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The Other Energy Markets
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Global Energy Market Trends, 2021
Considering that most of the world’s enrichment plants are not safeguarded, and seem highly unlikely to come under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards for the foreseeable future, the threat is real and present. Uranium mining is very dangerous work, which results in millions of tons of radioactive tailings or waste materials. Uranium tailings retain about 85% of the radioactivity of the ore and pose a major waste management problem. The majority of the in-situ leaching projects for obtaining uranium are using sulfuric acid in the process, with the residual leaching solutions from uranium mines migrating in the local environment.
Uranium
Published in Earle A. Ripley, E. Robert Redmann, Adèle A. Crowder, Tara C. Ariano, Catherine A. Corrigan, Robert J. Farmer, L. Moira Jackson, Environmental Effects of Mining, 2018
A. Ripley Earle, Robert E. Redmann, Adèle A. Crowder, Tara C. Ariano, Catherine A. Corrigan, Robert J. Farmer, Earle A. Ripley, E. Robert Redmann, Adèle A. Crowder, Tara C. Ariano, Catherine A. Corrigan, Robert J. Farmer, L. Moira Jackson
The environmental risks associated with uranium tailings, unless they are adequately contained, will last many centuries. A failure in the containment system itself, or in the associated water-treatment facility, is likely to result in the release of radioactive material to the environment. A theoretical methodology was developed under the National Uranium Tailings Program to estimate the long-term risk associated with uranium mill tailings (Murray et al. 1987). Three questions were asked: What can go wrong? How likely is it to do so? What will the consequences be if it does?
Southeastern United States wood pellets as a global energy resource: a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment derived from empirical data
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Energy, 2018
Brandon Morrison, Jay S. Golden
Energy use at the pellet mill accounted for the largest contribution to ecotoxicity potential, owing predominantly to the use of coal and nuclear fuel in the underlying electricity mix. Aluminium, the largest contributor stressor to total ecotoxicity potential, resulted from primarily from three activities: the blasting process for coal utilised in the underlying electricity mix; the disposal of uranium tailings during the mining process; and the disposal of wood ash following the combustion of woody biomass during the pellet production process. In this analysis, an assumption was made that the wood ash mixture was disposed of via a slurry mix utilised for farming purposes. The ecotoxicity potential stemmed from aluminium contained within the slurry mix.
Review of Vanadium Production Part I: Primary Resources
Published in Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review, 2022
Feng Gao, Afolabi Uthmon Olayiwola, Biao Liu, Shaona Wang, Hao Du, Jianzhong Li, Xindong Wang, Donghui Chen, Yi Zhang
Due to the importance of U and V, many researches including optimizing the leaching conditions (Kim et al. 2014), separation of vanadium and uranium in uranium-containing solution (Zhu, Pranolo and Cheng 2013), and the recovery of vanadium in uranium tailings (Gharehbagheri et al. 2013), have been conducted. Kim et al. (2014) have proposed a method for extracting vanadium and uranium from a vanadium-containing uranium mineral in South Korea, and the leaching rates of vanadium and uranium could reach 65–72% and 90–94% by H2SO4 solution. Gharehbagheri et al. (2013) used microbial metallurgy to extract vanadium-containing tailings from uranium metallurgy, and reported a vanadium extraction rate of 44.8%.
Enrichment effect of Hypnum plumaeforme on 210Po and 210Pb
Published in International Journal of Phytoremediation, 2020
Yu Zhang, Chen Li, Xuegang Luo
Vegetation restoration of uranium tailings can effectively reduce the spread of pollutants and reduce the environmental hazard of uranium tailings ponds. However, soil nutrient deficiencies usually make most plant species difficult to survive (Salmane and Brumelis 2008; Steinbauer et al. 2013). Unlike normal plant species, moss's dependence on soil nutrients is much weaker because it can absorb nutrients and water from the air through the filamentous morphological surfaces of the above-ground tissue. Hence, moss as a pioneer plant may be an opportunity to address the restoration of vegetation in the uranium tailings reservoir (Karakaya et al. 2015; Favas et al. 2018; Kosior et al. 2018).