Impact of Coal vs Uranium Power Plants Essay

Uranium is a naturally occuring chemical element that can be mined from ore in many parts of the Southwestern United States where

Natural uranium consists of three isotopes: uranium-238, uranium-235 and uranium-234. Uranium 236, 233 and 232 are also produced by reactors from uranium-235 and thorium – these are the artificial isotopes. The three natural isotopes and the three artificial isotopes are all alpha emitters. Also, all isotopes of uranium are radioactive, with most having extensive half-lives.

Coal power is the cheapest fuel to power the ever growing population with Australian mining industry still putting in billions of dollars into a vast amount of coal projects never the less coal power is a fossil fuel, a fuel which takes hundreds of year to form so the future of coal is undetermined. Coal is a reliable power source but one of the many concern with coal is the mining process used to remove it from the ground. Ecological effects are developing worries for the industry, with the carbon emissions possibly contributing to global warming.

Uranium was discovered by Martin Klaproth in 1789. Klaproth was a German Chemist that discovered Uranium in a mineral call pitchblende. It was named after Uranus, the planet, which had been discovered eight years earlier. Uranium occurs in most rocks in concentrations of 2 to 4 parts per million and is common in the Earth’s crust. This highly density element is used in keels of yachts and as counterweights for aircraft control surfaces, as well as for radiation shielding. This element principal uses is in fuel for nuclear reactors and the main raw material for nuclear weapons. Depleted uranium is the waste product of uranium enrichment in nuclear reactors. It is the residue left in massive quantities when bomb-grade uranium is

Uranium mining in Utah started in the 1940’s during WWII when uranium was in high demand in use of bombs. Uranium was found in all parts of Utah in areas like Lisbon Valley, White Canyon and even a little bit at the highly famous Bingham Canyon Mine. Yet mostly in an area near Moab that located in the Red Rocks of Southern Utah by a man name Charles Steen. He is the one that found high uranium deposits in Southern Utah. They call it the “Uranium Boom of 1952” Uranium is a element that is highly radioactive, which is why it was used during WWII.

Uranium was first discovered during the 18th century (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research). It’s a silver-white metal that is radioactive and has high density (Lenntech). However, scientists studied uranium as it has radioactive properties but have found that uranium is only harmful if you’re exposed to it more often than usual or the natural amount (which I’ll go over in the second paragraph) (Lenntech). Natural uranium has three isotopes (which are essentially different forms of the same element. While they have the same number of protons, they have a different number of neutrons): uranium-238, uranium-235, and uranium-234 (Lenntech). Uranium plays a major role in nuclear reactions and is essential when making nuclear weapons (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research). In fact, the first atomic bomb that was used during war was an uranium bomb (Lenntech). Depleted uranium (uranium

Many people believe that coal is a bad resource because it pollutes the air and it leads to global warming, but do those people really know what coal is used for? Some people believe that coal is used for electricity and that's all you hear about it is its use for electricity, but coal is used for other things which I'll talk about later. The government is trying to use renewable resources over coal but do you know the disadvantages of that happening, well if you don't you'll find out later on as well. Without coal the lives of the US citizens would not be the same, and I'm gonna tell you why that is true and why we should stick to electricity that is generated from coal.

Uranium is removed from the oceans by diffusion across the sediment-water interface of organic-rich sediments, and this pathway is the largest single sink in the global budget of this element (Anderson et al., 1989; Barnes and Cochran, 1990; Thomson et al., 1990; Lyons et al., 2002; Calvert et al., 2015). Klinkhammer and Palmer (1991) remark that the dissolved uranium is drawn into suboxic sediments along a concentration gradient established by the precipitation of an insoluble phase which forms when U6+ is reduced to U4+. They also mention that this transformation occurs relatively late in the diagenetic sequence, after the microbially mediated dissolution of manganese and iron oxides, and may be induced by the onset of sulfate reduction. Metallo-organics play an important role in the diagenetic behavior of this element as some uranium is released into solution when labile organics are consumed at the sediment-water interface (Thomson et al., 1990).

The use of coal is increasing every year, in 2006 the world consumed over 6,000,000,000,000 kilograms of coal! How is this possible? Well this is possible because the world has over 100 mines that mine over 6,000,000,000,000 kilograms of coal. A black or dark-brown combustible mineral substance consisting of carbonized vegetable matter, used as a fuel. Compare anthracite, bituminous coal, lignite. Coal exists in underground formations called “coal seams” or “coal beds.” A coal seam can be as thick as 30 meters (90 feet) and stretch 1,500 kilometres (920

Uranium was discovered in 1789 by a man named Martin Klaproth. Uranium is the element with the atomic number of ninety-two. The elemental group it is in is called actinide. Uranium is one of the most abundant actinide elements on the earth. It follows along with Thorium and also Plutonium; based on its abundance. Uranium is a element that is radioactive. It was found radioactive in 1896 by a man named Antoine Henri Becquerel.

Before going straight in on the subject of DU, it would be appropriate to explain it’s parent. Uranium goes back many centuries. According to Briner (2010), Uranium assisted the Germans in the creation of certain textiles and paint in the 1500s. Miners were needed to retrieve this element and over time lung cancer set in the miners due to radioactive dust from uranium (p. 304). Later in time, the United States took interest in uranium. According to Brugge & Goble (2002), it was in 1948 the uranium mining boom started exposing people to radiation dust leading to lung cancer, similar situation to Germany.

Uranium was discovered in the year 1789 by Martin Klaproth, a German chemist, in the mineral called pitchblende. It was named after the planet Uranus, which had was discovered eight years earlier.

Just as Geobacter species have been utilized as a means for bioremediation in Rifle Mill, Colorado, so too can they be implemented in the Navajo Nation to metabolize soluble uranium found in underground water sources. Uranium (U) is a radioactive element which in its soluble form (VI) causes a multitude of serious health conditions (Craft et al, 2004). Uranium is present in the environment as a result of leaching from natural deposits and emissions from the nuclear industry (WHO, 2003). Uranium salts present in a water supply can be an extreme detriment to public health as the majority of human consumption of soluble uranium can occur through a contaminated water source (WHO, 2003). In recent years microbes have been investigated as well

Figure 2. This image illustrates where major reserves of uranium are found on earth. <http://www.globalresearch.ca/articlePictures/uranium_reserves.jpg>.

Its thickness is 3–4 m and the dolostone has low radioactivity, while the dark grey claystone is moderately radioactive. Visible secondary uranium mineralizations are observed associated with the Um Bogma Formation in siltstone, shale, clay, and gravel. The El Hashash Formation disconformably overlies the Um Bogma Formation and consists of sandstone with thin siltstone at