Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Uranium mining in the United States has been confi ned to relatively
dry areas of low population density in Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming,
and Nebraska, in part because of concerns about the possible spread of
radioactive pollution caused by mining operations. Recently, however,
a deposit of the metal in moist and populated Virginia that may be the
largest in the United States is being investigated as a possible mining
site.
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Because of environmental regulations, it takes about ten years to
construct an operational mine after a uranium source has been identifi ed.
The estimated 110 million pounds of uranium in the Virginia deposit
could supply all of the nation's nuclear power plants for about two years.
The world never runs out of any natural product, but there may
always be a limit to what people are willing to pay; when this is exceeded,
we say the supply is exhausted and replacements must be found. The
amount of reserves of a metal in rocks depends not only on costs but
also on the intensity of past exploration efforts and is basically a state-
ment about what is known rather than what is present in the earth's
crust. At ten times the current price or with the development of new
technology, seawater might become an economically profi table source of
uranium. The estimated uranium reserves are about 6 million tons, and
current use is 71,000 tons per year. So known reserves are adequate for
about eighty-fi ve years.
Very little exploration for uranium took place between 1995 and
2005, but exploration has increased since then because of a renewed
interest in nuclear energy, and this has led to a signifi cant increase in
known reserves. In just two years, 2005 and 2006, the world's known
uranium reserves increased by 15 percent. On the basis of current geo-
logical knowledge, further exploration by geologists and higher prices
will certainly yield additional reserves.
In addition, the increasing effi ciency of reactors has decreased the need
for uranium. Between 1975 and 1993, the electricity generated by nuclear
energy increased 5.5-fold, while the amount of uranium used increased
only 3-fold.
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On the basis of analogies with other metallic minerals, a
doubling of prices from today's levels could be expected to create about
a tenfold increase in reserves. Uranium is not a renewable resource, but
there is no danger of running out of it in the foreseeable future.
Ninety-two percent of the uranium used in the United States for
nuclear power plants is imported—about half from Russia and half from
Canada; Australia, Namibia, and Kazakhstan are minor suppliers. The
imports that come from Russia do so under a deal that is converting
about 20,000 Russian nuclear weapons into fuel for U.S. nuclear power
