Mediterranean Sea To Possibly Become Site of Chemical Weapons Dump

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.'"

Comments

Send them to mars

[wbr1]

We'll never go.

Re:Send them to mars

[game kid]

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.

Re:Send them to mars

[CrimsonAvenger]

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.

For reference, it takes less deltaV to reach Alpha Centauri than Sol.

Re:Send them to mars

[clarkkent09]

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.

Re:Send them to mars

[PlusFiveTroll]

http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/shooting_for_the_sun/

This is why Sol is the worst target possible.

Re:Send them to mars

[plopez]

Nah. It would be cheaper just o release them in a major Chinese city where no one will notice the difference.

Re:Send them to mars

[TheLink]

One of the reasons we change velocity when putting stuff on earth or other planets is because we normally want the object to survive. So if you don't care do you really have to do that? Objects traveling faster than Earth's escape velocity can certainly still hit the Earth right?

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 there be to increase the altitude?

So I suggest that given a suitable trajectory at Earth's escape velocity you can get stuff to hit the Sun. It may take the stuff a longer time to reach the Sun, but who cares as long as the stuff doesn't come back :).

Re:Send them to mars

[similar_name]

Could you elaborate? That doesn't seem intuitive. I was able to find this, which shows the sun at 30. I was unable to find what Alpha Centauri would be. Also, are you comparing a direct hit of Sol with a direct hit of Alpha Centauri? Do the other stars in the Centauri System affect things? I don't know much about the subject but am interested in the counter-intuitive.

Re:Send them to mars

[TheLink]

That article makes the false assumption that to hit the sun you need to reduce the relative velocity to zero.

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 high speed.

Now our orbit isn't perfectly circular, but the reasoning still applies - since we're not interested in "landing" trash on the Sun, we don't have to change the deltav that much. All you need is a suitable trajectory at Earth's escape velocity.

Re:Send them to mars

[rubycodez]

here's a nice summary:
http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/shooting_for_the_sun/

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.

Re:Send them to mars

[rubycodez]

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.

Re:Send them to mars

[similar_name]

Thank you. Makes sense.

Re:Send them to mars

[NotQuiteReal]

So, you want to take the first shot that could start an interstellar war? On the other hand, it could be like sending them chocolates, maybe they will like it!

Re:Send them to mars

[Patch86]

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?

Re:Send them to mars

[nospam007]

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

Re:Send them to mars

[fatphil]

> All you have to do is to head directly towards the object

YES!!!!!!!!!!

And that's the *hard* bit - you have to cancel *all* of our orbital speed, which is huge.

Re:Send them to mars

[gl4ss]

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 something harmless.

Re:Send them to mars

[Karellen]

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 problems there.

So, we don't actually need to change our speed very much. We "just" need to change direction. Or any combination of direction and speed which gets us within 1 solar radius somehow. As another commenter has noted, we can use slingshots off other bodies in the solar system to change our delta-v in a large number of ways. We should be find a suitable slingshot *somewhere* to get us on a suitable orbit for impacting the sun without needing too much extra propellant.

Re:Send them to mars

[gl4ss]

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

[CrimsonAvenger]

How much would that cost for 30-40.000 tons?

About 500 Delta 4-Heavy rockets would suffice to do the job.

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....

Re:Send them to mars

[TheLink]

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 anywhere? If it can it's magically getting energy - where's that energy coming from?

So who is making hilarious statements?

Re:Send them to mars

[TheLink]

OK I realize my mistake. What will happen is it will end going in a different shaped orbit.

Re:Send them to mars

[TheCarp]

Works for me, but, I also played way too much Kerbal Space Program. I think XKCD described it best: http://xkcd.com/1291/ 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."

Re:Send them to mars

[TheCarp]

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 and distance, which approaches 90 degrees. Thing is, you get to a limit of the speed/distance function where you just can't hit it no matter what angle you use, it always misses.

Turns out, earth escape velocity, directly backwards still misses.

OTOH once you have them out there a little ways, just detonate them in space. The resulting toxic gas cloud will be undetectably sparse pretty quick. I mean seriously.... I bet if you took every chemical weapon ever produced by man, brought them out to a high orbit and detonated them, it should be perfectly safe.

And by perfectly safe I mean.... no less safe than loading massive amounts of those chemicals onto a huge rocket and trying to blast it off in the first place. That part could be a huge disaster.

Re:Send them to mars

[Talderas]

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?

Re:Send them to mars

[Redmancometh]

How do you detonate something in an anaerobic environment?

Re:Send them to mars

[mrchaotica]

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?

Re:Send them to mars

[TheCarp]

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 easier.... just rupture/open the capsule its in and let the pressure difference and volatility do the rest. The result will be pretty explosive.

Re:Send them to mars

[Patch86]

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.

Re:Send them to mars

[ultranova]

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 there be to increase the altitude?

Short answer: https://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 from Earth orbit, the actual velocity vector (direction) of the bullet would be your initial motion (~29.8 km/s) + the velocity given to the bullet by the gun (a lot less, unless you have one hell of a gun). Actually hitting the Sun would require aiming backwards against the sideways (orbital) motion, but since the motion is so huge you can't cancel more than a tiny fraction of it. Not without huge-ass engines or taking advantage of chaos theory, anyway.

Re:Send them to mars

[rubycodez]

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

Re:Send them to mars

[RockDoctor]

Or we can just dump it into the sea.

That is not the alternative which is under consideration. The alternative is to put it onto a vessel with some (relatively simple) chemical plant and take it to sea. At sea it is relatively easy to protect from invaders and relatively hard to get to. (Yes, I do spend my working life under threat of kidnap and piracy and take it very personally ; if you take those threats more personally, I'd be fascinated to know what your job is. I'm a geologist working in oil exploration in Africa.) On the vessel (type un-determined, as yet) the process plant will chemically break down the CW (most versions I've seen talk of hydrolysis, probably with an acid catalyst ; easy chemistry, though you do always have to be careful with hot, acidic solutions). you'll then have to separate out your by-products (which may well themselves be unpleasant, if not as bad as the original CW) and then return the un-reacted mess to the reaction chamber for another cycle. Lather ; rinse ; repeat.

You now have several times the original mass and volume of waste products, which may be ordinary toxic waste but won't be anything like as bad as the original CW. Maybe incinerate that (after testing for the presences of detectable CW material) ; or return it to shore for a conventional toxic waste clean-up.

This may sound like a lot of a palaver to you ; but it's pretty standard stuff for industrial chemistry. The main reason for doing it as close as possible to the origin (Syria) and as soon as possible is the political one of minimising the risk of the CW falling into the hands of undesirables. Those pesky self-proclaimed Freedom Fighters who outsiders see as Terr'ists.

Oh yes, such a good idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a dump down the coast from where I am at present, every so often chemical munitions come up from the watery graves they were ne'er supposed to return from...
and there all sorts of fun things down there, name your chemical horrors from WWI and WWII (and probably some later stuff as well).
 

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[plover]

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.

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[El Puerco Loco]

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..

[Animats]

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 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.

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

...there's so little of it that it would be diluted so quickly it would be entirely harmless.

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..

[dpidcoe]

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.

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[gl4ss]

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!?

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[dave420]

I think they cancel each other out... Maybe they're on to something.

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[Vitriol Angst]

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.

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[X0563511]

Shame the moderation isn't homeopathic :P

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[plover]

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.

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[dpidcoe]

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 pathogens (iirc certain immune system cells have a significant performance increase at slightly higher than normal body temperature).
It would follow then that if you want to cure something "naturally", you take something that increases the symptom (e.g. bump the fever from 37.5C to 38) and let the immune system do the rest.

That all kind of makes sense in a "yeah, I see how someone could subscribe to that line of thought" kind of way. The part where logic and reason fly straight out the window and it enters flaming retard territory is how they prepare whatever thing it is that they're making. The active ingredient is mixed up in solution, and then a single drop is taken out and placed into 100 drops of plain water. That's shaken up, and then a single drop of that placed in another 100 drops of water, etc. By the time it makes it to the shelf in a health food store, you'll be lucky to find even a single molecule of the original active ingredient in the entire bottle.

The hardcore believers will try to explain to you that water has memory, and basically stores a negative impression (like a plaster mould) of the molecules it was in contact with. The thinking here might be something along the 3rd grade logic of "if this molecule causes a fever, then the negative shape of it must do the opposite".

So the TL;DR of all that is: both answers are equally correct (and equally retarded) depending on what kind of homeopath you talk to.

Source: my mother believes in all that stuff. :(

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[bluefoxlucid]

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 it will destroy all life on the planet.

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[plover]

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 used arsenic, chlorine, fluorine, phosphorous, and other elements. Initially they were disposed of by single stage incineration, but that produced smoke that was toxic in its own right. Modern disposal techniques use multiple stages of heat, filtration, oxidation, electrolysis, or even detonation of the weapons. Bleach is an effective oxidizer, but gives off chlorine. Hydrogen peroxide and high temperature steam will also break down many of the compounds. Sarin [2-(fluoromethyl phosphoryl)oxypropane], which the Syrians are accused of using in this war, can be broken down by a low temperature burn, followed by a scrubbing process, followed by a second high temperature burn. Any solid materials remaining after the scrubbing and filtration processes are then buried.

A UK firm was having great success using electrolysis of silver nitrate in a nitric acid solution, which was very effective at breaking up and oxidizing the compounds, but they have ceased that research. The French are building a detonation chamber, where the entire warhead is placed in a blast chamber and detonated. The high pressures and temperatures perform an initial breakdown of the agents that destroys most of the chemicals, and the remaining chemicals are treated through an incineration and filtration process. One advantage is that it destroys both the chemical weapon and the explosive, meaning they don't have to have a separate hazardous process to handle the high explosives (which might be in a less-than-safe state of stability.)

Destroying the Poisons of War, by the Royal Society of Chemistry, is an interesting read on the history of the topic.

And the U.S. Army, who is in the process of decommissioning their Utah disposal facility at Tooele, has been drilling test holes in their disposal plant and sampling the soil beneath. So far, they have found no traces of any of the weapons they had been destroying. This plant was originally commissioned in the 1970s, so the engineering, the chemistry, and the processes have proven highly successful at safely destroying the US stockpiles over the long term. They know how to do it.

Re:Oh yes, such a good idea..

[plover]

What, you want it returned to Syria? They didn't order it from China on alibaba.com, you know.

Aren't they denatured first

[Billly Gates]

They heat them to 2500 F and the chemical bonds break creating just water, carbon, and some trace elements.

I can see an accident like a puncture to a warhead can be deadly otherwise.

Re:Aren't they denatured first

[tchdab1]

But if they're just harmless water and carbon, why do they need to be dumped beyond easy reach? Hmmmm?

Re:Aren't they denatured first

[AHuxley]

Re dumped beyond easy reach? They tried that after WW1 and WW2.
"U.S. Disposal of Chemical Weapons in the Ocean: Background and Issues for Congress"
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33432.pdf has a nice list of US efforts after WW2. Pages 8,9,10 gives an idea of what happens when you just 'dump'.

Re:Aren't they denatured first

[Talderas]

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 so most of the neighbors (Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq) aren't desirable for various reasons. Israel wouldn't accept it out of concern for intention Syrian sabotage. Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq aren't stable enough. Turkey might take them for destruction but that's iffy since now they have to deal with the transportation hazard and issue if there's an accident.

At this point you're pretty much guaranteed that a naval transport is the option so the question is whether another nation would accept them for destruction (unlikely) or if it just makes sense to destroy at sea and dump the harmless residue.

The option they chose is very safe, unlikely to suffer accidents that would affect anyone other than Syrians, and due to the destruction and dumping occurring in International water avoids the extremely annoying issue of negotiations between nation states.

Re:Aren't they denatured first

[AIphaWoIf_HK]

Wow, that's incredible, I didn't even think about that.

send them to washington DC

[Anonymous Coward]

unlike DC, we're still not sure if there's intelligent life on mars.

Re:send them to washington DC

[Anonymous Coward]

unlike DC, we're still not sure if there's intelligent life on mars.

I wouldn't be so nasty, ok I would.
Yeak dump it over Washington DC no great loss would ensue.

Re:send them to washington DC

[cellocgw]

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"?

Re:send them to washington DC

[RavenLrD20k]

Also there's the parse where:

Unlike DC, where we know whether there's intelligent life in it or not, we don't know if there's intelligent life on mars.

The joke most would infer is that the AC was trying to say that there was no intelligent life in DC. However, it is just as easy to make the inference the other way, in which the AC just comes off as a political ass-kisser.

careful with that preposition, eugene

[Anonymous Coward]

contrary to tfs, i believe the proposal is to neutralize the chemicals at sea.
too bad if that makes for little for /.ers to discuss.

Homeopathic Terrorism!

[NIK282000]

Its a trap! They are trying to kill us all!

Re:Homeopathic Terrorism!

[thewolfkin]

Its a trap! They are trying to kill us all!

Mitchell and Webb strike again

Iran has some nasty toxic natural gas wells.

[niftymitch]

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.

Re:Iran has some nasty toxic natural gas wells.

[AIphaWoIf_HK]

That's pretty scrump.

Isn't there a way of destroying them in place

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Isn't there a way of destroying them in place

[c0lo]

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.

the key word is "destroy"

[murdocj]

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"

[murdocj]

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
 

Re:the key word is "destroy"

[Shoten]

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.

Re:the key word is "destroy"

[LoRdTAW]

"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.

Re:the key word is "destroy"

[AIphaWoIf_HK]

Some seem's.

"technically feasible"?

[LifesABeach]

So is shoving up the rears of Assad, and the OPCW. In that case, why wait. Maybe the president can give the green light and command that this grabage be made exposed by bombing their warehousing sites? Maybe let Assad enjoy the "fruits" of his labor?

They're destroyed first...that's the whole idea

[daveschroeder]

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

Re:They're destroyed first...that's the whole idea

[retchdog]

apropos of nothing, but the "creatures" are probably "reptilians".

Re:They're destroyed first...that's the whole idea

[Megane]

Wow, just wow.

I mean, what's a sane idea like this doing on a crackpot site like that?

They need to get with Paul Stamets

[BringsApples]

He's found so may uses for mushrooms of all varieties that I'm sure if he had a chance to get some samples of what he needed to break down, he could find a much better way than this article explains. See his Ted talk.

Re:They need to get with Paul Stamets

[BringsApples]

before some wise-guy points it out, I did in fact mean to say mycelium instead of mushrooms.

Re:They need to get with Paul Stamets

[gl4ss]

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.

Re:Specific chemicals please?

[davester666]

costs too much
greenhouse gases

obviously, it is safer to dump it in the ocean, because nobody lives down there

Not going to ...

[DavidClarkeHR]

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 ...

Delicate

[MvdB]

Why is that I only ever see 'delicate' attached to eco-system and never 'robust'?

Re:Delicate

[drinkypoo]

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...

Re:Delicate

[AIphaWoIf_HK]

Something just licked its chops...

It already is

[jfdavis668]

isn't it?

Better solution:

[no-body]

Have the individuals with those ideas eat it!

Re:right...

[flaming error]

"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?

Re:right...

[plover]

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.

Re:Specific chemicals please?

[AHuxley]

The idea is your gov sub contracts the make safe "work". A complex chemical reaction overseen by skilled experts or expensive high temperature burring is needed and fully paid for.
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 same original 'load' to a waiting stolen/old ship at the shore and unloads at a secluded dock. Ship sails out and is sunk in a remote location.
The 'win' is between the cost of a gov totally paying for 'safely burned at high temperature" vs the cost of that truck drive to a ship.
Over many years the above cash adds up.

Re:Specific chemicals please?

[anubi]

AC, you already posted the first thing that came to my mind. Burn it.

There is nothing hazardous about the elements in any of this stuff. Its how they are assembled that makes it so hazardous. Destructive decomposition by fire is a great way of disassembling unwanted molecules back to far simpler predecessors..

Oil refineries have done this for years. Its known as "flaring". There are lots of oil refineries in the Mid-East. They already have all the equipment in place to disassemble nasty complex molecules.

Not everything in crude oil is nice and pristine. A lot of nasty stuff comes up mixed with the oil.

I think it is high time the government work with the oil companies to borrow the use of their flaring and cracking technologies to disassemble this mess of unwanted molecules and re-form them into something useful, or at least render it harmless.

Not a good one:

[Hartree]

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 that. At some points due to people not being willing to provide troops. At others because no agreement could be reached in the security council as to who the troops should shoot at.

So, packing them up and removing them from the country may well be the least bad option.

Re:Specific chemicals please?

[vux984]

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: Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on your post I'd say you are heavily retarded.

Re:Specific chemicals please?

[vux984]

Read TFA. You'll be pleasantly surprised at what they actually plan to do vs what everyone assumes they are doing.

How about the Dead Sea?

[__aaltlg1547]

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.

[couchslug]

The article is so bad it can be considered a troll.

How dare this shit get by the editors, even on Farkdot.

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[Z00L00K]

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.

Re:right...

[fnj]

Because if there's any place in the entire world where you want to put decommissioned WMDs, it's in the middle of a sea too large for effective policing and too shallow to put them out of the reach of wreck divers

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 standpoint? Remember that "divers" in the the form of deep diving vehicles can reach the deepest of those depths. On the other hand, "divers" in the form of assholes with scuba tanks are going to be equally unable to reach even the average depth of any of those places.

The Mediterranean is, in technical language, fucking goddam deep.

Finally, the component chemical elements left after incinerating poison gases are not "WMDs". They are things like garden variety oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, etc. Or did you suppose they were just going to dump the intact chemical munitions?

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[TapeCutter]

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.

Re:right...

[amalcolm]

I winder if you would be so sanguine were the suggestion to be to dump the remains in a sea near you and your family

Re:right...

[Deluvianvortex]

did you know that after WWI, the german stockpiles were encased in cement and thrown into the ocean somewhere?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare

After the war, most of the unused German chemical warfare agents were dumped into the Baltic Sea, a common disposal method among all the participants in several bodies of water. Over time, the salt water causes the shell casings to corrode, and mustard gas occasionally leaks from these containers and washes onto shore as a wax-like solid resembling ambergris." So I wouldn't be too worried.

Re:Specific chemicals please?

[anubi]

Sadly most "save the environment" types failed Chemistry class in high school, and as a result they don't understand that it's not the raw molecules which are usually a problem, but rather how they're hooked together. They tend to believe that any time you have a nasty substance made of A and B, that by extension both A and B are also just as nasty... if not worse. Reality is usually about as far from that as can be

Yes. I have seen a lot of that. I am highly "save the environment", but that does not mean not to use it to its best purposes. I used to work for Chevron. In the research lab as well as the refinery. Great folks. I learned a heck of a lot there. Including how to put hydrogen and carbon together many different ways as well as how to take them back apart. Its all simple little building blocks, but when they are assembled as a toxin, well, that's what they are. Reverting it back to something useful is just a matter of disassembling it then reassembling something useful out of it.

That is why I mentioned getting the oil companies in on it. They are really good at taking things apart then making something useful out of the pieces.

Re:right...

[fatphil]

Thanks to Russia and Poland, our herring's already all poisonous (dioxins, mercury, phosphorous, ...) here in the Baltic. So the conclusions are obvious... ... just dump the crap on Russia and Poland. I call this policy "Payback".

Re:right...

[fnj]

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?

Re:right...

[amalcolm]

Yes, I do understand all these things. I also understand that the process may not fully neutralize harmful stuff, whatever the glossy brochure might say ... It certainly wouldn't be the first time we were lied to.

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[tsa]

I didn't know that 'destroy' is another word for 'dump.'

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[AmiMoJo]

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 Fukushima is prone to periodic flooding, and will likely be submerged many thousands of times over the storage facility's lifetime.

Re:right...

[gl4ss]

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 charm of them for military use. they're not dirty bombs which render an area no mans land for a long time. they just kill people horribly and then they get diluted and break down(with some low ground can have them linger for longer time).

this also explains quite easily why no rogue group of few guys has ever wiped out an entire continent or even a city with them.. even the area they used them in battle in syria is safe(from chemicals anyways). it really is stuff that's in highschool chemistry.

if anyone is in danger from them it's just the guys doing the neutralizing.

Is it known what these chemicals actually are ...

[jopet]

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.

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[canadian_right]

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.

Re:right...

[Wootery]

"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...

Sounds fishy...

[whizbang77045]

Be on the lookout for two headed fish!

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[dj245]

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.

obligatory xkcd

[cellocgw]

This will raise hell out of the premise of 1190. Or maybe not, if we view Cuegan & clan as a mutated line of posthumans.

Seemed like a good idea, at the time..

[agrisea]

"The organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has proposed destroying at least 1000 tones of the confiscated Syrian chemical weapon stockpile out at sea, which some fear will destroy delicate eco systems vital to sea and human life alike. The OPCW claims the plan is 'technically feasible' ..."

Oookay, am sure it is "feasible" but if you have made a mistake, 'sorry you just killed everyone in the region.' Drop the mess in a volcano along with the Syrian brainiacs who thought chemical weapons were a good idea.

Re:Or some other place already bioligically bugger

[mrchaotica]

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?

VERY Misleading

[Toad-san]

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.

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[RavenLrD20k]

Send it to Africa.
Nobody cares about Africa

((end sarcasm / semi-obscure movie reference))

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[mrchaotica]

Lumps of stone will last a long time if you don't over-complicate them with things like rebar or chemically reactive mortar.

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.

Why isn't destruction happening in Syria?

[DutchUncle]

They made the mess; clean it up in their territory. That already exposes lots of innocent people and other countries. Why make it *more* mobile and *more* public - and *more* vulnerable? And by the way, Assad should be Employee #1.

Re:Why isn't destruction happening in Syria?

[RockDoctor]

They made the mess; clean it up in their territory.

Always a good starting point for toxic waste discussions.

Why make it *more* mobile and *more* public - and *more* vulnerable

Considering that it is currently in a pretty vicious and mobile war zone, I can understand how a risk analysis of the situation would favour getting the bad stuff to a place of (relative) safety before attempting to do complex things with it.

And by the way, Assad should be Employee #1.

If you put a defeated Assad into a room with CW to be destroyed ... what is to stop him from just opening the valves and making for an even worse containment and disposal problem? You really haven't thought this through, I hope.

Also, as an employee, he'd be relatively well protected. The designs for disposal systems look pretty well-engineered to prevent contact between employees and the CW. As you'd expect.

If you designed one safety system for Employee #1 and a different one for everyone else, then inevitably someone will screw up and apply Employee #1's procedures to Employee #N. And Employee #N will then be an innocent person hurt by your vindictiveness.

Does it still sound like a good idea? Conscience prickling a little bit?

If you want to have state-sponsored murder-by-CW-torture, call it that ; don't blame industrial accidents for your desire for retribution.

Re:Why isn't destruction happening in Syria?

[DutchUncle]

My word. It does seem I oversimplified a bit. However, while your points are well taken, I think I will stand by my dislike for the idea of moving large amounts of poison into waters that feed many countries (and connect to the open oceans), partly because "moving it to relative safety" is so dangerous in itself. I would like to see those most responsible taking the risks, but you're right, I didn't consider that it also gave them access.

I think it was H. Beam Piper in "Little Fuzzy" who had a character suggest that another be put to death "not so much for what he had done, as for being the sort of person who would do it." The stockpile of poisons, and the use thereof, and a lot of the "vicious and mobile war zone" issue, seems to be traceable to a small core of people around the current president. It would be nice if those responsible could be removed from power, in whatever fashion, quickly, *without* massive collateral damage to the human shield surrounding them in the capital; but I know that only happens in fantasy and techno-thrillers. Oh well. I'm sure the movies afterwards will have the "right" and "wrong" sides much more clarified . . . assuming enough people survive the poison or biological mess.

Re: Why isn't destruction happening in Syria?

[RockDoctor]

A minor side point is that I think that most of Syria's CW production took place under Susan's father's rule. So the possibility exists that he himself is not the biggest villain in this. Despite the popularity of lynch mob thinking, I believe that there are courts tasked with assessing such cases. And the use of such courts is what really differentiates "us" from "them".

Re: Why isn't destruction happening in Syria?

[RockDoctor]

Crab. Spilling chocker. "Assad's", not "Susan's"

Re: Why isn't destruction happening in Syria?

[DutchUncle]

... I believe that there are courts tasked with assessing such cases. And the use of such courts is what really differentiates "us" from "them".

This is true. And this is also why cases in which people are caught *literally* red-handed drag on for years and justice is never quite seen to be done. I think now and then there comes a situation which is clear enough for public and harsh punishment, "encourager les autres" if nothing else. While the current leader may not be the biggest villain in the production, he was certainly in charge when they were recently used.

I would not call it lynch mob thinking. "Lynch" carries a connotation of someone being targeted for no particular reason other than being what he/she is. In this case, there is plenty of legitimate blame and bad karma to assign, and clear chain of command responsibility to assign it on.

Re:Specific chemicals please?

[AIphaWoIf_HK]

Such a thing!

Re:Please allow me to propose a new site ...

[RockDoctor]

I would have expected it to be better to build it somewhere dry, like an isolated desert.

Please list the dry, isolated deserts which are accessible overland from Syria and whose governments are willing to accept this stuff, and are politically stable enough to be worthy of consideration.

Turkey : occupied and with active internal dissidents who'd love the convoy to go 'boom'. Iraq : occupied and politically "you have got to be joking." Iran : occupied and politically "you have got to be joking ; and why the fuck would they help the west with a western problem (remember they have their own experience of being on the receiving end of CW attacks by Western ally S.Hussein." Saudi Arabia : hmmm, that's a possible - how are you going to get it there again? And what if their internal revolution goes off properly? Israel : occupied and probably unwelcoming to the idea (they've got their own CW ; they probably don't want someone else's disposal problems). Lebanon : occupied and struggling with it's own stability.

What did Sherlock say? Something about "eliminating the impossible" and "whatever remains". If they're seriously considering this route, then I deduce that the Saudis laughed in their face. And there's still the problem of getting the stuff from Syria to Saudi.

Nah, if it's going to be moved, then an appropriately escorted naval convoy is capable of out-doing credible terrorist acquisition threats. And the scale of chemical plant for processing it is within the scale of fitting onto a standard drilling rig (not a loose market ; but it's a market), which come with pre-vetted crews with the technical skills to handle this shit. (Trust me on this : I've worked offshore for nearly 30 years.) The emergency-response training for handling poison gas (hydrogen sulphide) leaks is thoroughly comparable to that for handling poison gas (CW) leaks from a controlled disposal plant.

It does sound a pretty worth-considering solution.