Greening responds:
Dear Dr. Jones,
Well, thank you for your latest e-mail and for agreeing to change your paper with regard to the comments I made on oxygen enhanced fires in WTC 2. However, about this “yellow glow” and the associated “yellow waterfall”…. Here are a few points:
In your previous e-mail you ask: “What material is it that provided the "intense yellow glow seen moments before the collapse of WTC2" if not hot steel?”
Well, I can think of a number of possibilities starting with the oxygen-enhanced fire itself: the combustion of cellulose-based materials, plastics and polymeric materials such as rubbers and fibers used in carpeting and upholstery, etc, etc. But I agree that this does not completely explain the “yellow waterfall”.
I believe that I would be correct in saying that molten steel and molten aluminum are the only reasonable suggestions made to date; but I have a third option that should be of interest to you and might well surprise you: lead and/or lead slag!
I am making this suggestion based on a recent (Jan 18th) article by Christopher Bollyn. I believe you should be familiar with the article (since you are quoted as a source of some of the information), entitled: “9/11-Who Put Thermate in the World Trade Center?” In this article we read in reference to WTC 2:
“Fuji Bank was the tenant of floors 79-82, yet for some reason the NIST researchers were unable or unwilling to provide any description of the contents of these crucial floors – four years after 9/11.
A former Japanese bank employee recently came forward and explained that the 81st floor was an entire floor of server-size computer batteries:
Fuji Bank had reinforced the 81st floor, he said, so the floor could support more weight. The entire floor was then filled with server-size Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) batteries.
These units were bolted to a raised floor about 3 feet above the reinforced 81st floor. "The whole floor was batteries," he said, "huge battery-looking things." They were "all black" and "solid, very heavy" things that had been brought in during the night. They had been put in place during the summer prior to 9/11, he said.”
Now if we accept this as true it is indeed very significant in light of the fact that such a UPS would undoubtedly involve the use of a large interconnected array of lead-acid batteries. Lead-acid batteries contain kilogram quantities of the extremely hazardous liquid sulfuric acid, and toxic materials such as lead, lead sulfate and lead dioxide, together with smaller amounts of antimony, antimony oxide and cadmium.
In an article on the hazards associated with lead-acid batteries, by Robert L. Taylor,of Morning Star Industries, Inc, we read:
“What happens if a fully charged lead-acid battery cell is shorted? Hopefully the device shorting the battery becomes hot and melts or vaporizes and clears the short. In large installations, there is enough energy available to vaporize copper buss bars and other circuitry. Vaporizing copper has the same expansion rate as exploding dynamite.
If a shorted battery cell does not clear the external short, the electrical connection between the battery terminals allows for a very rapid chemical reaction as the sulfuric acid converts the lead and lead dioxide to lead sulfate. Now the electrical energy is not dissipated externally, but internally in the form of heat. The resulting temperature rise inside the battery cell literally destroys the cell and actually may vaporize the battery materials including the electrolyte and lead.
Actual battery applications are comprised of multiple battery cells. A typical car battery has six cells in series. Telecommunications typically have battery strings of 12 and 24 cells each. Industrial Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems typically have 60 cells in series. When a short is placed across a string of batteries, the resulting fault current will begin discharging all of the cells until one or more cells fail. Now, instead of each cell destroying itself, the cells that have not failed dissipate their energy into the failed cells. Not only do the failed cells typically melt and give off vapors, but these failed cells often become arc furnaces due to the energy contribution from the rest of the battery string. The amount of energy dissipated in the failed cell(s) is usually enough to totally vaporize the whole battery unless the battery fails in such a way as to disconnect the circuit. When the battery cell is on a grounded rack or mounting surface, the circuit continuity is continued through the battery cell’s melted parts and the conductive mounting surface. This type of destruction of the battery cell(s) is typically what is called a battery fire. Substantial clouds of acid mist and vapor will be present during this type of fire and will typically overwhelm a typical ventilation system.”
So consider this scenario but add the effects of an aircraft impact and intense hydrocarbon-fuelled fires and the possibilities become quite frightening! Certainly a Pb-PbSO4-PbO-PbS electrochemical soup would be created and mixed with other chemical species already present on the 81st floor of WTC 2 such as Fe and C. The result would be like a lead smelter which is known to produce WHITE SMOKE, so-called "lead fume", molten lead, and "lead slag".....
Frank Greening