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Re:Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity by lispm on Sunday April 03, 2011 @10:09AM (#2402702)
You have now found out a little bit about the energy density of Uranium. It has little to do with how dangerous mining is and what the consequences are (exposure to Radon, contamination of drinking water, ...).

Fact is, here in Germany we have been mining for coal for decades. It has a lot of negative impacts on nature. It is still going on. But it is slowly phased out against political opposition.

Uranium mining OTOH has been phased out already. Uranium mining has such severe negative effects on the nature that in Germany it is closed with huge monetary investments.

You can read about the closing of the Wismut mine here: http://www.wise-uranium.org/uwis.html

Mining for Uranium is now going on in remote areas or in states with the political structure for it.

Re:Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity by asharp on Sunday April 03, 2011 @11:04AM (#2402856)
Can you show that the rate of fatality for uranium mining is more then 13630 times the rate of fatality of coal mining per kilogram (or cubic meter)? (Including secondary effects of both)

At the end of the day, that specifically is what we are trying to find out.

Re:Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity by lispm on Sunday April 03, 2011 @12:48PM (#2403147)
Maybe you. Not me.

I found already out that all Uranium mines here in Western Europe have been closed, mostly because of environmental issues and because they are not economical.

I can see every day that millions of people live near coal plants and coal mines - here in Germany. There is is a large movement to shut down coal plants and end coal mining. But that movement still has some miles to go.

These are facts.

Your calculations based on energy density are useless. Nobody wants to live near a Uranium mine contaminating ground water. No matter how much energy Uranium provides. In more densely populated areas like Europe this is hopeless.

The existing Uranium mines are almost all located in areas where not the consumers of nuclear electricity live.