Tuesday, July 29, 2008
U.S. uranium deposits
Is this a familiar story?
We have uranium resources and can't/won't use them.
Will these environmental scare tactics ever stop?...
We have uranium resources and can't/won't use them.
Will these environmental scare tactics ever stop?...
In the Wall Street Journal, Max Schulz discusses the issue:
"Virginia is one of just four states that ban uranium mining. The ban was put in place in 1984, to calm fears that had been sparked by the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island outside of Harrisburg, Pa. in 1979.
Messrs. Bowen and Coles, who last year formed a company called Virginia Uranium, are asking the state to determine whether mining uranium really is a hazard and, if not, to lift the ban. But they've run into a brick wall of environmental activists who raise the specter of nuclear contamination and who are determined to prevent scientific studies of the issue.
The Piedmont Environmental Council is one of the leading opponents. It warns of the "enormous quantities of radioactive waste" produced by uranium mining.
Jack Dunavant, head of the Southside Concerned Citizens in nearby Halifax County, is another outspoken critic. He paints a picture of environmental apocalypse. 'There will be a dead zone within a 30 mile radius of the mine,' he says with a courtly drawl. 'Nothing will grow. Animals will die. The radiation genetically alters tissue. Animals will not be able to reproduce. We'll see malformed fetuses.'
Yet it is not as if we have no experience with uranium mining, which is in fact relatively harmless. Handled properly, the yellowcake that is extracted is no more hazardous than regular household chemicals (and unlike coal, it won't smolder and combust).
James Kelly, who directed the nuclear engineering program at the University of Virginia for many years, says that fears about uranium mining are wildly overblown. 'It's an aesthetic nightmare, but otherwise safe in terms of releasing any significant radioactivity or pollution,' he told me. 'It would be ugly to look at, but from the perspective of any hazard I wouldn't mind if they mined across the street from me.'"
