How To Reduce Nuclear Waste In Australia

Australia holds an estimated 31% of uranium resources known to man and last year exported almost 6000 tonnes, making it the worlds third largest producer of uranium. The massive amount of uranium being mined in Australia can however have a disastrous effect on the local environment and people. The large amount of nuclear waste created in the mining process is a major issue for the uranium mining industry as there are few viable options to safely dispose of the toxic waste. I hypothesise that a new technique for the disposal of waste needs to be developed for a long-term solution to the problem of nuclear waste disposal.

Waste from the mining process is known as tailings, which consists of radioactive slurry of sand and clay like materials.
The newly approved Four Mile mine, doesn’t produce any waste products because of its use of ISR mining. An ISR or In-Situ recovery mine doesn’t remove the ore from the ground like conventional mine and instead dissolves the ore in the ground and pumps the minerals up to the surface. ISR mining can only be used if the liquids used to dissolve the ore can pass through the rock surrounding it. Former Environment Minister John Hill released a CSIRO report in 2004 stating that the method had “considerably less environmental impact than other conventional mining techniques” meaning there will be limited clean-up and waste management costs involved after mine closure. On top of this the process benefits from low costs due to reduced labour and capital compared to conventional mining practices. This does however mean even fewer jobs being created by the uranium mining Industry. If managed properly the land can also be easily be rehabilitated and used after mining has finished. Environmental engineer Gavin Mudd agreed ISR leach mining reduced many of the risks of uranium mining stating that “There are no tailings, no waste rock and no open cut or underground mine.” This suggests that ISR mining, environmentally, is a much more suitable long-term option to conventional mining methods. ISR mining does have many critics, mainly due to the risk of the acid used to leech the minerals dispersing underground, causing significant damage to the base rock and potentially contaminating ground water. Stating a number of academic journals on water quality around ISR sites, environmental writer Brian Palmer attests that “the benefits of ISR mining are deeply questionable and the environmental costs are becoming ever clearer to people living near the mining