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> 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

> 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.
    - myrmidon 2y ago
      > If it's higher than the .1% natural concentration they're mining wouldn't they mine their waste piles? Your mental picture of the process is a bit off: Uranium mining happens mostly by pumping a leaching agent (typically some acid) into the ground, and extracting it elsewhere via wells. This is very obviously not helpful for groundwater quality. And you are not extracting just Uranium (or even other "desirable" heavy metals)-- most of the radioactivity (>80%) is in economically uninteresting decay products, and you just want/need to get rid of those.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    > 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). I could say that humans breath out CO2 and therefore are significant contributors to global pollution. It is not a real answer unless an order of magnitude estimate is attached. You're just noting that generic heavy metals mining pollutes; which is true but with Uranium mining it turns out pretty quickly that the harms are the most minor of any energy production method because the volumes of material are so small. I don't think the anti-nuclear crowd wants to do that because as soon as they do they're probably going to end up looking foolish. There are situations like our Kazakhstani friend in this thread bought up where the uranium production turns out to be a relatively small component of a much more significant industrial pollution picture. They don't paint a compelling picture for avoiding nuclear power though, and misleading statements like pointing out that mines leave most local material behind are what they have to fall back on. What materials cause less damage than uranium in the extraction process? IN absolute terms there aren't many. Most materials we require orders of magnitude more of the stuff than we need tonnes of uranium.

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.
  - myrmidon 2y ago
    > If it's higher than the .1% natural concentration they're mining wouldn't they mine their waste piles? Your mental picture of the process is a bit off: Uranium mining happens mostly by pumping a leaching agent (typically some acid) into the ground, and extracting it elsewhere via wells. This is very obviously not helpful for groundwater quality. And you are not extracting just Uranium (or even other "desirable" heavy metals)-- most of the radioactivity (>80%) is in economically uninteresting decay products, and you just want/need to get rid of those.
- roenxi 2y ago
  > 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). I could say that humans breath out CO2 and therefore are significant contributors to global pollution. It is not a real answer unless an order of magnitude estimate is attached. You're just noting that generic heavy metals mining pollutes; which is true but with Uranium mining it turns out pretty quickly that the harms are the most minor of any energy production method because the volumes of material are so small. I don't think the anti-nuclear crowd wants to do that because as soon as they do they're probably going to end up looking foolish. There are situations like our Kazakhstani friend in this thread bought up where the uranium production turns out to be a relatively small component of a much more significant industrial pollution picture. They don't paint a compelling picture for avoiding nuclear power though, and misleading statements like pointing out that mines leave most local material behind are what they have to fall back on. What materials cause less damage than uranium in the extraction process? IN absolute terms there aren't many. Most materials we require orders of magnitude more of the stuff than we need tonnes of uranium.