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Nuclear energy seems less harmful because its damage is often invisible or long-term. However, uranium mining leaves behind 99.99% of the extracted material as

by 7bit 2y ago

Nuclear energy seems less harmful because its damage is often invisible or long-term. However, uranium mining leaves behind 99.99% of the extracted material as radioactive waste, contaminating land and water for centuries. The mining sites are primarily in Indigenous territories—such as those of the Navajo in the U.S., First Nations in Canada, Aboriginal Australians, and communities in Niger and Kazakhstan—where local populations suffer from radiation exposure, heavy metal poisoning, and increased cancer rates. While nuclear disasters receive global attention, the ongoing destruction from uranium mining remains largely ignored—out of sight, out of mind.

roenxi 2y ago
99.99% of the extracted material that was already there? Conservation of matter suggests the area was already rich in uranium ores. And uranium operations are pretty small on the scale of mine operations. It also is common enough in modern mining practice to put the nasty stuff at the bottom of the waste dump, as close as possible to the conditions where it came from. That seems unlikely to be causing any problems, especially without a source to gauge how political the studies are. We're talking populations that live close to the middle of nowhere, limited education, limited employment opportunities and questionable infrastructure. They're not going to get health and wellness outcomes as good as more urban populations.
- myrmidon 2y ago
  > 99.99% of the extracted material that was already there? Conservation of matter suggests the area was already rich in uranium ores. This is a misleading take on heavy metal mining in general. Mining is not primarily harmful to local environments because it leads to more of the harmful extracted material; it is harmful because ore concentration is often rather low, and the extraction process produces millions of tons of toxic mineral slurry (=> more harmful than the ore), which has to be disposed somewhere (and preferably not in groundwater, which is the cheapest place to get rid of it). Don't get me wrong, I don't think that mining hazards are the showstopper for nuclear energy, but this ("harmful ore was already there before it is mined") is the wrong dismissal for that argument.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Saying that a mine leaves behind 99.99% of the material is a misleading take. Material that has been there since before the dawn of recorded history remains there. It is a non-statement chosen for emotional effect. I might as well say that the overall concentration of uranium in the area is dropping because they just dug it up and sold a bunch off. He didn't articulate what his problem with the situation was; it is a remarkably vague comment for an area that is extremely well understood. What exactly are these harms? Especially when considering that living remotely from a city is harmful to health outcomes they probably aren't particularly interesting. Gathering the materials for solar panels is harmful and you don't see anyone seriously sitting down to have a whinge about it. Industrial society has costs. News at 11.
    - myrmidon 2y ago
      > Saying that a mine leaves behind 99.99% of the material is a misleading take. This might be slightly overstated, but uranium at ore concentrations of 0.1% and under is mined commercially right now. Safely disposing of toxic byproducts of Uranium ore extraction and -concentration is already non-trivial in sufficiently regulated industrialized nations, situation in Kazakhstan or Africa is very obviously worse (or are you actually arguing that the operators there are gonna restore groundwater quality, and dispose of toxic byproducts in a permanently safe way at their own cost?) > What exactly are these harms? Again. The harm comes primarily from groundwater contamination, which is very hard to prevent because you are basically pumping some leaching agent into the ground, which is alreay invariably gonna affect groundwater quality. Even if that did not, you then need to dump slurry/brine byproducts from extraction somewhere (and the next river is gonna be the cheapest place). > Gathering the materials for solar panels is harmful and you don't see anyone seriously sitting down to have a whinge about it. Industrial society has costs. News at 11. People whine about environmental impact of lithium/rare earth mining bascially every single time that electrification of vehicles comes up (or wind turbines), primarily to then make bad arguments in favor of fossil fuels...
      - potato3732842 2y ago
        What's the uranium concentration of the waste though? If it's higher than the .1% natural concentration they're mining wouldn't they mine their waste piles? I'm failing to see how the waste has more uranium in it than the land did to begin with unless it was a case of the surface land people deal with being free of it.
- pixl97 2y ago
  You seem to misunderstand how mining pollution actually works. When things like uranium are trapped in rocks they are typically immobile and not bioavailable. In most ground strata things things can be stabally held for millions of years. When humans mine the area we can cause what would take erosion millions of years in hours. For example blasting and mechanical splitting of rocks then loading them with equipment causes huge amounts of dust. Also in the process of exposing 'fresh' rock we cause sulfate materials to be exposed to water creating acids that mobilize metals.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    What case study are you working off? There are only something like 50 active uranium projects active right now.
- throwaway1298 2y ago
  I live in one of the mentioned countries (Kazakhstan) very close to one the major (unenriched) uranium processing plants. It's in the very east of the country close to the border with China, you'll easily find information about it if you're interested. It most definitely is causing problems, but you will not hear about it because: a) nobody gives a flying fuck about us, especially our own government, and b) very little research is being done because nobody important is interested in doing it. Most of the money made by destroying our health and environment goes to Switzerland (i.e. Glencore), and they have no incentive to care about us. I read one study by a grad student who managed to escape from here to a French university, and she used a scanning electron microscope to find very high levels of heavy metal pollution -- including uranium -- in tree leaves all around the plant. That's about it. And here's a personal anecdote of what the reality is here: when I was in college, I was working for a few months with a group of researchers that were testing novel techniques of reducing particulate pollution from a local coal power plant. While we did see some positive results, the emission values (both before and after) were significantly higher than what is permitted by government emission standards, about 8-10 times as much. So we were "asked" (and complied -- you don't really say no to these things) to reduce numbers to acceptable levels and publish that. This makes for a pretty piss-poor study if you ask me, it's not really science. edit: and here's this beauty at close range: https://0x0.st/8QZm.jpg https://0x0.st/8QZm.jpg https://0x0.st/8QZS.jpg https://0x0.st/8QZS.jpg
  - roenxi 2y ago
    I worry this is going to come off as overly combative; but you haven't gotten to the meat of my complaint here. What is the harm you are objecting to vis a vis the uranium? The only actual evidence you're proffering is that there is heavy metals pollution "all around" the processing plant. That isn't much to go on. What sort of distances are we talking about? What does "very high" mean?
    - throwaway1298 2y ago
      Sure, I was too impulsive myself, but it's really difficult to read dismissive comments when people all around you lose 10+ years of life expectancy to this "non-problem" just so that some guy in France can have his nuclear energy for cheap. I think this is the study; I read it as a proper full-length thesis, but it also seems to have been condensed into a short paper: https://sci-hub.se/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1470160X17303643 https://sci-hub.se/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art... I'll look around a bit more for the original.

by 7bit 2y ago

roenxi 2y ago

99.99% of the extracted material that was already there? Conservation of matter suggests the area was already rich in uranium ores. And uranium operations are pretty small on the scale of mine operations. It also is common enough in modern mining practice to put the nasty stuff at the bottom of the waste dump, as close as possible to the conditions where it came from. That seems unlikely to be causing any problems, especially without a source to gauge how political the studies are. We're talking populations that live close to the middle of nowhere, limited education, limited employment opportunities and questionable infrastructure. They're not going to get health and wellness outcomes as good as more urban populations.

myrmidon 2y ago
> 99.99% of the extracted material that was already there? Conservation of matter suggests the area was already rich in uranium ores. This is a misleading take on heavy metal mining in general. Mining is not primarily harmful to local environments because it leads to more of the harmful extracted material; it is harmful because ore concentration is often rather low, and the extraction process produces millions of tons of toxic mineral slurry (=> more harmful than the ore), which has to be disposed somewhere (and preferably not in groundwater, which is the cheapest place to get rid of it). Don't get me wrong, I don't think that mining hazards are the showstopper for nuclear energy, but this ("harmful ore was already there before it is mined") is the wrong dismissal for that argument.
- roenxi 2y ago
  Saying that a mine leaves behind 99.99% of the material is a misleading take. Material that has been there since before the dawn of recorded history remains there. It is a non-statement chosen for emotional effect. I might as well say that the overall concentration of uranium in the area is dropping because they just dug it up and sold a bunch off. He didn't articulate what his problem with the situation was; it is a remarkably vague comment for an area that is extremely well understood. What exactly are these harms? Especially when considering that living remotely from a city is harmful to health outcomes they probably aren't particularly interesting. Gathering the materials for solar panels is harmful and you don't see anyone seriously sitting down to have a whinge about it. Industrial society has costs. News at 11.
  - myrmidon 2y ago
    > Saying that a mine leaves behind 99.99% of the material is a misleading take. This might be slightly overstated, but uranium at ore concentrations of 0.1% and under is mined commercially right now. Safely disposing of toxic byproducts of Uranium ore extraction and -concentration is already non-trivial in sufficiently regulated industrialized nations, situation in Kazakhstan or Africa is very obviously worse (or are you actually arguing that the operators there are gonna restore groundwater quality, and dispose of toxic byproducts in a permanently safe way at their own cost?) > What exactly are these harms? Again. The harm comes primarily from groundwater contamination, which is very hard to prevent because you are basically pumping some leaching agent into the ground, which is alreay invariably gonna affect groundwater quality. Even if that did not, you then need to dump slurry/brine byproducts from extraction somewhere (and the next river is gonna be the cheapest place). > Gathering the materials for solar panels is harmful and you don't see anyone seriously sitting down to have a whinge about it. Industrial society has costs. News at 11. People whine about environmental impact of lithium/rare earth mining bascially every single time that electrification of vehicles comes up (or wind turbines), primarily to then make bad arguments in favor of fossil fuels...
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      What's the uranium concentration of the waste though? If it's higher than the .1% natural concentration they're mining wouldn't they mine their waste piles? I'm failing to see how the waste has more uranium in it than the land did to begin with unless it was a case of the surface land people deal with being free of it.
pixl97 2y ago
You seem to misunderstand how mining pollution actually works. When things like uranium are trapped in rocks they are typically immobile and not bioavailable. In most ground strata things things can be stabally held for millions of years. When humans mine the area we can cause what would take erosion millions of years in hours. For example blasting and mechanical splitting of rocks then loading them with equipment causes huge amounts of dust. Also in the process of exposing 'fresh' rock we cause sulfate materials to be exposed to water creating acids that mobilize metals.
- roenxi 2y ago
  What case study are you working off? There are only something like 50 active uranium projects active right now.
throwaway1298 2y ago
I live in one of the mentioned countries (Kazakhstan) very close to one the major (unenriched) uranium processing plants. It's in the very east of the country close to the border with China, you'll easily find information about it if you're interested. It most definitely is causing problems, but you will not hear about it because: a) nobody gives a flying fuck about us, especially our own government, and b) very little research is being done because nobody important is interested in doing it. Most of the money made by destroying our health and environment goes to Switzerland (i.e. Glencore), and they have no incentive to care about us. I read one study by a grad student who managed to escape from here to a French university, and she used a scanning electron microscope to find very high levels of heavy metal pollution -- including uranium -- in tree leaves all around the plant. That's about it. And here's a personal anecdote of what the reality is here: when I was in college, I was working for a few months with a group of researchers that were testing novel techniques of reducing particulate pollution from a local coal power plant. While we did see some positive results, the emission values (both before and after) were significantly higher than what is permitted by government emission standards, about 8-10 times as much. So we were "asked" (and complied -- you don't really say no to these things) to reduce numbers to acceptable levels and publish that. This makes for a pretty piss-poor study if you ask me, it's not really science. edit: and here's this beauty at close range: https://0x0.st/8QZm.jpg https://0x0.st/8QZm.jpg https://0x0.st/8QZS.jpg https://0x0.st/8QZS.jpg
- roenxi 2y ago
  I worry this is going to come off as overly combative; but you haven't gotten to the meat of my complaint here. What is the harm you are objecting to vis a vis the uranium? The only actual evidence you're proffering is that there is heavy metals pollution "all around" the processing plant. That isn't much to go on. What sort of distances are we talking about? What does "very high" mean?
  - throwaway1298 2y ago
    Sure, I was too impulsive myself, but it's really difficult to read dismissive comments when people all around you lose 10+ years of life expectancy to this "non-problem" just so that some guy in France can have his nuclear energy for cheap. I think this is the study; I read it as a proper full-length thesis, but it also seems to have been condensed into a short paper: https://sci-hub.se/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1470160X17303643 https://sci-hub.se/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art... I'll look around a bit more for the original.