I have covered uranium mining in previous posts and mentioned some of the protests and resistance actions against it. In this post, I am going to recap some of the issues with uranium mining.
The best deposits of uranium ore have only one percent uranium so a huge amount of ore must be mined in order to obtain a small amount of uranium. In the U.S., with a quarter of a percent uranium ore, a ton of ore needs to be dug up in order to get five pounds of uranium. If the mine is the open-pit variety, it is usually necessary to remove a surface layer to get to the uranium ore. The ore that is left after the uranium is removed is almost as radioactive as the uranium and should be isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years in order not to be a health hazard.
Mining produces vast amounts of radioactive dust, much of which escapes the mining site, especially in open pit mines, and pollutes the environment. Mine workers are exposed to the dust even with protective clothing and dust masks.
Uranium decays in a complex process that goes through fourteen stages before it finally become non-radioactive lead. Radon gas is produced in during one of the decay steps and enters the atmosphere where it can travel for miles. Miners need to wear special gas masks in order to be protected from the radon gas.
One of the extraction processes is call leaching where the ore is piled in a trench and caustic toxic chemicals are poured over the ore. The uranium is leached from the ore and accumulated at the bottom of the trench. However, some of the leaching solution often escapes into the environment pollutes the soil, ground water and/or surface water. The fumes create air pollutions.
In another extraction process, the ore is finely ground to extract the uranium. Radioactive dust from the grinding process can escape and pollute air, water and soil near the extraction plants.
Uranium and other elements that are found in the ore are heavy metals. Even if not radioactive, these heavy metals escape into the environment and pollute the soil and water, posing a severe health hazard to humans, plants and animals.
Uranium mining is a very dirty process that pollutes the environment near the mine with radioactive dust, radon gas, heavy metal and toxic chemicals. There is really no efficient way to remove the pollution of uranium mining from the air, water and soil around the mine. The mines render the areas around them dangerous and useless for any other purpose. Over time, the pollution from a mine spreads beyond the local area over a much wider area.
When the cost of nuclear power is advertised by the nuclear industry, I don’t believe that they are including the environmental degradation and the health hazards from the mining of uranium.
Ranger Uranium Mine in Australia:
