DaveyHume

Hello, DaveyHume, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! BracketBot (talk) 15:14, 16 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

  Hello, I'm BracketBot.

I appreciate your effort to put the environmental effect of uranium mining in context, but it needs better documentation, and I hope that you can provide it.

First, to judge the relative environmental effect of uranium mining simply by comparing the energy content of coal and gas versus yellowcake is a non sequitur, first, because no uranium ore is composed of pure yellowcake, and second, because the environmental effect of resource extraction is not due just to the volume extracted, but to amount of surface disturbed, and the post-mining state. Your comparison with gas is particularly inapplicable, because a gas well with a footprint of an acre may produce tens of billions of cubic feet of gas, then be easily reclaimed. The surface disturbance of uranium versus coal depends on the mining methods (in-situ leach, underground, open pit, or strip mining), the amounts of overburden or other waste rock, and the post-mining reclamation. Then there is the problem of tailings, which depends again on the mining method, and grade of uranium ore, and reclamation effort. There are good and bad examples of post-mining states of both coal and uranium mining. Comparing the energy of coal or gas compared to a like mass of yellowcake is suggestive and interesting, but not conclusive as to their environmental effects.

I have no reason to doubt your assertion that uranium tailings are more radioactive than the uranium extracted, but the information given is incomplete. Your comparison of the radioactivity of radium versus depleted uranium is off the mark, because depleted uranium is not what is extracted from the ore. Also, your assertion that "of course" the radon escapes is inaccurate; some of it escapes, but, as I recall from my uranium exploration days, the escape rate of the radon depends on such variables as the fineness of the tailings and the water saturation.

Regards, Plazak (talk) 22:51, 2 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

I appreciate, as quite a beginner, this critique. However, for the moment, my intention in saying that "of course" the radon escapes, was not to imply that it doesn't matter, but that I could say little about its contribution to the radioactivity of the tailings. I shall marshal better my arguments as to why the acquisition of a thousand tons of uranium seem very unlikely to cause as much environmental destruction as a thousand million tons of coal. My thanks, DaveyHume (talk) Haven't mustered enough facts on the uranium tailings as to references, but I respectfully dispute your assumption that the reclamation of land from which gas has been collected is only the size of the wellhead's acre. The actual process, even without the modern added insult of fracturing the shale, is inevitably to release a pressure which may or may not have been necessary to support the land above the entire stratum from which the gas exuded.DaveyHume (talk) 05:51, 22 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

What you reject as my "assumption" is better characterized as historical experience. You appear to be making assumptions here regarding land subsidence. You will find that instances of ground subsidence are known above some very large oil fields, but they are rare, and limited to cases where the oil reservoirs are shallow, thick, and poorly consolidated. Offhand, I don't know of any instances of measured subsidence over gas fields. If there are such cases, they are rare. I am not an opponent of either gas wells or uranium mining, but I doubt that there are any good theoretical reasons why one must be more benign than the other; it all depends on how they are done. If done poorly, either energy source could cause significant environmental problems; if done well, they can be of great benefit. I greatly appreciate your scientific attitude in this matter. Most wiki editors only believe science when it supports their preconceptions. Regards. Plazak (talk) 13:11, 22 July 2015 (UTC)Reply