German scientists developing green bombs

(Credit: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen)

New environmentally friendly, nitrogen-based explosives could deliver more of a bang while being safer to handle than traditional charges, according to chemists at the University of Munich in Germany.

When detonated, common explosives now used in military and industrial applications such as TNT and RDX generate toxic gases that pollute the environment. They're also dangerous to handle: They don't like to be dropped or bumped and are super sensitive to electrical sparks.

To make them safer and reduce environmental dangers, German scientists have turned to tetrazoles--synthetic compounds that derive most of their explosive energy from nitrogen instead of carbon, as do many conventional explosives. Tetrazoles are already used to generate the gas to fill the airbags in some cars.

Chemists at the University of Munich made tiny bombs from two tetrazoles called HBT and G2ZT, which not only proved more stable than conventional explosives but more powerful as well, according to researcher Thomas Klap?tke. Here's a video that shows it in action.

[Stewrx]

Finally, the greenies have come up with the ultimate oxymoron:
The environmentally friendly bomb. Let's blow up stuff and kill
a gazillion people, but heaven forbid we contaminate the
environment.

[totalmonkey]

It appears as the author (Mark Rutherford) has swapped the items of importance that the research produced versus what he reported. The headline and first 3 paragraphs are about the technology's environmental-friendliness, while the (more-important to a weapons researcher) fact that the explosives are safer to handle, more stable, and (here it is) MORE POWERFUL than conventional explosives gets one sentence in the last of four paragraphs.

That's like saying that the most important fact about WW2 is that petroleum rubber products saw an increase in demand.

[Stompie79]

Didn't you know humans are bad for the environment generally? The less there are the better the environment does.
I read a life cycle assesment of cycling and it ended up being worse for the environment then me driving to work as I'm statistically likely to live longer and all humans need resources from the environment to sustain us. Does all that mean I'm going to kill myself tomorrow for the environment??? Unlikely.

On a more serious and sad note, although we can dream that it would a wonderful if we could stop all conflict around the world, it is extremely unlikely that it will happen any time soon. Even when a population can motivate it's self from apathy over other suffering our politicians usually make a spectacular effort of fixing a short term problem by generating a long term one. With very little chance of stopping so much conflict around the work (much of in with little media time as it doesn't involve a "developed" country) we might as well help the environment sustain those of the next generation that make it through.

[gjkezski]

Nitrogen based explosives are not new, see Ammonium Nitrate.