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here's a more intensive analysis if you care.
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Eye-witness accounts of the presence of molten metal at high temperatures in the basement rubble of the Twin Towers and WTC7 have led Jones to speculate that the industrial compound thermite was responsible, and is hence evidence for the CD theory.
Jones: “I maintain that these observations are consistent with the use of high-temperature cutter-charges such as thermite, HMX or RDX or some combination thereof, routinely used to melt/cut/demolish steel.”
But thermite is an incendiary, a vastly different product to HMX and RDX which are military explosives like TNT that can be used in civilian demolition projects. Thermite is a slow-burning product in comparison, does not explode, and, as far as I can determine, is never used in demolition of buildings. It can be used to melt horizontal pieces of steel, because it produces molten iron at up to 2,500 degrees centigrade, which flows onto the target and melts it. It cannot be used to melt vertical structures, because the molten iron simply flows past the target. Thermite is used to quietly destroy military equipment such as artillery (by inserting it down an up-pointing barrel), but more regularly in construction, for example, to weld rails together.
Hence the CD theory is not supported by the quantities of molten metal, because thermite in its conventional form is useless in demolition: it is slow-burning, with unpredictable time to melt, and can only be used in direct contact with horizontal unclad steel beams / components. (The horizontal steel members in the Twin Towers were covered by at least 4 inches of concrete.) Prototype thermite cutter torches have been developed which could cut steel at any angle, but they work by producing as stream of high-velocity, high-temperature combustion products. Any iron produced by such a cutter would be dispersed as as droplets and would only in exceptional circumstances pool into any significant quantities of molten iron. It is more likely that a film of iron particles, mixed with aluminium oxide particles, would be deposited on nearby surfaces. However this is speculation on my part as I cannot find any reference to commercially available thermite cutter torches. If anyone can provide information on such devices I would be pleased to hear from them. Nano-thermites, mentioned by Jones, are also ruled out because they operate more like an explosive, and so would disperse iron particles as I suggest above. The thermite lance, a variant that uses a long iron tube with aluminium rods running through it, is ruled out as far as I can tell because it would require an operative.
HMX or RDX on the other hand, which can be used in demolition (though TNT seems to be more common), would not melt steel, because the high energy content of the material is released in very short timescales, designed, not to melt the target, but to fracture it.
Jones: “Observe the grayish-white plumes trailing upward from white "blobs" at the left-most extremities of the upper structure. (The lower structure is mostly obscured by dust.) It is possible that thermite cut through structural steel and that what we now observe is white-hot iron from the reaction adhering to the severed ends of the steel, with grayish-white aluminum oxide still streaming away from the reaction sites. The observations are consistent with the use of thermite or one of its variants.”
In the photograph provided there is only one white blob on the left-most extremity of the upper structure. Grayish white plumes seem to come from the whole structure, not the blob, and could be any kind of ash or powder. There is no significant resemblance either to the plumes emitted from the bag of thermite in Jones’s accompanying photo. Indeed the plumes in the WTC photo are indistinguishable from the billowing clouds of dust and debris around them.
More easily visible, and the subject of debate, is the stream of what looks like molten metal running from WTC 2 just below the impact zone.
Jones: “Who can deny that liquid, molten metal existed at the WTC disaster? The yellow color implies a molten-metal temperature of approximately 1000 oC, evidently above that which the dark-smoke hydrocarbon fires in the Towers could produce. If aluminum (e.g., from the plane) had melted, it would melt and flow away from the heat source at its melting point of about 650 oC and thus would not reach the yellow color observed for this molten metal. Thus, molten aluminum is already ruled out with high probability.”
To rule out aluminium so quickly is poor science, because we don’t know what the temperatures were in the impact zone, while we do know that many metric tonnes of aluminium constituting the plane were in the area just above the outflow of molten metal. Of course, the alternative hypothesis, that the molten metal was iron or steel, should be also considered carefully. The argument of Jones is that if the molten metal were steel, then it would support the CD theory. But the link between molten steel and controlled demolition is non-existent, as thermite is not used in controlled demolition. Hence Jones requires a variation on controlled demolition: controlled demolition plus the use gratuitous and incompetent use of thermite. We have to believe that the conspirators had researched controlled demolition so badly as to decide on the use of thermite. Now, Jones estimates that “Roughly 2,000 pounds of RDX-grade linear-shaped charges” would be sufficient to bring the building down, and such a quantity of explosive might conceivably have been hidden in each of the towers. But the quantity of thermite required to produce this stream of molten metal is much greater. 107 Kg of thermite is required to produce 54 Kg of molten iron, and the stream of molten metal flowing from the impact zone (if iron) has been estimated at thousands of kilograms. Even if the stream is only 1,000 kg of iron, then 2,000 kg, or two metric tonnes, of thermite would be required. But the CD hypothesis implies much more than this. For a start the thermite would have been distributed over the proposed target floor for initial collapse, so it would be very difficult for the molten iron products to pool in one place and pour out. Secondly, the CD hypothesis agrees that the floor(s) of impact of the plane could not have been exactly predicted, so every, say, 5 floors, another couple of metric tonnes of thermite would be required. (Jones: ‘… to make it appear that the planes somehow initiated the collapse; cutter-charges could have been pre-placed at numerous spots in the building, since one would not know exactly where the planes would enter.’) Even if only the top half of the building were so prepared, then we would anticipate 2 metric tonnes x 11 locations or 22 tonnes. If the mass of stream of molten metal were estimated at more like 10,000 kg of iron then the figure goes up to 220 tonnes of thermite. We have to believe (a) that the conspirators were ignorant enough to attempt to use thermite, and (b) could insinuate between 22 and 220 tonnes of thermite, plus charges, plus radio firing systems, into each tower.
If in addition, thermite is required by the CD hypothesis to account for the molten steel in the basement after collapse, then we have to add an addition two tonnes of thermite for every tonne of molten iron. The problem for the CD theory is in fact that no reliable estimates exist of the amount of molten metal, if any, in the basements.
To sum up, it is a tough job to for the CD hypothesis to account for the stream of molten metal as iron produced from thermite reaction because (a) the choice of thermite requires the conspirators to be incompetent, (b) pooling of the molten iron would require the odd concentration of thermite on a given floor in one location, and (c) the quantity needed (22-220 tonnes) would be hard to smuggle in and hide in the building. This quantity increases by two tonnes per every tonne of molten steel estimated to be in the basements.
The IF hypothesis suggests that the molten metal is aluminium (and other alloys used in plane construction), and that it pooled in that location because that is where the plane was. As Jones rightly point out however, the IF hypothesis would require the molten aluminium (and alloys) to attain temperatures several hundred degrees above melting point. The IF hypothesis also requires that the molten steel in the basement have been heated by a combination of fire and mgh energy, so much rests on estimates of those factors.
I want to add a hypothesis that may yet explain the high temperatures, and would need to be disproved by the CD theorists: that some of the aluminium in the planes was ignited on impact. I return to this issue later on.
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