Debunk Alert: New Ryan/Jones Article in Peer Reviewed Journal

[RedIbis]

Maybe these are things that one should report when saying that Benzene means thermite (or energetic whatevers). You know, that whole providing proof that what you're saying is significant and not just blowing smoke.

Who said "Benzene means thermite"? Read the paper, all of those figures are easy to find.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

What is a normal level of Benzene present in an office bldg fire?

What was the average daily value of Benzene at GZ?

What was the highest level of Benzene reported at GZ, in November of 01?

What can account for the spikes reported, months after the attacks?

What is significant about the finding of benzene?

 

[Disbelief]

What can account for the spikes reported, months after the attacks?

The composition of the smoldering fire would probably be the answer. All of the PVC, computers, etc did not suddenly disappear with the collapse, so if a previously unburned portionof this material ignited, this would be your explanation.

 

[Newtons Bit]

Who said "Benzene means thermite"? Read the paper, all of those figures are easy to find.

Then what is significant about benzene?

 

[RedIbis]

The composition of the smoldering fire would probably be the answer. All of the PVC, computers, etc did not suddenly disappear with the collapse, so if a previously unburned portionof this material ignited, this would be your explanation.

Please check the questions I asked above and find the corresponding sourced quotes in the article for the answers. The burning of normal office contents does not account for the spikes in Benzene levels.

 

[Disbelief]

Please check the questions I asked above and find the corresponding sourced quotes in the article for the answers. The burning of normal office contents does not account for the spikes in Benzene levels.

Can you prove this? Who said it was strictly office contents? Did you miss the part about all of the PVC? Also, while a few computers burning occasionally may not account for it, thousands burning at once could. Why do you take the words of Jones and Ryan as gospel, while asking for reams of evidence to prove a plane struck the Pentagon? Should you not be the one painstakingly reviewing what these two have written instead of asking everyone else to comment? Finally, why have you not explained the significance of benzene?

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Wikipedia

Benzene, or benzol, is an organic chemical compound and a known carcinogen with the molecular formula C6H6. It is sometimes abbreviated Ph–H. Benzene is a colorless and highly flammable liquid with a sweet smell and a relatively high melting point. Because it is a known carcinogen, its use as an additive in gasoline is now limited, but it is an important industrial solvent and precursor in the production of drugs, plastics, synthetic rubber, and dyes. Benzene is a natural constituent of crude oil, but it is usually synthesized from other compounds present in petroleum. Benzene is an aromatic hydrocarbon and the second [n]-annulene ([6]-annulene), a cyclic hydrocarbon with a continuous pi bond.

Plastics, dyes, rubber: all common materials inside the towers during normal operation. Most products such as plastics and other materials are made of petroleum based products... I'm not sure I understand what significance it has. Nothing I've read about it thus far seems to indicate anything suspicious

 

[RedIbis]

It appears no one here is interested in answering these rather simple questions:

What is a normal level of Benzene present in an office bldg fire?

What was the average daily value of Benzene at GZ?

What was the highest level of Benzene reported at GZ, in November of 01?

What can account for the spikes reported, months after the attacks?

 

[chillzero]

Maybe you'd have more luck getting those answers if you answered the question several people put to you - why are they significant?

No-one's going to spend time looking up answers for you if they aren't relevant to anything.

 

[RedIbis]

Maybe you'd have more luck getting those answers if you answered the question several people put to you - why are they significant?

No-one's going to spend time looking up answers for you if they aren't relevant to anything.

So you're suggesting that people don't read the article. The answers to each of those questions, including the significance of such findings is clearly stated in this rather short article.

As you can see, the standard retort is to suggest the presence of Benzene is normal and expected. This is true, but what is being ignored, is the levels of Benzene. No one seems to want to touch this.

If it's really that difficult to find in the article, I'd be happy to answer them for myself.

 

[chillzero]

So you're suggesting that people don't read the article.

No, I'm suggesting you help the discussion along by explaining why the levels are so important.

If it's really that difficult to find in the article, I'd be happy to answer them for myself.

Well, if you know already, why don't you identify the figures... and then explain why they are so important?

 

[T.A.M.]

It appears no one here is interested in answering these rather simple questions:

What is a normal level of Benzene present in an office bldg fire?

What was the average daily value of Benzene at GZ?

What was the highest level of Benzene reported at GZ, in November of 01?

What can account for the spikes reported, months after the attacks?

Relevance to 9/11 Conspiracies is?

Because if it is related, they are being very sheepish about it, deceptive even. If it isn't, then this is the wrong subforum for discussion about the paper...science forum would be better.

TAM

 

[mrbaracuda]

It appears no one here is interested in answering these rather simple questions:

Oh? I thought you troofers have excellent 'research skills'. What happened to them? Have you lost your magical research powers once you entered the evil realms of the JREF?

What is a normal level of Benzene present in an office bldg fire?

What was the average daily value of Benzene at GZ?

What was the highest level of Benzene reported at GZ, in November of 01?

What can account for the spikes reported, months after the attacks?

What are your findings so far? Since you seem to be the only one so concerned about this, it strikes me as a bit.. well, how should I say it.. strange to blabber on about it without getting your own ass up for a change here.

 

[Disbelief]

So you're suggesting that people don't read the article. The answers to each of those questions, including the significance of such findings is clearly stated in this rather short article.

As you can see, the standard retort is to suggest the presence of Benzene is normal and expected. This is true, but what is being ignored, is the levels of Benzene. No one seems to want to touch this.

If it's really that difficult to find in the article, I'd be happy to answer them for myself.

But, you are suggesting that people here have not read the article. I know the answers to your questions from the article, but in no way do I take them as being the final word. For example, your first question can not be answered per the article because for the average in an office fire they cited one source that was reviewing one fire. How is that average? Explain how that fire compares to what is seen at GZ.

 

[RedIbis]

Relevance to 9/11 Conspiracies is?

Because if it is related, they are being very sheepish about it, deceptive even. If it isn't, then this is the wrong subforum for discussion about the paper...science forum would be better.

TAM

I'm tending towards the former, although I wouldn't call it deceptive.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Please check the questions I asked above and find the corresponding sourced quotes in the article for the answers. The burning of normal office contents does not account for the spikes in Benzene levels.

I really doubt that, Red. Benzene is the natural product of many types of combustion, including forest fires

... Forest fire smoke can be considered as a two phase mixture, consisting of both gaseous and particulate components. Over 150 chemical species have been detected in the smoke of forest fuel combustion and pyrolysis experiments, including permanent gases such as CO, CO2, NOx , SOx , Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) such as hydrocarbons, aldehydes, substituted furans, carboxylic acids, Benzene, Toluene, Xylene (BTX), Semi Volatile Organic Compounds (SVOCs) (e.g. Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons); particles are also produced that usually contain Trace Elements such as Na, Mg, Ni, Cu, Pb, Fe, Mn, etc...

(source: http://www.civilprotection.gr/ecff/impacts_of_smoke.htm).

Also, firefighters are so routinely exposed to aromatic compounds such as benzene in fires that it has been studied:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12018402

That study's existence is of particular significance, as it suggests that exposure to toxic substances such as aromatic hydrocarbons is a common occurance.

More information about the presence of benzene in the environment available here:
http://www.eprf.ca/ebi/contaminants/benzene.html

 

[Pardalis]

Noticed how Redibis has ignored Mackey's post?

 

[pomeroo]

Thank you.

In terms of scholarship, this paper is no better than the rest of the nonsense produced by the Truth Movement. However, it is better organized, and at least legible, and as such is a much more useful case study for someone genuinely curious about the Scientific Method.

So let's begin. The first obvious problem (not counting the title or the abstract) is the following excerpt from Page 1:



Is this true? Has the fire "not been adequately explained?" This assertion is offered without any support at all. In contrast, there are numerous examples of large but slow, contained fires, i.e. Centralia, both natural and accidental, that resist any effort to fight them and even hundreds of years worth of rain.

The claim of "even one accelerated by jet fuel" is a total red herring. An accelerant is actually a problem in this example, because it leads to more rapid fuel exhaustion. The conditions needed, instead, are abundant fuel, limited airflow, and relative thermal isolation. All of this is obviously present in the basements of the World Trade Center Towers, roughly 20 meters high by 64 meters on a side, and densely packed with tens of thousands of tons of combustible materials, with little access to air.

The "chemical energetic materials" (sic) are not well defined. Is crushed furniture such a material? I would venture so, since wood and paper average 25 MJ / kg of chemical energy release in ordinary fires. So, technically, there's enough deliberate vagueness here to make a semantic argument. If Mr. Ryan means "there was a lot of combustible material," then we really can't argue. We know there was. It was there in the Towers before collapse. No paper is needed, in this case.

But what about thermite, which we all know Mr. Ryan wants to say, but does not? Well, there's two problems with thermite. First of all, thermite is actually less energetic by a large factor -- typically about 4 MJ / kg, perhaps there is some formulation I don't know about that approaches 10 MJ / kg, but certainly nothing close to ordinary combustibles like wood and plastics. Over the long term, thermite is actually less of a fire hazard. We cannot possibly claim thermite was present from the total heat release alone. The only way to infer the existence of thermite is to study the rate of heat release, and this isn't dependent on the fuel at all (since it is abundant), but rather the supply of oxidizer. Mr. Ryan and company do not even attempt, here or anywhere in the paper, to quantify the amount of oxygen available to the ordinary Pile fires that we know must have been there.

The other problem with thermite is that it tends to burn all at once. Since it needs no supply of oxygen, the rate of burning in a large quantity of the substance is limited only by heat transfer, which involves grain size and mixture with inert contents if any, but is pretty fast. In general, a burn rate of less than 1 cm/s is unlikely -- either the thermite will go out, or it will burn much faster, regardless of its volume. The thermite reaction is characterized by its tendency to burn completely. So, if it was thermite, why would it still be burning months afterward? And in such enormous quantities?



To summarize, even this seemingly innocent excerpt demonstrates critical errors in Mr. Ryan's thinking:

• Asserted without justification, that the fire behavior was unexpected
• Asserted without justification, that other scientists do not or cannot provide an explanation
• Asserted without evidence, that "chemical energetic materials," meaning in this context thermites, are a better fit to the long duration and resilience of the fire, when in fact the opposite is indicated

Moving on to the next problem:



Here, again, we have numerous totally unsupported assertions.

The "explosions followed by white dust clouds" are, of course, gypsum, concrete, and similar materials ejected by the collapse, and not by a "thermite reaction." It is true that aluminum oxide is white, but it is not true that all white dust clouds are aluminum oxide. This is a transparent assuming the consequent logical fallacy.

There have been, of course, other analyses of the dust clouds (i.e. Lioy et al.) and these have found absolutely no unusual aluminum signature. Indeed, it is not aluminum at all, but rather titanium, lead, iron, calcium, silicon that are in high quantities, and each of these is easily traced to specific, mundane materials -- white paint in the case of the titanium, glass for the silicon.

However, even if this was not the case, Mr. Ryan would be remiss in not presenting evidence for his theory that aluminum oxide was dominant. He has not. He also, unsurprisingly, presents no evidence of the "molten metal" that supposedly accompanied these explosions. Instead, what few possible indications of molten metal he has either come from well before the collapses, as in the WTC 2 "firefall," or long after the collapses -- there is no indication of molten metal during these "explosions," or for that matter in the other literature examining the dust. Presumably the supposed thermite reaction would not create its two ingredients at totally different times!

And this leads to another problem. The focus of the paper is supposedly on persistent thermite reactions in the Pile. Why are we here treating it like an explosive? Wouldn't explosive behavior preclude much later and slower reactions? Or are these two totally different types of imaginary destructive device, in which case one is not evidence for the other at all, and thus totally superfluous to the paper? The correct answer is, none of the above; instead, Mr. Ryan is simply confused.

Regarding the "extremely high temperatures," again, Mr. Ryan asserts without proof that it can only be explained via his supposed mystery reaction. This is simply not true. The temperatures are consistent with those in underground coal fires, and was explained in this instance by the DELTA Group, through a simple estimate of the energies and rates of reaction, assuming, again, only normal combustible materials. Thermite, as before, actually hurts. It burns faster, but its energy content is so much less that it actually reduces the total energy -- and it is total energy, not burning rate, that would lead to heightened temperatures weeks after the collapses.

And that's just the Introduction.

Shall I bother continuing? Actually, I think I'd like the opposition to take a crack at the next section. Find the core arguments, isolate those to a few sentences, and see if they are properly supported. I'll be glad to help you walk through it. This could be a highly productive discussion for those of you unfamiliar with science.


ETA: I am, of course, bringing these and the other glaring issues to the attention of the editors. I will not reprint any e-mails I receive, as per JREF Forum policy, but I will keep you apprised of the situation.

Interestingly, of the two editors in chief, one has been on sabbatical since September of last year (prior to the paper's submittal), and the other has apparently published creationist science papers with affiliates of The Origin of Life Foundation. I have not yet evaluated the latter claim for accuracy, nor does it excuse or explain the poor quality of Mr. Ryan's paper, but it is an interesting coincidence.

Nominated! A superb effort! A real scientist calmly dissects arrant charlatanry.

We understand why the cowardly fraud Kevin Ryan refuses to debate well-informed rationalists.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

As you can see, the standard retort is to suggest the presence of Benzene is normal and expected. This is true, but what is being ignored, is the levels of Benzene. No one seems to want to touch this.

Red, these were the largest structural fires in history, not to mention that they were exceptionally long lasting (the rubble piles fires were not extinguished until, what, December?). That the levels of benzene are also correspondingly higher is no surprise. Given the size and duration, you'd expect a large amount of benzene and other pyrolisis products to be released.

All Jones and Ryan's finding indicates is that the fires were exceptionally large and long lasting, as evidenced by their citation of supposedly higher than normal levels of combustion products. That's it. It indicates nothing interesting as far as chemical reactions nor anything suspicious as far as the presence of compounds that are not expected.

 

[lapman]

What can account for the spikes reported, months after the attacks?

The fire found a benzene rich fuel source.

So, can you provide even one instance, that's not 9/11 related, where thermite burned for weeks?