OT Don't read this (was Re: Altair MBL source)

Michael> So if halon is really so benign, why did they ban it? Enviroscares. I'm puzzled by some of the earlier discussion. In particular, the "displace all air" stuff sounds bogus. I remember the Halon setup in our lab at DEC; I don't think those tanks were anywhere near big enough to displace a substantial fraction of the oxygen from the room. Note that the body works perfectly well with substantially less air than you get at sea level -- that's how you function in an airplane. suppression is only a few percent. The real puzzle is how that can be -- there's lots of oxygen left, yet the fire goes out. I don't remember the mechanism. But the key point is that, as far as I have heard, Halon does NOT function by "displacing all oxygen from the room". paul