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Sources on that? I thought uranium mining was mostly leaching (which is very, very, very energy efficient, and non-destructive if you take care of the used solu
by orwin 3y ago
Sources on that? I thought uranium mining was mostly leaching (which is very, very, very energy efficient, and non-destructive if you take care of the used solution) with open mining on the decline.
- DennisP 3y agoYep, 57% of the world's uranium mining is in-situ leaching, which is basically two pipes in the ground. One pumps water down, the other brings uranium-rich water back up, into a building where the uranium is filtered out. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/in-situ-leach-mining-of-uranium.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
- m4rtink 3y agoUm, its not water down, its sulphuric acid and similar kinds of fun. We are still working out how to get ridd of side effects of that here in Czech Republic decades anfter most such mining ended.
- atombender 3y agoIn-situ leaching contaminates aquifiers, and remediations have not been shown to be effective [1]. Meanwhile, this still leaves all of the mining which is not ISL. [1] https://www.nrdc.org/bio/nrdc/epa-tries-sign-away-authority-regulate-water-polluting-uranium-mining https://www.nrdc.org/bio/nrdc/epa-tries-sign-away-authority-...