Uranium Mining and Milling

The first step in the nuclear fuel cycle is the mining and milling process. Historically, uranium was found using geiger counters. Today it is done by airborne gamma-ray spectrometry. An area is then selected using a variety of criteria for mining. The best sources within the U.S. are located in the Southwest on indigenous lands.

Even though the dangers were known by experts hard rock mining techniques of extracting uranium was offered as a labor source for tribes like the Navajo. Many of the miners would later die of cancer, passing congenital disease onto their children.

As demand grew for uranium large companies like the French owned Cameco would use modern excavation and in situ techniques to recover uranium ore. Excavation may be underground or via open pit mining.

Open pit mines require large holes on the surface. The milling process extracts the uranium (yellowcake) from the original ore leaving behind large dry or wet tailings. An growing percentage of uranium now comes from in situ leaching (ISL), where oxygenated groundwater is circulated through a very porous orebody to dissolve the uranium and bring it to the surface. ISL may be with slightly acid or with alkaline solutions to keep the uranium in solution. The uranium is then recovered from the solution as in a conventional mill.

The milling process concentrates the uranium or yellowcake, to nearly 80% purity. Immense tailing piles of the original ore are left behind, that contain varying degrees of radiation, and other environmentally sensitive materials. The tailings piles and the abandoned mines represent many superfund sites across the southwest.

In 1979, A liquid tailings site at Churchrock New Mexico broke free of its dam and contaminated indigenous communities' drinking water. Today, another major tailings dam at Moab Utah is endangering the entire Colorado River's drinking water.

In one catatrophic sollution to the dealing with mill tailings, the streets and foundations of houses in Colorado Springs CO were paved using them, later requiring millions of dollars to remove.

Uranium Mining Slideshow Links