"Uranium mining is one of the most CO2 intensive industrial operations and as demand for uranium grows because of new electricity generation and new plant construction, CO2 levels will also rise." –Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Uranium mining includes the process of extracting uranium ore from the ground, typically in open-pit mines. In the past decade, alternative means such as underground mines and in-situ leeching where solutions are injected into underground deposits to dissolve uranium are becoming increasingly more prominent (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, 2005). Uranium ore remains considerably rare and is most often found in low concentrations, forcing large quantities of rock to be mined in order to produce minimal amounts of usable uranium ore. The location of mining sites is also widely controversial due to radiation poisoning and other health and environmental concerns. Therefore, the United States has shut down most mines, importing three-fourths of the roughly 16 metric tons of refined uranium used domestically each year, mostly from Canada (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, 2005).
The refining process extracts uranium oxide from ore to form yellow cake, a yellowish brown powder composed of approximately 90% uranium ore (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, 2005). "Conventional mining techniques generate a substantial quantity of mill tailings waste during the milling phase, because the usable portion is generally less than one percent of the ore" (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, 2005). The total volume of mill tailings generated in the U.S. is over 95 percent of the volume of all radioactive waste from all stages of the nuclear weapons and power production (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, 2005). As a result, the externalities surrounding uranium mining are huge and contribute significantly to carbon emissions, suggesting that nuclear energy may be a false solution to climate change.
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The externalities of uranium mining can be broken down into: