3 ms·

> 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% an

> 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.

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.