In situ uranium solution mining = pump sulfuric aid and hydrogen peroxide into ground water

[jpak]

pollute the ground water with heavy metals + uranium + radionuclides +acids + oxidants - leave most of the shit in the ground water, forever polluting it....

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#In-situ_leaching

In-situ leaching

In-situ leaching (ISL), also known as solution mining, or in-situ recovery (ISR) in North America, involves leaving the ore where it is in the ground, and recovering the minerals from it by dissolving them and pumping the pregnant solution to the surface where the minerals can be recovered. Consequently there is little surface disturbance and no tailings or waste rock generated. However, the orebody needs to be permeable to the liquids used, and located so that they do not contaminate ground water away from the orebody.

Uranium ISL uses the native groundwater in the orebody which is fortified with a complexing agent and in most cases an oxidant. It is then pumped through the underground orebody to recover the minerals in it by leaching. Once the pregnant solution is returned to the surface, the uranium is recovered in much the same way as in any other uranium plant (mill).

In Australian ISL mines (Beverley and the soon to be opened Honeymoon Mine) the oxidant used is hydrogen peroxide and the complexing agent sulfuric acid. Kazakh ISL mines generally do not employ an oxidant but use much higher acid concentrations in the circulating solutions. ISL mines in the USA use an alkali leach due to the presence of significant quantities of acid-consuming minerals such as gypsum and limestone in the host aquifers. Any more than a few percent carbonate minerals means that alkali leach must be used in preference to the more efficient acid leach


<snip>

United States Experience

<snip>

The early ISL mines, such as Irigary Wyoming and Clay West/Burns in Texas, had many technical problems which led to poor operational and environmental performance. These included mineral precipitation of gypsum (CaSO4) and calcite (CaCO3) plugging the aquifer, restricting groundwater flow and exacerbating excursions; complex reactions of chemicals with clays in the aquifer soils leading to permeability loss; excursions through old exploration boreholes; and excursions outside the mining zone. Problems were also noted with radiation levels, especially at some Texan ISL mines. The restoration of groundwater at many sites was not successful, and companies lobbied regulators to relax cleanup standards, and some sites still had significant problems even meeting these standards. The design of processing plants and infrastructure was also inadequate at some sites.

<snip>

International Experience

The ISL mining technique has been enthusiastically employed at many uranium deposits across Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). However, the regulators and environmental policies of many of these countries was not, arguably, of a similar status as their United States counterparts. There is now a legacy of many contaminated sites and polluted groundwater across Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the CIS and Germany, with some sites considered severe.

The majority of the ISL projects used sulphuric acid and the residual leaching solutions from ISL mines have migrated away from the mining zones. At some sites, notably in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, these solutions have led to contamination of good quality groundwater systems that are used by nearby towns for their water supply or by local residents as their primary drinking water source. In some cases, the contaminated solutions have been demonstrated to reach these wells and valleys.

The chemical toxicity of these solutions, as well as their radiotoxicity, are a grave concern for modern regulators faced with the intractable cleanup problems now faced by the governments of the countries involved. At the Stráz site in the Czech Republic, the mined aquifer will never be able to be restored to it’s pre-mining water quality, and all restoration efforts are merely aimed at minimising contamination of surrounding groundwater. The cleanup of many sites is expected to take some decades, or even centuries.

<more>

:puke:

Uranium mining "clean and green"?????

Horseshit

:thumbsdown:

:puke:

[ensho]

1. true - thanks for the facts

nt

[joshcryer]

10. See post #4, the OP is outright disinformation.

Unless the OP is against the copper industry.

[joshcryer]

11. Which begs the question, is the OP against the copper industry?

I'd expect so given their desire to protect sea turtles.

[joshcryer]

17. Anyone know the OPs position on this process for copper mining and whether they support it?

[madokie]

2. Nothing about using nuclear energy is sane

from the mining to the disposal its all a big lie thats been told time and time again to the point that some believe its safe and green of which neither is true. This has to be the stupidest thing they've come up with yet for extracting the uranium

[kestrel91316]

3. Wow. Nothing bad could EVER come from doing THIS, right????

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Once again, your F.U.D. backfires

You probably thought that since most people don't have much mining savvy (you were correct about that), you could just post about uranium mining without context, and you'd get plenty of indignant posts. It turns out that, as usual, you've have to resort to some pretty intense massaging of data -- like leaving out 350/351sts of it.

In the USA, uranium has been http://www.sea-us.org.au/pdfs/tmw00/TMW00-Oz-USA.pdf">mined with carbonates (like sodium bicarbonate) since 1970; copper leachants are usually acids, and gold leachants are highly corrosive cyanides.

Copper in-situ leaching is BY FAR the largest contributor of radiologically hazardous waste material among ISL-mined metals; and it is subject to much looser standards than anything in or out of a reactor.

The http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf23.html">amount of uranium mined in the USA was 1672 metric tons in 2006; for http://www.indexmundi.com/en/commodities/minerals/copper/copper_t20.html">copper, 1.2 million metric tons (2006), half of that by leaching. That's a ratio of better than 350:1 (Cu/U), assuming 100% uranium leaching, and 2006 was the best year for uranium mining in the past decade. But actually, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf23.html">about one-third of the uranium is mined by ISL, so our Cu/U ratio goes to about 1000:1.

And every gram of copper leached produces TENORM -- Technologically-Enhanced Naturally-Occurring Radioactive Material:

http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/tenorm/copper.html">Copper Mining and Production Wastes

http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/docs/tenorm/402-r-99-002.pdf">TENORM in the Southwestern Copper Belt of Arizona (PDF)

http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/tenorm/sources.html">Sources of TENORM (Uranium mining isn't the worst by far, though copper mining produces less ambient radiation per gram.)

A huge amount of TENORM is produced incidentally to mining, fossil fuel use, agriculture, and even water processing in just the USA. In fact, there are hundreds of papers proposing that TENORM be "mined" for its radionuclide content.

You know, I'm the first one to admit that my command of math isn't stellar. If I have misplaced a jot or a tittle, I'm sure to hear about it. In fact, I would want to hear about it. But the copper mining industry is so enormously bigger than the uranium mining industry that to focus on uranium as The Problem is absurd. I've read dozens of hand-wringing articles here about uranium mining, but I think I've seen maybe ONE about in-situ leach gold mining, and one or two about copper mining, in general. A 350:1 or 1000:1 copper-to-uranium production ratio, but a reversed outrage ratio.

Nor can you claim that uranium is a special case because it's radioactive, because copper mining waste is likewise radioactive.

Say, isn't copper used in great quantity in the wind energy industry? (I mean, hundreds of times more of it than is used by a nuclear reactor.)

--d!

[bahrbearian]

7. So because we use is for copper that makes it OK ?

[Dogmudgeon]

8. I'm not quite sure what your point is

I will accept responsibility that I may not have made my point(s) clear enough, so I'll make a synopsis. (Most of these points are easily followed in the links given in my previous post.):

In-Situ Leach mining (ISL) of Uranium is the least environmentally disruptive of the three major ISL industries. It uses carbonates, mainly sodium bicarbonate, and sometimes ammonia, depending on the orebody composition. Gaseous CO2 is also used at times. This does have a measurable environmental impact, but I'm not sure that bicarb is classified as an irremediable pollutant. The CO2 is, of course, a greenhouse gas, but very little is used compared to any fuel combustion, and much of it may be sequestered in the chemical reactions with orebody materials. This is similar to many CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration) proposals. But, of course, using CO2 for ISL doesn't qualify as CCS, either.

Copper ISL is much more environmentally destructive, since it primarily uses sulfuric and nitric acids. Gold ISL is also much more environmentally destructive, since it primarily uses cyanide-based reagents that are highly toxic as well as corrosive.

In addition, Copper ISL concentrates large amounts of uranium, thorium, and trace radionuclides found in matrix with the copper ore. This is a kind of TENORM (see below).

There is 350-1000x as much In-Situ Leach mining of Copper as there is of Uranium.

There is almost no opposition to Copper ISL from the dominant "boomer-era" (1960s-1980s) environmentalist movement, but a huge reaction to Uranium ISL.

There is actually a little opposition to Gold ISL -- mainly because it benefits the rich.

There are much stricter rules for uranium mining than for copper or gold mining. Environmental remediation is almost always required for uranium mining. For other metals, not so much.

Wind energy uses enormous amounts of copper wire, and the required "Smart Grid" projects use orders of magnitude more. The environmental effects are not accounted for by the proponents of wind who are also opponents of nuclear energy, e.g., Mark Z. Jacobson.

Opposition to a given practice is based on political and cultural concerns, NOT environmental ones, from the dominant "boomer-era" (1960s-1980s) environmentalist movement. Thus, we get outrage over nuclear energy and "cheap plastic crap from China", but scant attention is paid to lax rules on TENORM and to the rapid worldwide degradation of soil and agricultural conditions.

My conclusion is that many opponents of nuclear energy support astounding double standards for environmental and health impacts, are extremely sloppy with data that can be found easily, and take a long time before they do pick up on the greater risks. For example, pro-nuclear scientists were warning about pollution from coal in the 1960s; anti-nuclear Greenpeace's first anti-coal "action" was in 2004, IIRC. And many nuclear foes right here at DU dismiss the dangers posed by NORM, or Naturally-Occurring Radioactive Material, and TENORM, Technologically-Enhanced NORM (like uranium in coal fly ash).

So. does that make it OK? Until I start hearing 350x more protest about copper ISL, yes. Heck, I'll even settle for fifty times as much. No -- make that twenty. But I guarantee, it won't happen any time soon.

I hope that's more concise.

--d!
Non-flame corrections are always welcome.

[joshcryer]

9. Thanks for the truth check here.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. But but but ... We've been using it for years, so it's OK! And everybody loves copper!

Just like alcohol and tobacco good, cannabis bad.

Old smokestack industries we think we understand get a free pass, especially with Bu**sh**'s boys doing the enforcement. New industries face heightened scrutiny, but we never look back to scrutinize what's already in place.

[NNadir]

5. It would be interesting if anti-nukes knew any chemistry or physics, but, um they don't.

I note that anti-nukes try to separate their stupid concern with uranium mines from their plan to fracture every damn piece of cap rock in North America to get the last drop of dangerous natural gas.

Since anti-nukes are oblivious, they care not to consider even for a second how much sulfur dioxide their pals in the dangerous fossil fuel industry have dumped in Earth's atmosphere.

In fact, the discarded waste from the manufacture of television sets could easily lead to the phase out of mining, but anti-nukes oppose it on the grounds that they don't know a shred of science.

Have a nice paranoid selective attention day.

[jpak]

6. Anti-nukes know all about chemistry & physics and that's how we know the NJ molten salt breader is

a FRAUD!!!111

:rofl:

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Which of these molten salt reactors are you referring to?

The early Aircraft Reactor Experiment (1954) was primarily motivated by the small size that the design could provide, while the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (1965-69) was a prototype for a thorium fuel cycle breeder reactor nuclear power plant. One of the Generation IV reactor designs is a molten salt-cooled, solid-fuel reactor; the initial reference design is 1000 MWe with a deployment target date of 2025.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor

Contents
1 History
1.1 The Aircraft Reactor Experiment
1.2 The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment
1.3 Oak Ridge National Laboratory reactor
1.4 Liquid salt very high temperature reactor
1.5 The Fuji MSR


The articles don't mention anything about breading. Maybe they used Corn Flakes^®?

[jpak]

13. The fictitious one that was "invented" in New Jersey that will consume CO2 and save the planet

:evilgrin:

[eppur_se_muova]

14. Most of the reactors described in that link were historically real, functioning devices.

The US MIC chose not to pursue them further because other designs were much better* at producing weapons-grade plutonium. Molten-salt reactors were potentially cheaper, more efficient, and less pollluting when it came to producing utility power, none of which mattered so much to anyone in political power.















*Meaning they produced more, cheaper. No other standards applied.

[jpak]

15. I am well aware they existed

the *other* one does not

:evilgrin:

[Merchant Marine]

18. So what about copper and aluminium mining?

How about the massive pit mining going on in China to get lithium for the batteries that are supposed to drive our cars?