Merged "Iron-rich spheres" - scienctific explanation?

[ergo]

My wife was my editor and she would not have accepted the RJ Lee Report as written due to the lack of clarity of the authors' writing style."

To be fair, for the purposes of their study - to establish the extent of contamination of 130 Liberty by WTC dust - the RJ Lee report was as clear as it needed to be. It was never intended as a study of the mechanisms of the collapses nor the causes of the extreme temperatures.

 

[TJM]

Double talk. There may have been openings but not in the elevator shafts. The elevator shafts may not have been hermetically sealed but they were enclosed in drywall with a vent at the top. The only way to inspect an elevator shaft is from on top of an elevator car so there's no need for access openings other that the elevator doors.

So terribly wrong.

At the top of a typical elevator shaft there is, of course, the machine room, which has a myriad of openings. The openings that are just a teensy bit important are for the cables that lift the bloody cars. One motor for each car, one cable for each car. These cables cannot be sealed or otherwise impeded in any way. Our elevator techs are kinda fussy about things like that.

Anecdotal: Every building I've worked in uses building air (HVAC) to ventilate their elevator machine rooms and in San Francisco, if electronics have been upgraded to solid state, building code requires it.

Then the shaft itself has numerous openings. The number of openings kinda have to equal the number of elevators per landing. On 9/11 as I understand it, some of these doors were blown open by the fireball.

Then there's the bottom of the shaft, known as the pit, which typically has an access door. Here is a video of one I shot the other day.:



Notice what happened when I opened the door?

But hey don't take my word for it. Take it from the guy who, with four other guys, tore through a wall because their stalled elevator was filling with smoke.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2002-04-07/local/18200273_1_squeegee-elevator-tallest

There's plenty of openings in a shaft for air to get in, just stop it. I know better.

 

[Oystein]

I haven't redacted anything. I only corrected one.

That's what I meant. If my statement was confusing, I'd like to blame it on my status as a non-native English speaker.

How about giving it the weekend? No one's going to be around before Monday anyway.

Fair enough.

To be fair, for the purposes of their study - to establish the extent of contamination of 130 Liberty by WTC dust - the RJ Lee report was as clear as it needed to be. It was never intended as a study of the mechanisms of the collapses nor the causes of the extreme temperatures.

Bingo. Part of their study was finding a method to distinguish between dust created on 9/11 by the WTC event, and background dust. The method they used was fundamentally a statistical one: Spheres and lead and fireproofing fibers were not featured more or less prominently for their being witnesses of idiosyncratic chemistry, but simply their abundance in WTC event dust differs significantly from their abundance in other city- and office dust. The explanation is simple: Because ordinary dust is not created by the collapse of burning buildings, but by humans and their machines moving in a city environment. RJ Lee needed no explanation for why these things became more abundant, all they needed to establish is that they were significantly abundant.

Also remember who they wrote this for: A building owner who needed ammunition against their insurers. Deutsch Bank had to prove that the dust in their builing
- was hazardous
- originated from the WTC event.

If a significant portion of the iron spheres came not from the WTC event on 9/11 but, as I suspect, had accumulated after 9 months of cutting up steel across the street at GZ, then RJ Lee would now be very silent about this, as it might open a small door for the insurers to re-introduce doubt their conclusions. Which, of course, does not mean that RJ Lee is covering anything up wrt conspiracy theories.

 

[ergo]

Yes, but the spheres are not really the liability in this case. It's everything else in the dust.

 

[chrismohr]

Yes, but the spheres are not really the liability in this case. It's everything else in the dust.

Bingo!

 

[ergo]

Yes, but Chris, the microspheres are evidence of extreme temperatures. That is why they are of interest. Not because they were a health concern.

 

[plague311]

Yes, but Chris, the microspheres are evidence of extreme temperatures. That is why they are of interest. Not because they were a health concern.

Then what you are saying is completely relative to Dr. Millettes credibility, right? The microspheres were not a health concern so he had no reason to make a point of bringing them up.

 

[ergo]

Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe the spheres are an important environmental health consideration. Especially lead. But regarding Oystein's statement to which I replied, these were found in all samples, not just 130 Liberty. It would be negligent in any analysis of the dust not to mention them if they are there.

But the toxins of greater concern which prompted the studies were the known asbestos, chromium, PCBs, dioxins, glass fibers etc.

 

[Sunstealer]

To be fair, for the purposes of their study - to establish the extent of contamination of 130 Liberty by WTC dust - the RJ Lee report was as clear as it needed to be. It was never intended as a study of the mechanisms of the collapses nor the causes of the extreme temperatures.

Yes, but the spheres are not really the liability in this case. It's everything else in the dust.

Yes, but Chris, the microspheres are evidence of extreme temperatures. That is why they are of interest. Not because they were a health concern.

I agree with all three statements ergo.*

When one writes a paper/essay/document etc then there are certain considerations that have to be met with regard to the actual language and writing of the document.

I've written many and mostly they are read by engineers who do not have the level of technical expertise that I do (they are in other fields so it's not expected but they do have a rudimentary grasp of the subject and vice-a-versa). The difficulty is in getting the correct descriptions and information into the report so that the technical detail is there for (in my case) a metallurgist but is also readily understandable by someone else who needs to know the information.

I can easily write two reports both of which are readily understood by metallurgists but only one will be understood by say a mechanical engineer. In that sense the RJ Lee report for 130 Liberty street is, as you say, as clear as it's needed to be.

If RJ Lee had found, for example, wood in the dust then it's likely they wouldn't have commented on it to any extent because that was not their remit.

Imagine if you will that I have paid for a report on the colour of grass on a field. The result comes back that the grass is green. There is no point in anyone complaining that the length of the grass was not measured or how deep the roots grow or when the grass was last cut. It's not in the remit. So I agree that iron-microshperes in the dust are not the liability and I'm glad ergo has pointed that out so other people, especially truthers, can see the logic in this.

* One thing I will say is with regard to the statement of "extreme temperatures". This means nothing in effect without context and I target that comment at everyone; truthers, RJ Lee, debunkers and anyone else.

That goes for low temperatures, high temperatures or medium temperatures. Without clarification or context the phrases are meaningless. For example,

Anyone here ever watched a cookery program? Yes. Well have you ever heard the presenter say "you want to cook that on a high heat for 30 mins"? What's a high heat? Now most ovens will go to 250°C so do they actually mean 500 or 1000°C? No of course not, they expect the viewer to understand this.

My final year project was entitled "High temperature corrosion of engineering ceramics". Anyone care to guess what these "high" temperatures were?

1200 -1400°C

So why not extreme or mild or hot temperatures? The reason is the context namely the use as fuel nozzles in combustion chambers for jet engines.

RJ Lee do not give absolute context to their meaning regarding actual temperatures other than the products produced were expected from temperatures obtained from an airliner slamming into a tall building and the subsequent conflagration.

Why on earth would they consider anything else?

 

[Oystein]

Yes, but the spheres are not really the liability in this case. It's everything else in the dust.

Bingo again.
Iron spheres as such are not of interest to anyone - not Deutsche Bank, not their insurers, not RJ Lee. Iron spheres are not a hazard, and need not be mentioned at all in an environmental study, except for the sake of completeness, and, in this case, as a peripheral issue.

These parties are a lot more interested in asbestos and other real hazards that rendered 130 Liberty St beyond salvage.

Yes, but Chris, the microspheres are evidence of extreme temperatures. That is why they are of interest. Not because they were a health concern.

Of interest to you truthers, and you truthers only, because you are the only ones who don't know yet that "extreme temperatures" does NOT imply ">1500°C" and implies even less "exotic incendiaries". RJ Lee just told you that, in their professional, scientific opinion, iron spheres are sufficiently expained by the natural fire conditions in the towers.

If you disagree, then you must have a minimum temperature in mind that is still captured by the expression "extreme temperature". Please give as a value, in °C or °F, for the minimum temperature that is implied in the expression "extreme temperature"!

 

[beachnut]

Yes, but Chris, the microspheres are evidence of extreme temperatures. That is why they are of interest. Not because they were a health concern.

No, I made some iron-rich micro-spheres with a lighter, the one I use to light candles. Extreme temperatures, are what exact temperature. The number please. But you don't do math, so there will be no number, except those you make up out of ignorance. Did you look up flame temperature? what is the flame temperature for jet fuel?
Flame temperature for wood?

 

[Oystein]

Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe the spheres are an important environmental health consideration. Especially lead. But regarding Oystein's statement to which I replied, these were found in all samples, not just 130 Liberty. It would be negligent in any analysis of the dust not to mention them if they are there.

But the toxins of greater concern which prompted the studies were the known asbestos, chromium, PCBs, dioxins, glass fibers etc.

I could be wrong as well, but my hunch here is that the condensed lead they found and used as one of several markers to separate WTC event dust from other dust was found in such low concentrations as to render its health effect negligible. The interesting property was not that it was there, or present in a hazardous concentration, but that it was characteristically detectable as condensation on other particles and thus useful as a marker.

You know, it's like chemists can tell from the concentration of cocain in a water sample what river the water was taken from. It does not mean that you get high from drinking that water. It just shows what amazing things chemists can do these days.

 

[Christopher7]

Good research work chris7. I have not done the research on the elevator shafts so my opinion counts for little on this question, but here goes anyway.

Debating here is a form of research too. When you strip away all the insults and the "nitpick and babble", there are occasional useful pieces of information. For instance; there is an access door at the top of an elevator shaft to access the lift mechanism, and an access door at the bottom. But these have no bearing on the point which is: Could there be hurricane force winds in an elevator shaft?

The door at the bottom is closed and locked as shown in the video so it would not be a factor. Ventilation is desired but a strong updraft is probably not.

The plane impact opened up most if not all the elevator shafts allowing air to enter from below and exit thru the elevator shafts above impact zone. The vent at the top is only 3 1/2% of the shaft area so it would limit the updraft between the impact floors and the vent. An open elevator door without an elevator car present would create a draft as demonstrated in the video posted here by AJM8125. The fire above would intensify this updraft which would intensify the fire which would intensify the updraft.

There were elevator doors blown off in the lobby. Only two elevator shafts went from the lobby to the 98th floor in the North Tower. One service elevator that went bottom to top was in the center of the building and doors were reported blown off that elevator in the basement. The only other report of elevator doors being blown off was on the 80th floor. [unless someone finds more] The elevator shafts are lined with 2 inch thick drywall so there is nothing to burn. The hypothesis is that the iron spheres were created in the elevator shafts so the only place where iron spheres could be created in this hypothesis, if they could be created this way, would be in the elevator shafts above the fire zone and between the 80th floor and the 98th floor in the shaft with blown out doors. Most of the iron spheres created would be carried away with the other particulate matter in the smoke.

This is not a good hypothesis and there is no data to back it up.

The bigger question is how I read both the RJ Lee report and the recent attached letter from Rich Lee. As a journalist, I am not wild about either. OK, I'll say it: both could have been written more clearly, because both leave room for laypeople to misinterpret what they are saying.

So this letter is NOT the last word and it does not settle the issue.

Not only is his use of language unclear, sometimes he makes statements that he doesn't back up with specific data. Does the RJ Lee Report ever say clearly what temperatures were reached in the fires?

No, and that is what we need to know to settle this debate.
ETA: We also need to know at what temperatures the iron melted and the lead vaporized.

As for Rich Lee's hypothesis that hurricane-force winds blew iron bits into the air and created all the microspheres, when I first read that I thought hmm... I just don't take that on faith. I neither agree nor disagree because I am unqualified to make a technical judgment. What I got from his letter is this: iron-rich spheres are no big deal in a hot office fire.

No, he described extraordinary circumstances to explain the iron spheres and we both feel it's not conclusive.

His explanation is not long, detailed or carefully worded. So I take the details of both his recent letter and the precise wording of the original report with a grain of salt. There are some things in it that just aren't carefully explained or backed up.

Agreed

Hope this answers your questions. And Chris7 I asserted that you erred by taking every word of the RJ Lee Report as gospel truth, quoting the same unclear and contradictory passages over and over again. I stand by that assertion.

Then sit down please.

I do not "take everything RJ Lee says as gospel truth" but I do respect his expertise. The report says iron melted during the event and that requires 2800^oF. Objections notwithstanding.

When you said to us, "Who are you to question what RJ Lee said in their report," (a paraphrase), I should have answered on the spot, "I'm a journalist.

Well said.

And RJ Lee has written stuff that is unclear and contradictory.

It's only contradictory if you interpret it the wrong way. Try interpreting it in a way where everything agrees.

 

[Oystein]

Last call for Christopher7:

@ Christopher7: I asked you the other day if you have any specific question for RJ Lee! If so, please write them here, verbatim! You can also write them directly to Ron Wieck, and/or RJ Lee. I just want to see that you actually have questions, and want your full commitment that you will accept the answers!

If you have no questions for RJ Lee, then I guess you are not interested in resolving any questions. Please indicate this then, so I don't have to ask you again!

(In case C7 has me on ignore, could someone here who he still quotes quote my call for questions as well? Thanks)

 

[deeper]

@ Christopher7: I asked you the other day if you have any specific question for RJ Lee! If so, please write them here, verbatim! You can also write them directly to Ron Wieck, and/or RJ Lee. I just want to see that you actually have questions, and want your full commitment that you will accept the answers!

If you have no questions for RJ Lee, then I guess you are not interested in resolving any questions. Please indicate this then, so I don't have to ask you again!

Quoted, just in case you are on ignore. Christopher7, isn't this is a good opportunity to get the information you need?

 

[BasqueArch]

Debating here is a form of research too. When you strip away all the insults and the "nitpick and babble", there are occasional useful pieces of information. For instance; there is an access door at the top of an elevator shaft to access the lift mechanism, and an access door at the bottom. But these have no bearing on the point which is: Could there be hurricane force winds in an elevator shaft?

The door at the bottom is closed and locked as shown in the video so it would not be a factor. Ventilation is desired but a strong updraft is probably not.

The plane impact opened up most if not all the elevator shafts allowing air to enter from below and exit thru the elevator shafts above impact zone. The vent at the top is only 3 1/2% of the shaft area so it would limit the updraft between the impact floors and the vent. An open elevator door without an elevator car present would create a draft as demonstrated in the video posted here by AJM8125. The fire above would intensify this updraft which would intensify the fire which would intensify the updraft.

There were elevator doors blown off in the lobby. Only two elevator shafts went from the lobby to the 98th floor in the North Tower. One service elevator that went bottom to top was in the center of the building and doors were reported blown off that elevator in the basement. The only other report of elevator doors being blown off was on the 80th floor. [unless someone finds more] The elevator shafts are lined with 2 inch thick drywall so there is nothing to burn. The hypothesis is that the iron spheres were created in the elevator shafts so the only place where iron spheres could be created in this hypothesis, if they could be created this way, would be in the elevator shafts above the fire zone and between the 80th floor and the 98th floor in the shaft with blown out doors. Most of the iron spheres created would be carried away with the other particulate matter in the smoke.

This is not a good hypothesis and there is no data to back it up.

So this letter is NOT the last word and it does not settle the issue.

No, and that is what we need to know to settle this debate.
ETA: We also need to know at what temperatures the iron melted and the lead vaporized.

No, he described extraordinary circumstances to explain the iron spheres and we both feel it's not conclusive.


Agreed

Then sit down please.

I do not "take everything RJ Lee says as gospel truth" but I do respect his expertise. The report says iron melted during the event and that requires 2800^oF. Objections notwithstanding.

Well said.


It's only contradictory if you interpret it the wrong way. Try interpreting it in a way where everything agrees.

Still stuck in the elevator.
Facts:
Ferrospheres and lead vapors are produced at less than 1200C temperature. Thermxte powder in an open container or spread over steel, and painted thermxte doesn't damage 1/4" steel, let alone melt it. Thermxte in a container with a slit can't melt "rivers of steel" for weeks.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=8028715#post8028715

Originally Posted by Christopher7
Do you think smoldering fires could melt steel/iron and keep it keep liquid for months?

You deny the existence of thermite residue in the dust so you don't have to consider that as a possibility. When you pile denial upon denial it's all very easy.

So the thermite blew the building up, kept the steel liquid and there was still enough left over to find it in the dust. How much was there to start with?

Where's your math for this.

ETA: For example 1st approximation - one tower- 30,300sf/office floor x concrete 33psf/2,000lb/tonx 100 floors=~50,000 tons + 11,700 sf core area x concrete 75psf/2,000lb/ton x 100 floors=~44,000 tons = total 94,000 tons of concrete x half turned to dust, half remained solid (not included is the weight of iron compounds in the office contents) = 47,000 tons of dust x 6% ferrospheres in the dust = ~2,820 tons of ferrospheres or thermxte per one tower.
If 1% ferrospheres in the dust ~470 tons of ferrospheres or thermxte per one tower. 470 tons of thermxte at 4 lbs of thermxte per Cole's Containers= 235,000 Cole Containers.
Per Tower.
At 1% ferrospheres by thermite.
470,000 containers that kept firing for months in the pile

The amount of ferrospheres found in the dust were not created by thermxte.

 

[Edx]

If Christopher is saying it wasn't a jet fuel fire ball, then what is it he is saying it was?

 

[twinstead]

I'm going with salmon-colored unicorns

 

[000063]

...There were elevator doors blown off in the lobby. Only two elevator shafts went from the lobby to the 98th floor in the North Tower. One service elevator that went bottom to top was in the center of the building and doors were reported blown off that elevator in the basement. The only other report of elevator doors being blown off was on the 80th floor. [unless someone finds more] The elevator shafts are lined with 2 inch thick drywall so there is nothing to burn. The hypothesis is that the iron spheres were created in the elevator shafts so the only place where iron spheres could be created in this hypothesis, if they could be created this way, would be in the elevator shafts above the fire zone and between the 80th floor and the 98th floor in the shaft with blown out doors. Most of the iron spheres created would be carried away with the other particulate matter in the smoke.....

Chris, I proved that there were multiple breaches up and down the elevator shafts. Not doors being blown off, regardless of your moved goalposts, breaches.

You have never been able to prove that the bulk of the spheres would be carried away by smoke. The "hypothesis" is nothing more than a straw man.

 

[atavisms]

people make this issue so complicated and convoluted. In fact it is very simple because there is so much evidence showing these building were blown up... that the hardest thing to get past is the idea that people would attempt such an audacious thing.
There is no getting around the long list of facts demonstrably proving these building were blown up with pre-planted explosives but people will bog themselves down in minutia rather than face this terrible reality.. so so it seems looking at some of the post here and messages Ive gotten from Oystein.