Let me feed the skeptics for a change-charcoal theory of WTC molten steel

[HamdenRice]

To start, let me state my biases: I am more convinced of CD at WTC7 because of the visual evidence. I am open minded about WTC 1 and 2.

But in the spirit of free thinking inquiry, let me ask the "engineers" about this theory of why there was molten steel at the base of the towers.

As anyone who barbecues knows, charcoal burns at a higher temperature than wood. This is because partially burning wood causes water and other non-flammable chemicals to evaporate and burn off leaving coal-like charcoal that burns at a much higher temperature.

I studied pre-colonial African history for a time and recall that many indigenous communities had highly developed metallurgy cultures. Instead of coal, they used pre-burned wood, ie charcoal, to smelt metals, including iron and steel.

One alternative explanation of molten steel at the bottom of the towers is that combustibles, consisting of paper, carpet and office furniture, was cast down under the rubble. Below the rubble were intact subway tunnels, providing fresh air. This would turn all those combustibles into charcoal, which could reach much higher temperatures than those combustibles would have reached in open air. The rubble on top of burning material would have been very analogous to the process of making charcoal. In early industrial societies, charcoal was made by burning wood under earth for some time and then extinguishing the fire.

Could there be molten steel under the towers because of charcoal like fires?

Incidentally, I made the mistake of listening to the EPA and thinking that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan in the weeks after 9/11 and organized a big dinner party at Odeon, a famous restaurant a few blocks north of ground zero.

We could all see that the "pile" was smoldering and a lot of material was burning under the rubble, with smoke rising up from the pile.

Is this an explanation for the molten steel?

[Kevin Fenton]

1. Not a bad idea

I think 1, 2 and 7 were demolished with explosives, but the molten steel is meaningless as proof of this. IMHO you are not too far off.

[killtown]

4. Hey Fenton I forgot, was the demolision of 1, 2, & 7

a conspiracy, or just a cover-up?

[Kevin Fenton]

7. Not part of a false flag operation

It was obviously a conspiracy, as it must have involved more than one person, and it was obviously covered up, as it has not been officially recognised.

However, I don't think it was part of a false flag operation, as most people seem to think.

Where could the explosives be, if they are not in the elevator shafts?

[mirandapriestly]

2. Maybe, but a poster mentioned thermite in the

How did the towers come down thread and that would also explain the melting steel, extreme temps, I've been reading about it. It is an additive in incendiary (flame spreading) bombs.

[HamdenRice]

3. I've read these too, but they don't convince me because ...

while high explosives reach very high temperatures, they do so in a transitory manner. I don't think, even if there were explosives, that the metal would remain molten for the weeks it took to excavate the site.

[mirandapriestly]

31. ahhh, good point.nt

[petgoat]

5. I too have done some reading on primitive smelters and charcoal

production, and I've considered the possibility that the
pile was a smelter.

A couple of problems:

The way you make charcoal is by burning the wood in the absence of air.

The way you burn charcoal to get high temperatures is in the presence of air--
preferably air pumped by bellows.

[HamdenRice]

6. Interesting observation ... but more precisely ...

you make charcoal by burning wood with relatively little air. In the absence of air, the fire simply goes out. I sometimes make charcoal on my webber grill, and the key is keeping the damper almost but not completely closed. This makes a low fire that drives out water and non- and semi- combustibles. If I close the dampers, the fire simply goes out.

I think the absence of air part comes into play when you have charcoal and it's time to put the fire out to preserve the charcoal for future use in an air rich environment.

It seems to me the conditions under the pile were ideal -- fresh air coming in from the subway tunnels, but dampered by the rubble on top.

Correct me if I'm wrong -- I'm open minded about it.

[Klimmer]

8. What you are forgetting is that smoke was coming up almost . . .

immediately after the towers collapsed, duplicating the same effects such as Thermite, with extreme hot spots showing. In Dr. Jone's PowerPoint presentation, he has a slide with the view looking down on the pile, juxtaposed with an image of a Thermite demo on stage from a Physics class. The effects of both, duplicating exactly the same, with the smoke chimneying just like that from Thermite.

Also, there was Sulfur and Sulfides found with the molten steel and on steel beams. Where would that have come from, if not from military grade Thermite?

Hey, if it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, and evidence found comes from a duck, then it is a duck. In this case the duck is --- Thermite.

[tocqueville]

29. explain to me how the mixture of two oxides produces sulfides...

unless "military grade thermite" contains sulphur for whatever reason...

thermite :

Fe2O3(s) + 2Al(s) → Al2O3(s) + 2Fe(s); ΔH = -851.5 kJ/mol

the "s" stands for solid

[gbwarming]

9. There's no good evidence for molten steel.

Most of the descriptions are second or third hand and none are specific as to why the observer believed the molten substance was steel (rather than aluminum or some other material).

Other than that objection, you charcoal hypothesis sounds potentially plausible to me.

[Klimmer]

10. Bull Dung!

"There's no good evidence for molten steel."

Perhaps you don't consider visual evidence (it's on film), and the fact that molten steel was found in the bottom of WTC 1, 2, and 7, and even described in the NIST report (and this fact was also discussed in Dr. Jone's presentation) along with the anomalies of sulfides found with it, evidence. Even the NIST report was at a loss to explain the sulfides.

When they found evidence of molten steel, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was molten, (in a liquid state) at that very moment. They found evidence of molten steel, meaning pooling of molten steel and after it had hardened. Fairly easy to discern steel from aluminum in the solid state.

There is indeed film evidence of orange-hot steel as heavy machinery is lifting debris from the pile.

[hack89]

11. The question that never gets answered is how this proves demotion..

no one has proposed a theory that makes sense.

[TheWraith]

14. They're not into actually proving things.

The conspiracy people prefer to take one piece of information, or pseudo-information, out of context and create a web of supposition and unsupported claims around it, and present it as incontrovertible fact. The reality is that explosives couldn't have produced melted steel lying in puddles, and a steel beam which was cut by explosives, or even thermite, looks a hell of a lot different from one that succumbed to extreme heat.

If there was melted metal--and I'm not saying there was--it was probably the result of the high-temperature jet fuel based fire getting buried under the rubble, and being allowed to burn slowly like that. There's a kind of roast where you take a whole pig, cover it in leaves, put it in a pit filled with glowing-hot stones, then bury it. The next day, the pig is cooked, by virtue of the insulation of the ground and the heat stored in the rocks. The heat is locked in, and while it's not being fueled anymore, it's still powerful enough to cook meat, or in this case melt metal. Just a theory, though.

[gbwarming]

12. Point me to the hardened steel puddles please

Perhaps you don't consider visual evidence (it's on film), and the fact that molten steel was found in the bottom of WTC 1, 2, and 7, and even described in the NIST report (and this fact was also discussed in Dr. Jone's presentation) along with the anomalies of sulfides found with it, evidence. Even the NIST report was at a loss to explain the sulfides.

I have not seen any film showing molten (liquid state) steel from the WTC. I'm aware of the samples with sulfur-iron eutectic erosion - which were not molten nor evidence for temperature high enough to melt steel.

When they found evidence of molten steel, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was molten, (in a liquid state) at that very moment. They found evidence of molten steel, meaning pooling of molten steel and after it had hardened. Fairly easy to discern steel from aluminum in the solid state.

Show me the solidified puddles if you can. Aluminum and steel are easy to tell apart in molten state too, but I don't think most people have seen them in that state.

There is indeed film evidence of orange-hot steel as heavy machinery is lifting debris from the pile.

I've seen the photo with the bright orange beam - again not evidence for temperatures high enough to melt steel.

[rman]

16. post in this forum just a few days ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=69958&mesg_id=69958
(see Jones' presentation)

It contains 1st hand reports/evidence of molten/glowing steel weeks after 9-11.

[gbwarming]

18. I don't think so

I agree that the pile was very hot - hot enough to make metal glow and there is good evidence, on video, from aerial survey, etc for this. But no one (including Jones) has shown good evidence for molten steel, and as I noted above there are no first hand accounts that describe why the liquid seen was assumed to be steel. Did anyone else notice that Jones attributes a direct quote to Leslie Robertson from one of his references (the SEAU newsletter) which was not in the original?

Jones shows a chunk of concrete with rebar and claims it has metallic slag, then points out the rust color on it and infers that it must have a high iron content because aluminum doesn't produce rust, however on many occasions I've seen aluminum stored outdoors with steel on racks or in scrap piles which takes on a rusty colored coating from its neighbors. Concrete will certainly take rust stains. We know that firefighters pumped water into the hot pile for weeks and the scrap was sorted outdoors in winter so it is entirely reasonable to assume that rust could have formed and stained many materials.

Is there some better evidence I'm missing?

[HamdenRice]

13. I'm not skeptical about whether there was molten steel ...

I don't have the cites right now, but there were many news reports about the molten steel and how high the temperatures were in the underground fires.

I'm just saying there may be an explanation other than thermite -- namely that underground, charcoal type fires burn very hot for a long time.

[DemInDistress]

23. molten metal dripping from the 80th floor of WT2..

more here..http://www.terrorize.dk/911/wtc2dem2/

[gbwarming]

30. Do you think it is steel? If so then why? nt

[DemInDistress]

33. If you watched the video you'll see as the dripping

continues the northeast corner of WT2 collapses I feel its a steel beam being cut by thermite. You can't deny
you see white hot molten drips of metal. Maybe bubba was on the 80th floor and that's a load of orgasmic
juice flowing down on the crowd. BTW,of all the videos and pictures I seen that's the only visible drip. Now
if you recall many firemen say even after 6 weeks pools of molten metal were still white hot in the basements,
something to think about if you truly care about the dead of Sept.11

[rman]

15. Put BBQ grid in glowing charcoal

It doesn't melt.
Burn charcoal in a cast iron wood stove. It doesn't melt.

I think "dr Jones" has a plausible explanation: aluminum that was present kept feeding the thermite chemical reaction. Thermite 'burns' at 2500c, enough to evaporate steel. That's not to say that the molten steel was 2500c; it wasn't all thermite after all. But it's hard to explain otherwise why the steel was so hot even weeks later.

[HamdenRice]

17. A BBQ grid is an open fire ... charcoal does melt iron in ...

a closed kettle type smelter. That's how people used to make iron and steel.

[rman]

20. a smelter requires additional oxygen (air)

pumped into the fire, similar to a blast furnace.

[HamdenRice]

21. Yes -- usually in the form of bellows in old fashioned iron making

in early industrial times, but in many cultures I believe they just built a large charcoal fire mixed with iron ore in an enclosed earthen oven and convection was enough to produce iron nuggets.

The iron was refined in furnaces with bellows.

[rman]

22. How to have convection in an enclosed space?

In the case of WTC, where did the convection come from to fan the burning charcoal to 1500c needed to melt the steel?
To melt a large amount of steel, a large amount of charcoal would be needed, which would require a large amount of convection to heat it sufficiently. I imagine it would cause quite a draft in places.

[HamdenRice]

24. As someone who commuted under the WTC and still passes through ...

the chambers St. station, I can assure you there was a maze of subway and Path tunnels under the pile bringing in fresh air. The tunnels were largely in tact.

In fact, the pile was structured a lot like an old fashioned charoal pit -- combustibles covered by rock and dirt and fed by some air source from the bottom.

[LARED]

19. I think your theory is quite viable.

Underground fires can get very hot. Taking into consideration the huge mis-mash of materials being cooked in a similar way that charcoal is made, I think it is quite possible to have temperatures hot enough to melt steel.

[DemInDistress]

25. explain this..molten dripping metal WT2 80th floor

video here.. 911.wtc.2.demolition.north.02.wmv --

good site here.. www.terrorize.dk.com

[hack89]

26. Aluminum melts at 1200 C..

well within the range of temperatures for a large building fire.

[DemInDistress]

27. show me more aluminum burning..please

[hack89]

28. Look - you are the one that thinks it's metal..

I personally don't think that - I was merely pointing out that if it was molten metal, the fires were hot enough to potentially melt aluminum.

Why don't you try to explain it?

[DemInDistress]

32. ok look to the right maybe 5 floors up..see a raging fire

I do but no melting aluminum as well as other severely charred floors where fires were blazing..did you view the video? Did you see a chunk of white hot steel as the building collapsed. Why debunk what I show? It was you who claimed "aluminum" since it burns at what did you day? 1200 degrees.
I claim its a thermite shaped charge. What caused the tremendous heat that caused the dripping?
hack I am not the enemy. Bush is. along with the crime family who set 911 up. Now, I could be mistaken about you. Do you accept the ludicrous 911 report? please tell me so I know who I'm dealing with.

[hack89]

34. Why the anger?

And I could care less if you are mistaken about me or not. Bush is the enemy and you are helping him by obscuring his real crimes with your nonsense.