Uranium Mining Impacts

Uranium can be used to produce nuclear energy, it's renewable, and it means less pollution which in turn helps the environment.

The mining has become a controversial topic due to the mass publicity regarding the potential danger of nuclear power and uranium mining, not to mention the objections by some Indigenous groups. The controversy is significant

560km NNW of the city of Adelaide and along B97 lies the Olympic Dam mine. Olympic Dam, owned by BHP Billiton corporation and produces uranium ore, copper ore, silver ore and gold ore. Olympic Dam is one of the largest uranium deposits in the world and 25% of Olympic Dams revenue is from the uranium. The materials produced from the underground use a system called Sublevel Open Stoping.

So often humans extract for resources like Lead, Aluminum, coal, marcellus shale, natural gas, or asbestos, and over time leave behind a environmental contaminated location. When nearby people start getting sick, showing up with health issues linked to the contamination in their environment, then the EPA usally gets involved. In a different light, the ecological effects from these sites can be things like habitat fragmentation, or in particularly vulnerable species, extinction. For example, in Wyoming, when the coal extraction began, a nearby lake is inevitably going to be contaminated with acid mine drainage. Say a specialists amphibian lived symbiotically with a moss or algae in the lake ecosystem, and without intervention the species dramatically suffer. Superfund sites are a popular topic sustainability and conservation biologists should use their popularity in the nation to aide in the local community remediation methods. For example, I am working to sample vegetation, water quality, fish biomass, and macro invertebrates biomass in local acid mine drainage remediation sites here in Indiana. This is a direct impact from human

The Mining Act does a very good job at protecting certain aspects of the environment such as ensuring that over exploitation of minerals does not occur, or making it mandatory to have a plan in place for closing the mine as well as assuring that there is money to do so. Although there are many things that this Act does right, there are also areas in which there are issues and should be improved. One of the first issues pertaining to this Act is the impact that it fails to mitigate regarding water quality. In areas where mining development occurs, the water quality is drastically affected and a study found that “water from waste rock piles has an ionic profile distinct from unimpacted catchments” (Carey, Wellen, & Shatilla, 2015), meaning that in order to mitigate the impact of the runoff measures must be put in place to limit it. Secondly, the Act does not involve

One of Uranium’s largest environmental impacts is the quality and quantity of surface water near Uranium mines. Once Uranium is extracted from mills, a significant amount of Uranium products are released into rivers and lakes. This significantly increases the concentration of Uranium in surface water. Radon, a product produced from the decaying of Uranium, if consumed by the animals, can create serious lung and stomach issues. Inhaling radon has a similar effect. Uranium, once the material dissolves into the soil, can also significantly influence the soil quality in a given area. Soil, after this process, can’t provide moisture for plant growth and many underground living organisms die. Considering the Olympic Dam Mine is next to a large river, these issues are occurring more and more near the

Uranium mining in and near the Grand Canyon will be devastating to the complex ecosystem found in the park and will also have a damaging effect on visitors’ experiences. Uranium mining produces toxic waste that if not managed properly will leak into the groundwater systems. This threatens not only the local animal and plant life but also people who use the watershed for their drinking water. Individuals should consider the detrimental effects of additional noise and air pollution produced by the mining operations, the very serious threat of what a contaminated aquifer would mean to the Park’s health and the health of the 20 million people who live downstream. Additionally mining operations will need to install roads and buildings to support

I think to an extend it is environmental racism. We need Uranium to protect the United States which includes to protect the Native people. We have to look at the big picture as what is going to help the country. Also, it creates more miners jobs. The use of Uranium is not only use for nuclear weapons, but also to produce energy. In the other hand, the Native people from New Mexico are taking a big hit because since it is a big Uranium mining site and the water is not being dispose properly and the water is seeping into the local aquifers (Earthworks, 2011). I think the government should look an alternative ways to dispose the 12 million gallons a day or other alternative ways to substitute the use of Uranium.

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

I learned that mines were abandoned and in this case we have the responsible helping out. In other cases like the Gold King Mine in Colorado that it was used in the early 1900’s, the responsible that abandoned the mines were from Canada and are no were to be found. The problem with these mines is that when they extract all the uranium and there is no need for the mines, these mines need to be abandoned and closed. Unfortunately, there was no cleanup process when the mines were abandoned. Leaving the areas contaminated and the water from the rain transporting the contamination to other areas. 100 years ago, there was no standard on how to properly abandon a mine. Now days, the EPA and the state environmental departments are responsible to enforce the proper abandonment procedures and make sure the closure will not contaminate nearby areas or the water used for drinking, crops, and other human and animal uses. The runoff of the mine contamination can increase the total dissolve solids (TDS) in the nearby waters, making it non usable for human consumption and fish

Nuclear power produces huge amount of energy through nuclear fission. 1 ton of uranium fuel, which is used as a fuel in generating electricity, equals to 50,000 tons of fossil fuels for generating the same amount of electricity. Since a small amount of nuclear fuel can produce a large amount of energy, it is powerful and efficient.

It is not until recently that people have become dependent on this element, and not necessarily for the good of it, and the world. There is an obsession with uranium because of its unique properties. Uranium is extremely powerful because of its radioactive properties and unstable nuclei, especially that of Uranium-235. It is able to break down and release high frequency radiation through alpha and beta decay. It is because of these characteristics that Uranium has such a craze on the population of the world (Cox, 1995; Scerri, 2007). The properties of uranium allow people to create powerful plants to produce electricity, and weapons strong enough to destroy the world.

Nuclear power is generated from the energy that is released from a heavy nucleus into a lighter, more stable nuclei. The heat produced is used to boil water which drives a steam turbine to generate electricity. This chain reaction process is also called fission. A key element to fuel nuclear plant is uranium. Uranium is considered to be a nonrenewable energy source, even though it is a common metal found in rocks worldwide. U-235 is most commonly used in plants because its atoms are easily split apart. To extract U-235 uranium ore is mined; for the United States, this element is found in the

As part of the process of mining uranium; fine sandy tailings are produced; such materials encompass all the natural radioactive materials in the uranium ore. The tailings are placed in engineered tailings dams where they are enclosed with a coat of clay and rock to prevent escape of radon gas and guarantee durability. The tailings material will be enclosed with water and eventually the tailings holds approximately 75% of the radioactivity of the original ore. This process described above is not designated as radioactive waste as stated by the world nuclear association.

Another threat to the environment is acid mine drainage (also known as acid rock drainage). Acid mine drainage is "the outflow of acidic water from a mining site." This acid is formed by the oxidation of iron sulfide. The oxidation occurs when iron sulfide is exposed to the air or to dissolved oxygen in the water, which causes the iron to rust and the sulfur reacts with the water to forum sulfuric acid (Coil, D., McKittrick, E., and Higman, B., 2010). Figure 2 illustrates the sulfuric acid that is formed.