from bullets, starting in 2008. Now, there is a good reason that lead is used in bullets: it is soft and very dense. Not a lot of metals have these properties. Two that do are gold and silver. However, the downside to using gold and silver for military ammunition applications relates to the high probability that the country using them will suffer an economic collapse. This is apparently a bit counterproductive to the defence of the nation.
The problem with lead is really a public relations one. Some forms of lead - such as tetra-ethyl lead (anti-knock agent used in gasoline up until the 1970's) - are 1) highly available and 2) easily absorbed (as fine particles or gases). Both of these make it dangerous stuff than can affect the development of children. Likewise lead-based paint was easily available and easily absorbed (when ingested by curious toddlers). Because of the nasty health effects of lead, all lead products have been painted with the same brush. However, this is not really valid. For example, bullets are nicely collected and concentrated in the berm behind shooting ranges. Shooting ranges are not generally in places where children frequently play (despite a little ditty that my friend Rob once came up with, and which has stuck with me for years:
baa baa black sheep have you any bullets?
Yes sir, yes sir, three mags full
one for the master, and one for the dame,
and one for the little boy running on the range...
The RMC biathlon team in the mid '90's was a collection of rather disturbed individuals. Happily, we all seem to have come out of it no worse for the wear.)
Where was I?
Oh, right - the availability of lead from bullets. You see, lead is remarkably resistant to dissolution except in really acidic environments. Such as your stomach. So, as long as you don't go eating any bullets you find, you should be fine. And as long as kids don't eat the bullets, they should be fine too. Dissolved lead also has the nice property of being likely to adsorb onto many kinds of soil, which means that even if a bit of it does dissolve, it does not go very far before being adsorbed and becoming immobile. Translation: lead from shooting ranges will pretty much never reach the water table, so long as your range isn't built in a swamp or something. If it never reaches the water table, people will not end up absorbing it through their drinking water.
Which brings me finally to my project.
I am basically measuring how far dissolved lead from bullets is liable to travel before it becomes immobile. The Swedish forces are understandably annoyed that the best material for ammunition is being made illegal for reasons that have never been demonstrated scientifically: i.e. that lead from bullets causes a threat to human health. (Well, to be fair, the DO create a threat to human health, but only when travelling at 800 meters per second.)
To do this, I have set up lysimeters (columns of unsaturated soil) which are representative of the berms that stop the bullets on a range. Next week I go to the range to blow through 1000 rounds of "5.56 millimeter, Full Metal Jacket." Actually, the Swedes still use 7.62 mm, but I couldn't help throw in a bit of a movie reference there. So then I will take those 1000 rounds (shot into sandbags) and put them on top of the lysimeters, simulate average rainfall for the different ranges in Sweden, and measure the dissolved lead and antimony in the pore water at different depths below the surface.
Collect the data, write an article, and I am done!
So that is what I do in Sweden when I am not skiing. Now you know.
posted by Jeff @ 1:33 AM
1 Comments:
So when do the mice come into play?
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