Deaths per unit of energy for various sources

Re:Deaths per unit of energy for various sources by pbhjpbhj on Wednesday March 16, 2011 @04:08PM (#2333652)

Yeah, I read about the leaching process (for the previous thread), which sounds good - also enclosed vehicles and such. What I don't get is that wikipedia only included information (the other day when I looked) about open leaching as an optional method of extraction whilst everyone is saying that basically no other methods are used other than in situ (I only readily found information pertaining to experimental use of that in Australia).

The in situ leaching process, as I understood it, requires a quite specific geology and is moderately low in efficiency. The acid goes down pipes and then leaches the uranium out of permeable layers of rock, you suck it up from the bottom and voila (or did I misunderstand). What you can't have is the acid washing away or possibly worse the acid washing the uranium away into the local water supply/environment.

I'm still surprised that basically they never have any accidents at uranium mines/processing plants whilst it seems that everyone who works in the solar industry can't even step on a roof without falling off.

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Re:Deaths per unit of energy for various sources by kiujhgtfghjk on Thursday March 17, 2011 @12:42AM (#2335098)

The majority of the worlds uranium is mined in Australia and Canada, countries with exceptional health and safety standards.

The comparison isn't exactly fair since uranium mines are in deep hard rock which is inherently safer - but in comparison a US coal mine is an insanely dangerous place. And I don't imagine standards in China are much better.

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Re:Deaths per unit of energy for various sources by pbhjpbhj on Thursday March 17, 2011 @10:23AM (#2336159)

The World Nuclear Association (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf23.html) says that the major production is in Kazakhstan but that as you assert if you add Aus+Can production together it does beat the Kazakh production marginally. But I can still say based on those figures that in fact the majority is produced in Kazakhstan and Namibia - I'm afraid I have no info about their safety record but do know (see these links) that they use strong acid leeching which has been considered harmful everywhere else (this could be due to specific geology, or not).

They also say that "Conventional underground & open pit [accounts for] 57%" of global Uranium production.

Moreover the analysis in the OP article appears to be an historic one though whilst wide scale use of ISL (aka ISR) leeching appears to be relatively new.

Further pages from WNA (eg http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf27.html which I've not corroborated) - says that Australia didn't use ISL (for Uranium) until 2000 in Beverley (I've seen other refs say it was trialled in Aus in 1997). So presumably before that they used heap leeching or regular mining methods?

Quoting that second WNA link:

"In 2009, a total of 18,262 tU was produced by ISL, this being 13,473 tU in Kazakhstan, 2429 tU in Uzbekistan, 1217 tU in USA, 583 tU in Australia and 560 tU in Russia. This was 36% of world total production, a share which has risen steadily from 16% in 2000."

WRT my query elsewhere about extracted ore, the BHP BIlliton facility (2 fatalities since opening; largest deposit known of apparently) extracted "933,000 tons of uranium oxide concentrate" in one quarter of 2007 (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/12/12/us-bhpbilliton-olym...). Forecasts for BHP Billiton (http://antinuclear.net/2010/11/17/bhp-shareholder-opposes-da... - note apparent bias of source).

Like I've said elsewhere this is a complex field, one that appears to be being misrepresented.

Edit: other notes 1 - US production was 98% ISL in 1993, http://books.google.com/books?id=pXbdrH6_AVEC&lpg=PR28&#...

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