The destruction of the buildings happens due to gravity either way. Potential energy is basically all you have. Demolition charges do one thing and one thing only–they release the building to gravity.
Think of it this way–the North Tower began construction in August of '68 and was completed in December of '70. During that time, imagine all the fuel that was burned in order to lift all the steel, concrete, wallboard, aluminum sheaths, rivets, nuts, bolts, nails, pipes, etc. over the span of those 2 years. The building stored all that energy–2 years worth–as potential.
It was then released into kinetic energy on 9-11, and what took 2 years to build was destroyed in less than 30 seconds.
Figuring conservatively, with 40-hour work weeks, 50 weeks per year, for 2 years, means that there were 14,400,000 seconds to build the thing (assuming I did the math right.) Releasing 14,400,000 seconds of energy in 30 seconds would destroy the building.
Put another way–take all the fuel burned (and the energy of the coal burned for electricity) during that 2 year construction, put it into a big tank anywhere in the building, and detonate it. Reckon the building would fall?
Since I’m just a layman, I have to rely on the “Good Science and 9-11” calculations here, but for potential energy:
E=mgh where m = mass, g = acceleration due to gravity, h = height.
The only real variable here is the exact weight of a WTC tower, but an estimate yields a gravitational potential energy of 1.139x10^12 Joules.
ie: 1,000,000,000,000, or a Trillion.
Energy wise, that’s like detonating about 272 tons of TNT.
The gravitational energy of the buildings alone, without any added variables (like, oh, the kinetic energy of an airliner) added in, results in enough energy to destroy the buildings. It has to–that’s what would happen even if the towers were imploded. Gravity has to do the job.
Something else to consider: the 1993 WTC bomb was 1,310 pounds, and according to this article, the “architect” of the WTC (I’m assuming they mean Leslie Robertson, since the principal architect had died in '86) said that if the '93 bomb had been parked closer to the poured concrete foundations, then THAT bomb would have brought the towers down.
Again, the reason is simple–it’s not that the '93 bomb’s measly 1,310 pounds would somehow pulverize the building–it would simply release the gravitational energy, which would. The WTC’s structural engineer believed that that relatively small catalyst would be enough to set up the failure, and we’re arguing that a fueled airplane that not only transferred X amount of kinetic energy into the building, but also severed structural support columns AND started fires AND blew off fireproofing material (that, by many accounts, wasn’t robust even before the attacks) couldn’t do it?