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How Uranium Mining Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck, Brian over there, and Jerry's
0:17
Speaker 1: over there out there in the ether, but here still,
0:20
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. Jerry, whom we
0:24
Speaker 1: love so much. UM. So we're talking Chuck about uranium mining, obviously,
0:30
Speaker 1: because anytime Jerry comes up, he goes pretty much hand
0:33
Speaker 1: in hand with uranium mining, right. Um. And like we
0:40
Speaker 1: talked about mining before, none of our finest episode, if
0:44
Speaker 1: I remember correctly from some of the listener mail corrections
0:46
Speaker 1: we got, you know, it's like underground mining. We're gonna
0:51
Speaker 1: secret around that. And um, uranium mining is like its
0:55
Speaker 1: own thing. Like all mining is pretty bears some resemblance
0:59
Speaker 1: to want a but uranium mining in particular, is um
1:03
Speaker 1: really heavily regulated. Um, the stuff that it produces, uranium
1:08
Speaker 1: appropriately enough, is a a really regulated substance because it
1:15
Speaker 1: can do some pretty powerful stuff. And it's just kind
1:18
Speaker 1: of interesting, especially considering the history of uranium and humans,
1:22
Speaker 1: which is a fairly recent history. Yeah, I mean, you know,
1:25
Speaker 1: it kind of depends on what era you're talking about.
1:28
Speaker 1: But um, uranium brings to mind a couple of things
1:32
Speaker 1: depending on when you're talking about. If you're talking about
1:35
Speaker 1: the fifties during the Cold War and the arms race,
1:39
Speaker 1: then you can only think about enriched uranium in nuclear
1:43
Speaker 1: nuclear war and nuclear bombs. If you fast forward to
1:46
Speaker 1: the seventies, you think about a kinder, gentler uranium, uh,
1:52
Speaker 1: still radioactive, but um one that would be used for
1:55
Speaker 1: energy production. And here's a pretty whopping stat on on
1:59
Speaker 1: the kind of punch it packs as far as producing energy.
2:03
Speaker 1: And this is startling, frankly, A seven gram pellet of
2:07
Speaker 1: uranium fuel produces as much energy as almost eight pounds
2:11
Speaker 1: of coal and three and a half barrels of oil.
2:14
Speaker 1: I I love that too, So I fiddled with it
2:18
Speaker 1: on a calculator a little bit. So if you took
2:21
Speaker 1: about seventy fives of enriched uranium fuel, it would produce
2:27
Speaker 1: the same amount of energy as something like almost two
2:31
Speaker 1: million pounds of coal. Just just hundred and fifty pounds
2:36
Speaker 1: produces two million pounds of coal's worth of energy. And
2:40
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing stuff. And it's because uranium is is radioactive,
2:45
Speaker 1: like it decays spontaneously over um over time, right, and
2:50
Speaker 1: when it does, it releases gamma, radiation and energy in
2:54
Speaker 1: the form of heat. And if you can contain and
2:57
Speaker 1: kind of encourage this decay um, these these reactions where
3:01
Speaker 1: neutrons kind of bombard uranium atoms and create all sorts
3:05
Speaker 1: of energy release um, and it happens like trillions of
3:08
Speaker 1: times a second. You can generate enough heat to boil
3:11
Speaker 1: water to spin a turbine, which to me still is
3:15
Speaker 1: one of the most hilarious things that humans have ever
3:17
Speaker 1: come up with. Using nuclear fuel to generate steam to
3:21
Speaker 1: turn a turbine to produce electricity is just as hilariously
3:26
Speaker 1: roundabout as it gets. But that's what nuclear energy does.
3:29
Speaker 1: That's how it produces electricity. Yeah, And kind of the
3:32
Speaker 1: cool thing about that production of electricity and regards to
3:37
Speaker 1: nuclear warheads is after the de escalation after the Cold War,
3:42
Speaker 1: and we could still go back and use that stuff.
3:44
Speaker 1: We could take that enriched uranium that was stored in
3:46
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons and reuse a lot of that stuff. In fact,
3:50
Speaker 1: most of it, I think for reactors to power reactors. Yeah,
3:55
Speaker 1: and you can get a lot of use out of
3:56
Speaker 1: it because typically the nuclear fuel, the enriched uranium that
4:01
Speaker 1: they use in a nuclear reactor to create electricity is
4:05
Speaker 1: about five cent um uranium two thirty five, which is
4:10
Speaker 1: that's the money isotope when you're creating nuclear power, that's right.
4:14
Speaker 1: If you're using it for military purposes like a nuclear bomb,
4:19
Speaker 1: it's like, so you could get a lot of nuclear
4:22
Speaker 1: fuel out of ranium uranium that was enriched for a
4:26
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb and reusing it for nuclear fuel. I think
4:29
Speaker 1: that's just such a great like like swords to plowshares,
4:32
Speaker 1: kind of kind of fable. Yeah, and there's um, you know,
4:37
Speaker 1: it can also be used for other stuff. It does,
4:38
Speaker 1: it's not just for making power super efficiently. Um. There's
4:43
Speaker 1: something called and I don't know how it's pronounced, but
4:45
Speaker 1: it's m O l y B denim d U d
4:51
Speaker 1: E n U M so. I don't know if it's
4:52
Speaker 1: the B asylum and it's molly denom ninety nine or
4:56
Speaker 1: molly B denim, but I think they call it MO
5:00
Speaker 1: ninety nine, which is super useful. But it's this is
5:04
Speaker 1: a decay product, uh, one of the decay products of uranium.
5:08
Speaker 1: And it is really useful for medical imaging, like to
5:12
Speaker 1: see if your hard is bumping right, or to see
5:14
Speaker 1: if your cancer is metastasized and the kind of freaky
5:18
Speaker 1: thing is until it was actually made and used from
5:22
Speaker 1: weapons grade uranium UH, and then starting in two thousand ten,
5:26
Speaker 1: now that it's a low enriched version that they used
5:28
Speaker 1: for it, and I saw that there are nuclear reactors
5:31
Speaker 1: that produce electricity that don't have to use enriched uranium.
5:34
Speaker 1: They can actually use like natural uranium or and still
5:38
Speaker 1: generate electricity from that UM, which I think that might be.
5:42
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a trend or not, but
5:43
Speaker 1: I'd like to see it become one where it's like,
5:45
Speaker 1: if we can get away with nuclear enrichment UH and
5:49
Speaker 1: not do that anymore, it would save a lot of
5:51
Speaker 1: problems because nuclear in and of itself isn't necessarily problematic,
5:56
Speaker 1: and it is like low carbon or almost carbon free
6:00
Speaker 1: a form of energy, but there's a lot of problems
6:04
Speaker 1: with the byproducts of the enrichment processes we'll talk about. Yeah.
6:09
Speaker 1: And another cool little um fact about when they first
6:13
Speaker 1: discovered uranium as well as radium is that there really
6:17
Speaker 1: uses Radium was used to make glow paint, and UH,
6:23
Speaker 1: uranium was used as a glaze, a decorative glaze, and
6:26
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden they're like, hey, guys, this
6:28
Speaker 1: stuff is actually nuclear no wonder, it glows and it
6:33
Speaker 1: makes a nice glaze. Yeah, there's there's also something called
6:35
Speaker 1: vasoline glass, which is a collector's item, but it has
6:38
Speaker 1: like a radioactive glow to it because it has uranium
6:42
Speaker 1: in it. And then Fiesta weare like that celebrated twentieth
6:46
Speaker 1: century dinner ware the red um used uranium in its
6:51
Speaker 1: glaze until what's it called Fia you know, the really
6:58
Speaker 1: right colored play and bowls and everything that we're like
7:01
Speaker 1: really kind of big from the thirties until I think
7:05
Speaker 1: it's still around today. You've seen it. Yeah, I like
7:07
Speaker 1: that stuff. That's uh, we have some of that stuff
7:10
Speaker 1: for like you know, barbecues and stuff exactly well instead
7:14
Speaker 1: of fine china and Chris right. Um, So if you
7:18
Speaker 1: if you got it in h nineteen seventy three or prior,
7:21
Speaker 1: you may want to just update your collection because that's
7:25
Speaker 1: stuff we we have like the new target versions of that. Okay,
7:31
Speaker 1: that's probably not radioactive so uranium. It was discovered in
7:36
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine by a subject of the Kingdom of Bohemia,
7:40
Speaker 1: which is present day Czech Republic. His name was Martin
7:44
Speaker 1: Claproth and he was actually a German chemist. I guess
7:48
Speaker 1: he liked Bohemia more. But um, he discovered it and
7:51
Speaker 1: named it uranium after the planet Uranus, which have been
7:55
Speaker 1: discovered earlier in the decade. And I guess it was
7:58
Speaker 1: still just the hot new thing everybody's mind, because that's
8:01
Speaker 1: what uranium is named after. Yeah, and there's you know,
8:05
Speaker 1: there's different kinds of uranium U. It has different kinds
8:09
Speaker 1: of isotopes, which basically are the different forms with different
8:13
Speaker 1: number of neutrons. And depending on how stable each isotope is,
8:17
Speaker 1: each version is Some are more radioactive, some are more
8:20
Speaker 1: likely to uh, to produce nuclear fissions, some are less likely.
8:25
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned uranium two thirty five is the
8:27
Speaker 1: money when for you know, for nuclear war and I
8:30
Speaker 1: guess for power production too, Right, that's the one you want.
8:33
Speaker 1: You don't want any of that garbage to thirty eight stuff,
8:37
Speaker 1: but to thirty eight is the most abundant, so there
8:39
Speaker 1: is more of that stuff. Uh, And you don't even
8:42
Speaker 1: ask about thirty seven. So there's three that are naturally
8:46
Speaker 1: occurring to two thirty four And what's really cool about
8:51
Speaker 1: it is uranium two thirty five and uranium two thirty
8:54
Speaker 1: eight or what are called primordial um elements where they're
8:59
Speaker 1: like genuine, real deal star dust, like they were created
9:03
Speaker 1: in or shortly after the Big Bang. So the uranium
9:06
Speaker 1: around here on Earth was like was around at the
9:11
Speaker 1: beginning of the universe. It's way older than Earth, hence
9:13
Speaker 1: the name primordial and right exactly. And it's half life
9:18
Speaker 1: get this, chuck, is three thousand years, which is you
9:21
Speaker 1: know why it's been around for longer than Earth. Did
9:26
Speaker 1: you get that joke? I mean, someone's gonna be mad
9:31
Speaker 1: at us, but oh man, they're gonna be so man. Now. Actually,
9:34
Speaker 1: the half life of two thirty five is about seven
9:37
Speaker 1: million years and then two eight a half life. So
9:40
Speaker 1: if you take a gram of pure uranium two thirty
9:43
Speaker 1: eight and store it in a container and you come
9:46
Speaker 1: back and check on it in four and a half
9:48
Speaker 1: billion years, only half of it will have decayed in
9:51
Speaker 1: that time. It is ancient stuff, and it's pretty cool.
9:56
Speaker 1: We figured out a way to use that primordial element,
10:00
Speaker 1: this ancient stuff that was created in the Big Bang,
10:03
Speaker 1: to generate steam to turn a turbine to generate electricity.
10:08
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Uh. If you want to mind this stuff,
10:12
Speaker 1: Australia is number one in the world. I think about
10:15
Speaker 1: thirty percent of all uranium in the world is in Australia. Uh.
10:19
Speaker 1: Number two is Kazakhstan. Yeah, that was a terrible boor
10:25
Speaker 1: maybe the worst I've ever heard. Wow. Number three is Russia.
10:31
Speaker 1: I'm really ashamed of myself. And then number four is
10:34
Speaker 1: is Canada. It Russias got Canada beat Yeah, Russia's number
10:38
Speaker 1: three ahead of Canada this year. Okay, gotcha Gota? Yeah,
10:43
Speaker 1: because I know, I guess last year Kazakhstan came up
10:46
Speaker 1: in the last Within about the last decade, Canada's got
10:49
Speaker 1: the number one producing mind Cigar Lake mine. It produced
10:53
Speaker 1: something like thirtcent of the world's geranium single handedly in
10:57
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, just this one mine in can Nada. Um.
11:01
Speaker 1: And Canada's uranium is so rich. Remember we rich? Is it?
11:06
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked Chuck. Um. It's so rich that
11:10
Speaker 1: they have to use robots to mine it because the
11:12
Speaker 1: humans can't get near it. It's too dangerous. Well, yeah,
11:17
Speaker 1: this will be talking about that a little bit later.
11:19
Speaker 1: It's as rich as it comes, which is good for Canada. Sure,
11:23
Speaker 1: the US doesn't have a ton of it. UM. I
11:26
Speaker 1: believe that there are currently six states that have mining operations. Wyoming,
11:31
Speaker 1: New Mexico and Utah have the bulk of it, and
11:34
Speaker 1: then there's also some in Arizona, Nebraska, and Texas. And
11:39
Speaker 1: Arizona's is interesting because there is UH in Grand Canyon
11:44
Speaker 1: National Park, there is uranium. And in twelve President Obama said,
11:50
Speaker 1: you know what, for twenty years, there's a ban on
11:52
Speaker 1: uranium uranium mining on this million acres of land around
11:55
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon. And then just a couple of months ago,
11:58
Speaker 1: in February of this year, they passed the House passed
12:01
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon Protection Act to make that permanent. And
12:05
Speaker 1: I think it now goes to Senate committee. UH. It
12:08
Speaker 1: passed generally, of course, our long party lines, with Democrats saying,
12:13
Speaker 1: you know, we got to protect our land and Republicans saying, oh,
12:16
Speaker 1: it's fine, right. I saw I saw a press release
12:22
Speaker 1: from Mark Kelly, who's now a Senator from Arizona, and
12:26
Speaker 1: he and I think Kristen Cinema um co sponsored a
12:30
Speaker 1: bill because they're both from Arizona to basically do what
12:33
Speaker 1: that House bill did was protect or make that band permanent. UM.
12:37
Speaker 1: And in this press release, he said that the the
12:40
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon generated different one. I think it was a
12:43
Speaker 1: concurrent bill. Yeah, it was a different bill. I think
12:46
Speaker 1: that there was the House bill in the Senate bill.
12:48
Speaker 1: I think they do this sometimes. It makes it happen
12:50
Speaker 1: faster because when it goes through committee, it gets they
12:54
Speaker 1: come together and work out the differences, rather than you know,
12:57
Speaker 1: it goes through the House and then it goes to Senate.
12:59
Speaker 1: Can happen concurrent, Yeah, concurrently. I think that's what was
13:03
Speaker 1: going on. But anyway, the upshot of it is that
13:06
Speaker 1: the in the press release, Mark Kelly said that the
13:10
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon generates something like one point three billion dollars
13:14
Speaker 1: in tourist revenue for the state of Arizona every year,
13:18
Speaker 1: which is like, how long is it going to take
13:20
Speaker 1: you to to mind that much uranium? It just makes
13:23
Speaker 1: sense to protect the Grand Canyon and that just that
13:26
Speaker 1: case alone. Yeah, I mean, that was the point that
13:28
Speaker 1: that they were making on the Democrat side, is the
13:31
Speaker 1: amount of uranium was I can't remember, but it was
13:34
Speaker 1: not that much. I think it was like less than
13:36
Speaker 1: one percent of the total in the United States, and
13:39
Speaker 1: they were just saying the benefits just don't even come
13:42
Speaker 1: closed out weighing the risks here. Yeah, And I mean again, well,
13:45
Speaker 1: like I don't think I'm not, but I would say
13:47
Speaker 1: we're not here to just knock uranium as a as
13:50
Speaker 1: an energy source or even uranium mining when it's done correctly.
13:54
Speaker 1: But yeah, when when it butts up against maybe the
13:59
Speaker 1: most celebrated natural treasure in an entire nation, on an
14:04
Speaker 1: entire continent, maybe just skip that one. I think is
14:08
Speaker 1: kind of my my take on it. Yeah, to squeeze
14:11
Speaker 1: just a little bit of urania there. Yeah, it's just
14:13
Speaker 1: so shortsighted. I'm so sick of shortsightedness. To um. There's
14:20
Speaker 1: a cool quote in here, and this this was from
14:22
Speaker 1: originally from the Housetop Works website, right ah, yeah, it
14:25
Speaker 1: was as a matter of fact, Laurel Bells uh and
14:29
Speaker 1: this guy, Michael Ahmandson, he's a historian on the atomic age.
14:34
Speaker 1: He's talking about, you know, basically World War two coming
14:37
Speaker 1: around and uranium being the hot ticket. And he said,
14:41
Speaker 1: uranium went from being a weed to a weapon. Uh,
14:44
Speaker 1: instead of serving as this useless pigment and glaze, became
14:47
Speaker 1: a strategic element of war. And I think that happened
14:50
Speaker 1: pretty quickly when the arms race heated up at like Russia,
14:53
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, and the United States were really really
14:57
Speaker 1: moving fast to get as much uranium as possible on
14:59
Speaker 1: their hands. And I mean, up to that point, uranium
15:02
Speaker 1: was like again there it was used for pigment, a
15:04
Speaker 1: ceramic glaze, not for much. And then the Manhattan Project happens,
15:09
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, it's like every country in
15:11
Speaker 1: the world is looking to see whether they have uranium
15:14
Speaker 1: deposits or not. Because the USSR in the United States
15:17
Speaker 1: one as much as it can get, not just even
15:20
Speaker 1: necessarily to build up its stock, poled to keep the
15:22
Speaker 1: other guy from getting his hands on it as well.
15:26
Speaker 1: So the the the human introduction, the general public's introduction
15:30
Speaker 1: to uranium was kind of jarring in that sense because
15:33
Speaker 1: it came hand in hand with the atomic age. Uranium
15:37
Speaker 1: to thirty five was what was used as the nuclear
15:39
Speaker 1: core for um Little Boy, the bomb that was dropped
15:43
Speaker 1: on Hiroshima. So it was like it was a very
15:46
Speaker 1: um memorable debut uranium had in the public mind for
15:51
Speaker 1: and it stayed that way for a while until it's
15:53
Speaker 1: sort to become associated more with nuclear energy. Did we
15:56
Speaker 1: take a break? I think we should take a break. Yeah,
16:02
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it. Stuff you should know, h
16:09
Speaker 1: and sh stuff you should know. Alright. So let's say
16:28
Speaker 1: you want to mind uranium. The first thing you have
16:31
Speaker 1: to do is find uranium. And you know you're looking
16:36
Speaker 1: for these large deposits. It's you know, you don't open
16:38
Speaker 1: up a mine unless you do the math and you
16:41
Speaker 1: figure out that hey, there's enough. I mean, it's a
16:44
Speaker 1: really simple math formula basically like this is how much
16:47
Speaker 1: it costs to mind, and this is how much we
16:48
Speaker 1: can possibly get from this place. Is it worth it
16:52
Speaker 1: or not? Because I think one and every one thousand
16:55
Speaker 1: exploration sites of all metals and minerals are ever really
17:00
Speaker 1: used as the mining site. So they're just they're poking
17:03
Speaker 1: around at first, and they're using these Uh you can
17:07
Speaker 1: actually walk around with a Geiger counter on the on
17:10
Speaker 1: the ground and look for it close up after you
17:13
Speaker 1: have used something called a I'm gonna go with centilometer.
17:17
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's good. I was gonna say sentilometer because
17:20
Speaker 1: it's based on the word scintillating, like exciting. You can
17:25
Speaker 1: do that from further range and that picks up gamma
17:27
Speaker 1: rays at at bigger distances, so you'll use that at first.
17:30
Speaker 1: Then you'll zero in with that Geiger counter. You'll check
17:33
Speaker 1: out the landscape and see how viable it is, and
17:37
Speaker 1: you know, you'll just enter that all into your little
17:40
Speaker 1: spreadsheet or however you're determining that equation, and if it
17:44
Speaker 1: spits out, yes, good place for a mine, then they'll
17:48
Speaker 1: go through this really long, arduous process of getting permitted. Yeah,
17:51
Speaker 1: and the stuff that you're going to mind then becomes
17:54
Speaker 1: what's known as or bodies, which are deposits that are
17:57
Speaker 1: economically worth mining and extracting. Right, Um, and yeah, it
18:02
Speaker 1: does take a lot of time. I saw this article
18:05
Speaker 1: says between three and ten years to go from basically
18:08
Speaker 1: prospecting to production. I saw a ten to fifteen elsewhere,
18:15
Speaker 1: but right to add another year onto that one. But um, yeah,
18:20
Speaker 1: so say anywhere between three and fifteen years. I'm leaning
18:23
Speaker 1: more towards the ten to fifteen years side, just because
18:26
Speaker 1: of the permitting, having to deal with the public saying
18:28
Speaker 1: like you're not going to do that in my backyard
18:30
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, it's there. It's rather involved. It's
18:35
Speaker 1: involved for any mind because you have to plan the
18:37
Speaker 1: mind too. Is You'll see in a second, like we've
18:39
Speaker 1: got to. You've got a plan what kind of mind
18:42
Speaker 1: you're going to build. You have to plan the mind itself.
18:45
Speaker 1: You have to figure out what to do with it,
18:46
Speaker 1: who you're gonna sell it to. Then you have to
18:48
Speaker 1: go through the permitting process. Then you have to actually
18:50
Speaker 1: start to extract it. And one of the things that
18:52
Speaker 1: really jumped out to me, Chuck, was how few people
18:55
Speaker 1: it actually takes to mine. Yeah, I mean this article
19:00
Speaker 1: made it sound like kind of a full scale operation.
19:03
Speaker 1: I'm sure they range in size, but it has to
19:06
Speaker 1: be a certain size to make it worth your while.
19:08
Speaker 1: Like we said, so it seems like a hundred people
19:10
Speaker 1: are less, yeah, total and run this mining. So the
19:13
Speaker 1: whole shebang, hundred people of the mine uranium, which I
19:16
Speaker 1: just thought that was really surprising. Yeah, and we should
19:21
Speaker 1: also mention too that, uh, they just don't go digging
19:24
Speaker 1: in there, like uranium could be mistaken for u when
19:27
Speaker 1: it decays. Their byproducts called daughter elements radon and radium,
19:32
Speaker 1: and that can also set off the Geiger counter. So well, yeah,
19:35
Speaker 1: they make they make super sure that it's uranium down
19:37
Speaker 1: there before they get coming. Right. Well, that's actually how
19:39
Speaker 1: they find it using the Geiger counters because because the
19:42
Speaker 1: uranium itself it has such a long half life, it
19:45
Speaker 1: decays so slowly that it's it's daughter isotopes or daughter
19:49
Speaker 1: elements that are the ones where setting the Geiger counter off.
19:54
Speaker 1: But then you have to say, okay, well, how much
19:56
Speaker 1: uranium is in here, because I don't want that rate on.
19:58
Speaker 1: That's just a hazard to our health. Even though we
20:01
Speaker 1: use it to find the uranium. How much uranium is
20:03
Speaker 1: here and how much rate on is there? Because if
20:05
Speaker 1: you find a really really ancient deposit that's just been
20:08
Speaker 1: sitting undisturbed and it has been slowly but surely decaying,
20:12
Speaker 1: all of those daughter isotopes are going to keep building up.
20:15
Speaker 1: So you might find a deposit that's a lot of
20:18
Speaker 1: raid on you don't want to have anything to do with,
20:20
Speaker 1: but not that much uranium to thirty five, you know. Yeah,
20:24
Speaker 1: So once you have found your stuff, you've got your permit,
20:28
Speaker 1: you're all ready to go. It's ten to fifteen years on.
20:31
Speaker 1: You need to figure out and you probably already figure
20:34
Speaker 1: out at this point what kind of mind you're gonna have. Uh,
20:37
Speaker 1: And there's a few different ones. I know, we've talked
20:39
Speaker 1: about mountain top removal mining and regular underground mining, um,
20:44
Speaker 1: but open pit mining is one one thing they can do,
20:48
Speaker 1: which is basically they blast away land and create a
20:51
Speaker 1: big pit and then they go in there and they
20:54
Speaker 1: remove big uranium or chunks and say, here you go,
20:58
Speaker 1: go process it, go crush it up and slurry and
21:02
Speaker 1: what's that? Uh, what's that saying? They have? That's kind
21:04
Speaker 1: of cool. So apparently the miners themselves like, if you're
21:08
Speaker 1: a if you're a uranium miner, you're not just an
21:11
Speaker 1: ordinary miner, in no disrespect to ordinary miners, but you're
21:14
Speaker 1: especially trained, especially to recognize uranium because it's up to
21:19
Speaker 1: you in an open pit process to pick the stuff
21:22
Speaker 1: out and and get as as much of the actual
21:25
Speaker 1: uranium as possible. So they do have this saying a
21:29
Speaker 1: mind is a terrible thing to waste. You want to
21:31
Speaker 1: get all the uranium out, and a waste is a
21:34
Speaker 1: terrible thing to mind. You don't want to mind the
21:36
Speaker 1: stuff that's not uranium. And so I added a little
21:38
Speaker 1: bit of extra to that, saying it's a lot more
21:42
Speaker 1: succinct than that. But I think you get let's hear it. Oh,
21:46
Speaker 1: I thought you I thought you were gonna add even more. No, surprisingly,
21:50
Speaker 1: I wasn't uh the um, I think you can also
21:57
Speaker 1: strip mine, Is that true? Yeah? Open pit and strip
22:00
Speaker 1: mining are like within if you've got the deposit within
22:03
Speaker 1: like fot of the surface. Um. But I think the
22:07
Speaker 1: big difference between those two, chucks, Strip mining is just
22:09
Speaker 1: like taking the layers of soil off the top until
22:11
Speaker 1: you reach the deposit. Whereas open pit, like you were saying,
22:14
Speaker 1: you use you know, you blasted in the rubble. But
22:17
Speaker 1: they're related, they're like, um, they're surface mining. I think
22:21
Speaker 1: they both qualifies that. Yeah. I mean then you've got
22:24
Speaker 1: underground mining, of course, which is just deeper and they
22:28
Speaker 1: you go down in those mine shafts or what's called adits,
22:31
Speaker 1: which are the vertical and horizontal tunnels, and it's just
22:35
Speaker 1: way more labor intensive. It's obviously a bit more expensive,
22:38
Speaker 1: it's a bit more dangerous, higher health risks. Uh. So
22:43
Speaker 1: they would prefer out of those two two, probably open
22:48
Speaker 1: pit mine. Well, yes, but it also depends on you
22:51
Speaker 1: know who you're talking about prefers that. Like, if you're
22:54
Speaker 1: a miner, you probably prefer open pit because you're exposed
22:57
Speaker 1: open air. If you're um concerned agent of the e
23:03
Speaker 1: p A, you probably prefer a well run underground mind,
23:07
Speaker 1: because if it's done correctly and built properly, it's probably
23:12
Speaker 1: going to have less of an environmental foot print then
23:14
Speaker 1: blowing a huge pit into the earth and getting all
23:17
Speaker 1: the radioactive chunks out. Yeah, and I think the one
23:21
Speaker 1: that's has the least environmental impact is in situ, which
23:26
Speaker 1: means in the original place. And this is interesting and
23:30
Speaker 1: that they basically, you know, they don't take these big
23:33
Speaker 1: chunks out of the ground and process it. They use chemicals.
23:37
Speaker 1: They use baking soda and sort of like a club
23:39
Speaker 1: soda mixture solution, and they they inject it into the
23:44
Speaker 1: rock through pipes and that separates that the uranium from
23:48
Speaker 1: the rock, but it turns it into a solution that
23:50
Speaker 1: they then pump back up to the surface. Yeah, there's
23:53
Speaker 1: injection wells that go down into the deposit because sometimes
23:57
Speaker 1: the like uranium can be kind of suspence ended in
24:00
Speaker 1: sand or sandstone or even gravel or near the water table. Yes,
24:06
Speaker 1: so that's the that's something that confounds it. Let's say
24:09
Speaker 1: you're going and you've got top soil and a little
24:11
Speaker 1: bit of bed rock, and then you've got a nice
24:12
Speaker 1: aquifer of fresh, unpolluted drinking water. Then below that you've
24:17
Speaker 1: got a big clay strip of impermeable clay. Then you've
24:21
Speaker 1: got the uranium, and you've got another clay st're pulling
24:23
Speaker 1: that uranium deposits sand in between it. Right, your job
24:27
Speaker 1: is to drill down past that aquifer, past the clay
24:32
Speaker 1: into the uranium sand injected with all that stuff, and
24:38
Speaker 1: then leached the dissolved uranium out through a pump through
24:44
Speaker 1: that aquifer without leaking it into the aquifer, and then
24:48
Speaker 1: taking it off site for processing. And if you do
24:50
Speaker 1: it right, you don't pollute the groundwater, and you don't
24:54
Speaker 1: disrupt or make the the clay permeable so that you
24:58
Speaker 1: actually like let the uranium lead out of deposit. If
25:01
Speaker 1: you do it right, it would have the least environmental footprint.
25:04
Speaker 1: It seems to me, probably the trickiest version of it. Yeah,
25:10
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes when you combine too regular words,
25:13
Speaker 1: it just ends up sounding super gross. And I think
25:15
Speaker 1: leakey deposit fits into that category. Yeah, yeah, it definitely does,
25:21
Speaker 1: especially a moist leaky deposit. I'm sorry. Uh. Then there's
25:27
Speaker 1: heap leaching, which is terrible. It sounds like kind of
25:29
Speaker 1: the worst of the environmental as far as environmental impact goes.
25:33
Speaker 1: And that is when it sounds like, unless I'm reading
25:35
Speaker 1: this wrong, they extract all the ore from the ground,
25:39
Speaker 1: the big chunks, they bust it up on the ground
25:42
Speaker 1: above ground, and then they leach that pile with chemicals
25:46
Speaker 1: to separate it. So it's almost like it's almost like institute,
25:50
Speaker 1: but above ground they're just like, hey, let's just take
25:53
Speaker 1: it up here then leach it. Yeah, a lot of
25:55
Speaker 1: these have a lot to do with one another. I
25:56
Speaker 1: think with open pit you actually end up using heap
26:00
Speaker 1: bleaching a lot of times because you're taking those chunks
26:02
Speaker 1: that you blasted out of the earth, and you're you're
26:05
Speaker 1: pouring acid, spraying acid all over this pile, and the
26:09
Speaker 1: stuff that trickles down is caught by these these um
26:12
Speaker 1: pipes and your uraniums dissolved in there, or like you're saying,
26:16
Speaker 1: you're spraying it with hydrogen peroxide or club soda or
26:19
Speaker 1: something like that. So it's all kind of you know,
26:23
Speaker 1: you can do some of them in conjunction with one another,
26:27
Speaker 1: but the point is you're getting that uranium out of
26:30
Speaker 1: the ground somehow, and then you're trying to you're starting
26:33
Speaker 1: the process of extracting it from the ore as best
26:36
Speaker 1: you can. That's right. Then you've got your stuff. Then
26:41
Speaker 1: you need to make it into different stuff. You need
26:43
Speaker 1: to mill it at a uranium mill. And what you
26:46
Speaker 1: want eventually to get to is and it's it's pretty
26:50
Speaker 1: funny that they name it this. It's uranium powder, but
26:52
Speaker 1: they call it yellow cake, which just sounds delicious. It says,
26:55
Speaker 1: but if you ate that, you would be in big, big,
26:58
Speaker 1: big trouble. Yes, very big trouble. And it's um it's
27:02
Speaker 1: very highly regulated, of course. UM. I think they like
27:06
Speaker 1: to put these mills pretty close by the minds themselves.
27:11
Speaker 1: I think the US Atomic Energy Commission really kind of
27:14
Speaker 1: aids people and saying, let's just bring it this all
27:17
Speaker 1: close together, and you take that dry uranium or or
27:21
Speaker 1: and you just you mill it up basically. I mean,
27:24
Speaker 1: it's not unlike a lot of mining operations. At the
27:28
Speaker 1: end of the day, you know, you're basically just trying
27:30
Speaker 1: to separate all the byproducts that are not byproducts, but
27:34
Speaker 1: all the stuff that you don't want out of the
27:36
Speaker 1: way to get it gone. Yeah, that's that's what they're doing.
27:40
Speaker 1: They just it's just depending on what mineral you're after. Um,
27:44
Speaker 1: you're going to use different chemicals in um stages of
27:47
Speaker 1: chemicals in the process. Right, So yeah, when when you
27:51
Speaker 1: produce this yellow kike, what you've basically done is separated
27:55
Speaker 1: natural uranium away from the ore, the rock that it
27:58
Speaker 1: was part of or the sand that it was part of,
28:02
Speaker 1: and you you you compress it into these yellow cakes
28:06
Speaker 1: and you send it off. So now you've got um
28:09
Speaker 1: milled and processed uranium, but it still isn't enriched. It's
28:13
Speaker 1: still in its natural form and in about its natural percentages.
28:16
Speaker 1: So natural uranium. If you have like a thing a
28:19
Speaker 1: yellow cake in your hands, again, don't eat it. It
28:21
Speaker 1: sounds delicious, it's just not it's not cheat cake. Which
28:27
Speaker 1: even if I knew that was radioactive, I would still
28:30
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to help myself. I would still
28:32
Speaker 1: eat it. So you've got the yellow cake in your hands.
28:35
Speaker 1: What you're holding is nine three percent uranium two thirty eight,
28:40
Speaker 1: which is the one with the very very long half life,
28:42
Speaker 1: that's not very radioactive as far as humans are concerned,
28:45
Speaker 1: just holding things. And then it's point seven percent uranium
28:49
Speaker 1: two thirty five. And again there's at least one Canadian
28:53
Speaker 1: reactor that supposedly can create electricity through yellow cake. Um. Yeah, yeah,
28:59
Speaker 1: that's how I was saying before that, that it can
29:01
Speaker 1: in its natural form, which is great because all of
29:05
Speaker 1: this mining and processing it's it's potentially harmful enough to
29:09
Speaker 1: the environment. But wait until we tell you about enrichment,
29:11
Speaker 1: right right, yeah, because what did you say? It was
29:14
Speaker 1: point seven percent in its natural state and the Yeah,
29:17
Speaker 1: the goal is to get it and it's not like
29:19
Speaker 1: it has The goal is to enrich it to about
29:22
Speaker 1: two to five, right, which is still that's significant, But
29:26
Speaker 1: that's for if you want nuclear fuel, if you want
29:28
Speaker 1: it for military purposes, you have to enrich that point
29:30
Speaker 1: seven percent of uranium to thirty five up to and yes,
29:36
Speaker 1: so that's what I was saying. If you get your
29:38
Speaker 1: hands on some military enriched uranium, you could fuel a
29:43
Speaker 1: lot of nuclear reactions with that. UM And the point
29:46
Speaker 1: of enrichment. Enrichment is just another word for concentrating, basically,
29:50
Speaker 1: where you're stripping out now from the yellow cake, not
29:53
Speaker 1: just the other stuff that's not uranium, but the all
29:57
Speaker 1: the uranium that's not uranium to thirty five five And
30:00
Speaker 1: so it takes a lot of yellow cake to get
30:04
Speaker 1: uranium to thirty five in enough abundance to actually produce fuel,
30:10
Speaker 1: like for example, if you are if you're upgrading yellow
30:13
Speaker 1: cake a thousand pounds of yellow cake from points a
30:19
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of yellow cake, if you're if you're enriching
30:23
Speaker 1: it up to five per cent. At the end of that,
30:26
Speaker 1: you would have I think of fifty pounds of uranium
30:32
Speaker 1: two thirty five, the stuff you could actually use to
30:34
Speaker 1: make pellets out of in fuel and yeah, and then
30:38
Speaker 1: you'd have nine and fifty pounds of what's called depleted uranium,
30:41
Speaker 1: which is mostly uranium to thirty eight, some uranium two
30:45
Speaker 1: thirty five that you couldn't get out of there, and
30:47
Speaker 1: all sorts of other heavy metals and potentially radioactive impurities.
30:53
Speaker 1: And you can use that for your glaze, your fiesta air.
30:57
Speaker 1: When you're enriching to what your byproduct is going to
30:59
Speaker 1: be ultimately is called hexa uranium hexafluoride gas UH, and
31:04
Speaker 1: that will go into a cylinder and then as it cools,
31:08
Speaker 1: it becomes a solid, and that's where you have your
31:11
Speaker 1: ultimately your solid little you know, you can press it
31:14
Speaker 1: down and you've got your little fuel pellet and that interesting.
31:16
Speaker 1: They go from powder to gas too solid to fuel pellet,
31:23
Speaker 1: And so when you take that that enriched uranium, you
31:26
Speaker 1: turn it into pellets. That's the fabrication process, and I
31:28
Speaker 1: believe yet another company is responsible for that. You just
31:31
Speaker 1: get increasingly more specialized, and you even start out again
31:35
Speaker 1: with specialized miners who are mining the uranium, and then
31:38
Speaker 1: as it passes through hands to hands, you it's just
31:41
Speaker 1: getting more and more specialized. Uh. And then finally you
31:44
Speaker 1: have either enriched uranium for nuclear fuel or enrich uranium
31:48
Speaker 1: to um explode significant portions of the planet up with. Yeah,
31:54
Speaker 1: what I'm curious about is if it's all a group
31:58
Speaker 1: profit share or if I if they just have a
32:01
Speaker 1: fee that they charged to mill and a fee to enrich,
32:04
Speaker 1: or if they're like, no, we're all in this together
32:06
Speaker 1: and you know, we we get ultimately part of the profits.
32:11
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know to tell you the truth. I mean,
32:14
Speaker 1: I'm someone will know. Yeah, somebody will know. I'm guessing
32:17
Speaker 1: because it's even though there's federal regulations, I don't think
32:21
Speaker 1: the market itself is necessarily regulated. Um. Right, Oh that's
32:26
Speaker 1: not true. The market would have to be regulated, But
32:29
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's if it's regulated in the
32:31
Speaker 1: sense that like it's it's not capitalists or there's there's
32:35
Speaker 1: not a capitalist drive pushing it out. I'm not sure.
32:38
Speaker 1: So we need to talk about health concerns for humans
32:41
Speaker 1: and then the environment. So should we do health and
32:45
Speaker 1: then break or break and then do both? I say
32:47
Speaker 1: break and do both, Chuck, because I think we've come
32:49
Speaker 1: to a pretty good breaking point. Huzzah him. Stuff you
33:05
Speaker 1: should know. Okay, so we've got this stuff, we mind it.
33:20
Speaker 1: First of all, we found it. I was really proud
33:22
Speaker 1: of us or even finding it, Chuck. And then I
33:24
Speaker 1: was astounded that we were able to not only mill
33:28
Speaker 1: the stuff, but also enrich it and then fabricated into
33:31
Speaker 1: nuclear fuel. And if you combine all those processes together,
33:35
Speaker 1: you have what's called the front end of the nuclear
33:37
Speaker 1: fuel cycle. And that's basically what we're talking about today,
33:41
Speaker 1: the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, which is
33:43
Speaker 1: basically what you do with this stuff once it's a rich,
33:46
Speaker 1: enriched or if it's used as spent fuel. Um, that's
33:50
Speaker 1: a whole other podcast that I would really love to
33:53
Speaker 1: do someday totally, and our particular the stuff you should
33:57
Speaker 1: know operation it's very fishing because we sent Jerry out
34:02
Speaker 1: ahead and her hair glows green. Then where we've had her,
34:07
Speaker 1: we've got our spot. She's like Hamana hammana hammana plus tax.
34:14
Speaker 1: Oh Man. My friend Meredith, by the way, told me
34:18
Speaker 1: someone alerted her to that, and because she was the
34:21
Speaker 1: one who used to say that, her and my friend Bob,
34:23
Speaker 1: and she told me what it meant, and now I
34:27
Speaker 1: can't remember. I think it was just some I think
34:30
Speaker 1: Bob said it was like someone he would say it
34:32
Speaker 1: when he saw a hot guy or whatever. And if
34:34
Speaker 1: he was, you know, a hot guy would be Hameda
34:37
Speaker 1: hammana hammeda and a super hot guy would be Hameda
34:39
Speaker 1: hammeda plus tax. That's pretty great. So it's just a designation.
34:44
Speaker 1: I think. I gotta love Bob. He lives in New York.
34:46
Speaker 1: The best you know, Bob moves around between New Jersey
34:50
Speaker 1: and Portland. I think when you met him it was
34:52
Speaker 1: in Portland, but you may have met him in both actually,
34:55
Speaker 1: because I associate him with New York for some reason. Well,
34:59
Speaker 1: he always due to Portland is a I'm not sure
35:02
Speaker 1: why Bob moved to Portland, because he's a very New
35:03
Speaker 1: York guy. He grew up in the New Jersey area.
35:06
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure where he is right now. I
35:07
Speaker 1: need to get in touch with Bob right home. Alright,
35:13
Speaker 1: So health concerns for humans, you know, we there. You know,
35:17
Speaker 1: people can debate whether or not we should mind uranium
35:20
Speaker 1: all day long. But there's neither side that says it's
35:23
Speaker 1: fine for people, it's good for a water supply, like
35:27
Speaker 1: everyone acknowledges that it has serious health impacts for us
35:31
Speaker 1: and our planet. Yeah, and one of the big ones
35:34
Speaker 1: is again remember it occurs that co occurs with its
35:37
Speaker 1: daughter um isotopes or its daughter elements, and in particular,
35:42
Speaker 1: raid on is a real problem because rate on is
35:45
Speaker 1: a daughter of radium two twenty six rate on gases.
35:49
Speaker 1: Radium to comes from uranium to thirty eight decay. Right,
35:53
Speaker 1: there's I think fourteen daughters and they follow this predictable
35:56
Speaker 1: stage is uranium decays. Rate On gases the second leading
36:03
Speaker 1: cause of lung cancer after smoking tobacco. It's the number
36:08
Speaker 1: one cause of lung cancer among non smokers. And you
36:13
Speaker 1: can actually get it from just sitting around in your house.
36:16
Speaker 1: You It's the problem with it is you can inhale it,
36:19
Speaker 1: and when you inhale it into your lungs, it becomes
36:22
Speaker 1: I believe, polonium um, which decays itself in your lungs
36:28
Speaker 1: and releases gamma radiation and alpha particles and beta particles
36:32
Speaker 1: and does all sorts of terrible stuff to you which
36:35
Speaker 1: can give you lung cancer over time. But like I said,
36:39
Speaker 1: you can get it from sitting in your house. You
36:40
Speaker 1: should actually get your house check for rate on once
36:42
Speaker 1: in a while um, because it's possible there's a a
36:47
Speaker 1: uranium deposit under your house somewhere and that radon has
36:50
Speaker 1: made its way up. When you crack open the earth
36:53
Speaker 1: to get to purposefully get to a uranium deposit, radon
36:58
Speaker 1: is gonna come out in aces, which makes it a
37:00
Speaker 1: very hazardous thing for uranium miners. Yeah, and if you
37:06
Speaker 1: work at an underground mine especially, they're gonna be I
37:09
Speaker 1: don't know how often, but they're gonna be checking and
37:12
Speaker 1: testing for rate on gas all over that work site.
37:15
Speaker 1: It's not just like right where they're they're digging or
37:18
Speaker 1: whatever blasting. It's gonna be in the in the break room,
37:22
Speaker 1: It's going to be in the kitchen, in the in
37:24
Speaker 1: the office trailers. Like they're they're testing for rate on
37:27
Speaker 1: gas everywhere at least here in the US it will
37:33
Speaker 1: be man, I A'm gonna eat none of those os,
37:36
Speaker 1: maybe some cheat cake from publisher. I don't even start
37:39
Speaker 1: draw the line. Um, uranium itself actually is it's it's
37:46
Speaker 1: toxicity is really the biggest danger there. Uh and like
37:50
Speaker 1: ingesting that you can have serious kidney problems. Um, but
37:53
Speaker 1: like you said, usually radium and radon are the biggest.
37:58
Speaker 1: I mean that stuff can get in your bones. Yeah, yeah,
38:01
Speaker 1: it's a real problem. Um. The thing is so like uranium,
38:05
Speaker 1: when it releases alpha particles, those things kind of tend
38:09
Speaker 1: to bounce right off for your skin. So with with uranium,
38:12
Speaker 1: remember how it's not particularly radioactive. That's if it's just
38:16
Speaker 1: sitting there outside, like even if you're holding in your hands.
38:19
Speaker 1: It becomes particularly problematic when it's broken and you either
38:22
Speaker 1: inhale it like you're inhaling rate on or you ingest it.
38:26
Speaker 1: It just gets on your fingers or your food or something.
38:28
Speaker 1: It's this invisible thing, but it goes into your body
38:31
Speaker 1: and it reeks havoc in particular kidney damage because it
38:34
Speaker 1: gets into your blood. Your poor kidneys have to filter
38:37
Speaker 1: it out of the blood. And it's like I'm not
38:38
Speaker 1: equipped for this kind of thing. Um, it might even
38:42
Speaker 1: say Hamana hameda hammeda itself, and then you have real
38:47
Speaker 1: serious kidney problems after that. Yeah. And since part of
38:51
Speaker 1: the process involves breaking it up, like that's the whole goal, Uh,
38:55
Speaker 1: then you know it's it's a it's an issue. But
38:57
Speaker 1: also it also is problematic with depleted uranium two, which
39:02
Speaker 1: again is the byproduct of uranium enrichment. It's a big, big,
39:07
Speaker 1: old dense hunk of uranium two thirty eight and a
39:10
Speaker 1: bunch of other heavy metals. And they use that for
39:13
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. They use it for UM shielding
39:16
Speaker 1: to shield out other other radiation. They use it as
39:19
Speaker 1: weights and airplanes, they use it um for bullets. It's
39:24
Speaker 1: like tank piercing bullets. And I was reading a V.
39:27
Speaker 1: A Um post about how some Gulf war veterans may
39:32
Speaker 1: have been exposed to depleted uranium UM toxicity because if
39:39
Speaker 1: they came under friendly fire because some of the shells
39:42
Speaker 1: were coated and depleted uranium, because it's so dense, it'll
39:45
Speaker 1: go right through a tank. But it also has this
39:48
Speaker 1: terrible secondary side effect where that means that the depleted
39:52
Speaker 1: uranium breaks up and it can be inhaled, it can
39:54
Speaker 1: get ingested, it can go into your skin. So even
39:56
Speaker 1: if you weren't killed by the depleted uranium shell piercing
39:59
Speaker 1: the tank that you're in, you may actually get cancer
40:02
Speaker 1: later on or kidney failure down the road because of
40:05
Speaker 1: that depleted uranium. So there is like a real problem
40:08
Speaker 1: with it. And then above all that too or in
40:11
Speaker 1: addition to it, it's a it's toxic just because it's
40:14
Speaker 1: a heavy metal as well, which you don't want anywhere
40:16
Speaker 1: in your in your body. Yeah, and this is you know,
40:21
Speaker 1: we haven't even really touched on the environmental impact. Obviously.
40:25
Speaker 1: These minds that were around and then abandoned before you know,
40:29
Speaker 1: the sort of mid nineteen seventies are super dangerous places
40:32
Speaker 1: because they leave behind something called tailings. These are those
40:36
Speaker 1: leftover pieces of ore that they don't use, and they
40:39
Speaker 1: have those byproducts that we were talking about, like radon
40:42
Speaker 1: and radium, but also polonium and sometimes even arsenic. And
40:46
Speaker 1: if it was pre nine five or so, an abandoned
40:50
Speaker 1: uranium mind was not cleaned up very well. Um, they've
40:54
Speaker 1: had to do a lot of work since then to
40:56
Speaker 1: clean this stuff up. Like things are way different now
40:58
Speaker 1: and they've gone back to try and clean and stuff up,
41:01
Speaker 1: but it's um, you know, the wind and the rain
41:03
Speaker 1: carries the stuff away, it gets into the water supply. Uh.
41:07
Speaker 1: And it's like I think they said something like, you know,
41:10
Speaker 1: it takes forty years to restore the environment back to
41:13
Speaker 1: its natural state. And I hear that, I'm like, no way, man,
41:16
Speaker 1: you can. You can never restore it to its natural state,
41:19
Speaker 1: like as if it had never happened. I don't I
41:21
Speaker 1: don't buy I'm with you. I don't buy an either.
41:23
Speaker 1: That seems a really short time for a radioactive substance
41:26
Speaker 1: contaminating groundwater for pize's sake, you know, but this is
41:30
Speaker 1: something that's especially affected uh Native American population and even
41:34
Speaker 1: more specifically the Navajo Nation, because a lot of uranium
41:39
Speaker 1: minds are in the you know, hundreds of thousands of
41:43
Speaker 1: acres of the Navajo land. I think seventy million pounds
41:48
Speaker 1: of uranium reserves in the nineteen seventies were on Navajo land.
41:52
Speaker 1: And in on July six, nineteen seventy nine, there was
41:57
Speaker 1: the biggest expulsion of radioactive material in the history of
42:00
Speaker 1: the United States when a dan broke at the church
42:02
Speaker 1: Rocky Ranium Mill operated by the United Nuclear Corporation under uh, Well,
42:08
Speaker 1: I say, Andrew Jimmy Carter's watch. It's not like it
42:10
Speaker 1: was his fault or anything, but he is the one
42:12
Speaker 1: of the people who first said, hey, we should really
42:15
Speaker 1: use the stuff for nuclear power. Yeah, and I mean
42:17
Speaker 1: this happened while everybody was thinking about Three Mile Island,
42:20
Speaker 1: and still no one ever heard of It happened four
42:22
Speaker 1: months after Three Mile Island and three Mile Island that
42:26
Speaker 1: you know, I think we should do one on like
42:28
Speaker 1: nuclear releases a whole episode on that. But Three Mile
42:31
Speaker 1: Island scared the Bejesus out of everybody because all of
42:35
Speaker 1: a sudden, this green nuclear energy was really threatening and scary,
42:39
Speaker 1: and it really put a dent in the public opinion
42:42
Speaker 1: on nuclear powder power. But with the the Church Rock release,
42:47
Speaker 1: it just dwarfed Three Mile Islands released, and still I
42:51
Speaker 1: hadn't heard of it until two days ago when I
42:53
Speaker 1: started researching this, And it's like it was a huge deal,
42:58
Speaker 1: like people dying, well, like going It contaminated the river,
43:02
Speaker 1: like ninety three million gallons of toxic radioactive sludge tailings
43:08
Speaker 1: from uranium mining just contaminated the river. And they did
43:12
Speaker 1: tests of the drinking water eighty miles downstream of this release,
43:17
Speaker 1: and they found that it had seven thousand times the
43:21
Speaker 1: acceptable radioactivity of drinking water, the acceptable drinking water standards,
43:26
Speaker 1: seven thousand times eighty miles downstream. And just because it
43:30
Speaker 1: happened on this Navajo land, everybody's like, I hadn't heard
43:32
Speaker 1: of that. Well, and they I mean, all of it
43:36
Speaker 1: as a crime, but the real crime at the center
43:38
Speaker 1: of it is is they didn't even notify them hardly.
43:41
Speaker 1: They did a really bad job of even letting them know. So, like,
43:45
Speaker 1: that's eighty miles away, you're getting radioactive fallout in the water.
43:49
Speaker 1: But right there where it happened, they were walking into
43:52
Speaker 1: the river like they always do, and they were their
43:55
Speaker 1: skin was literally burned on contact, and they were getting
43:57
Speaker 1: boils because from this Yellow River all of us. Yeah,
44:00
Speaker 1: it's just it's so shameful and it's and whoever wrote
44:03
Speaker 1: this article, I think was from the Navajo Nation and
44:06
Speaker 1: they said, yes, it was an accident, but Exon Valdis
44:09
Speaker 1: was an accident, and they're always accidents. Three Mile Island
44:12
Speaker 1: was an accident. But that's kind of the point. It's like,
44:15
Speaker 1: accidents happen, and when an accident happens at a uranium operation,
44:19
Speaker 1: it's catastrophic. And I mean, like even the best designed
44:22
Speaker 1: mine operation has to figure out what to do with
44:24
Speaker 1: those tailings, all that toxic sludge and radioactive sledge and
44:28
Speaker 1: all gets combined. And if you don't design your damn right,
44:30
Speaker 1: your damn is gonna fail. But even if you do
44:32
Speaker 1: design your damn right, how long is it going to
44:35
Speaker 1: stick around? Even under the best of circumstances. You know,
44:39
Speaker 1: this is not just your normal stuff. This is stuff
44:41
Speaker 1: that's going to be radioactive for a very long time.
44:45
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a real problem. Like figuring out
44:47
Speaker 1: what to do with this on the back end is
44:49
Speaker 1: a huge problem that humanity just keeps kicking down the road.
44:54
Speaker 1: You know what other two words sound gross together? Let
44:56
Speaker 1: me let me hear it. Nuclear release. That's not as
45:00
Speaker 1: bad as what was the other one. I don't even remember.
45:03
Speaker 1: I think it was like, already forgot have moist in it?
45:07
Speaker 1: Well you added moist, but I don't know, I always
45:09
Speaker 1: add moist. Uh, just to put a tag on all this.
45:14
Speaker 1: They do require companies, I believe, to um engage in
45:19
Speaker 1: what's called the reclamation bond, which basically says, hey, we're
45:23
Speaker 1: set us setting aside so much of our budget to
45:25
Speaker 1: come back and clean this up, so they can't at
45:27
Speaker 1: the end say we went broke. Sorry, So they set
45:31
Speaker 1: aside that money up front, supposedly, and the fines are
45:33
Speaker 1: pretty steep, up to a quarter of a million bucks um,
45:38
Speaker 1: you know, if you break these land management rules. So
45:40
Speaker 1: they you know, all the incentive is there for them
45:42
Speaker 1: to do a good job, and their reputation is at stakes.
45:45
Speaker 1: So we don't want to make it appear like it's
45:47
Speaker 1: just willy nilly, they're just doing whatever they are. Accidents
45:50
Speaker 1: and they they a company wouldn't work again if they
45:54
Speaker 1: have one of those accidents. So but but it's you know,
45:57
Speaker 1: it's also it's just one of those things. Well, it's
45:59
Speaker 1: also a demonst station of like it matters who is
46:02
Speaker 1: in charge of the country at any given point in time,
46:04
Speaker 1: because you have to have a will to enforce those
46:06
Speaker 1: regulations that are meant to keep communities safe, or you
46:10
Speaker 1: don't and you just let business do its thing. And
46:13
Speaker 1: that seems to go hand in hand with an increase
46:15
Speaker 1: in accident you know. Ye, so you got anything else,
46:20
Speaker 1: I got nothing else? A little bit of contempt but
46:23
Speaker 1: I I have I have hope that we can figure
46:26
Speaker 1: it out because I think that nuclear energy is not
46:28
Speaker 1: inherently problematic, it's just our understanding of how to use
46:32
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, we did a good episode. Thanks. I
46:35
Speaker 1: think so too, Chuck. Uh well, thanks, thanks? Yeah, Okay,
46:41
Speaker 1: how about thanks for the last one. Thanks for nothing
46:44
Speaker 1: for this one. I guess if you want to know
46:46
Speaker 1: more about uranium and uranium mining and all that jazz,
46:50
Speaker 1: go onto the Internet and then keep an ear out
46:52
Speaker 1: for our episode on accidental nuclear releases sometime in the future.
46:57
Speaker 1: Since I said sometime in the future, it's time for
46:59
Speaker 1: listener mayo, I'm gonna call this from a teacher. Hey guys,
47:04
Speaker 1: my name is Emilyam, a full time high school teacher
47:06
Speaker 1: from Grand Rapids, Michigan. I want to thank you for
47:09
Speaker 1: a number of things. First of all, your podcast on
47:11
Speaker 1: stamp collecting was hilarious. I was in stitchous thinking about
47:15
Speaker 1: Josh's joke about FDR coming up with terrible stamp ideas
47:19
Speaker 1: for the Postmaster General. Additionally, as you know, this pandemic
47:22
Speaker 1: has been so hard on nearly everyone, but I think
47:25
Speaker 1: maybe hardest on students and teachers. Uh. As teachers We've
47:28
Speaker 1: gone from me honored thank to Dedmired a year ago
47:30
Speaker 1: for all the quick work we are able to do
47:32
Speaker 1: when we first shut down, to being vilified for not
47:34
Speaker 1: doing enough. It's been exhausting. At the end of the day,
47:37
Speaker 1: it's been hard to find much joy in anything, the
47:39
Speaker 1: exception your podcast. The excitement and enthusiasm I have for
47:43
Speaker 1: knowledge is the only thing my brain seems to up
47:45
Speaker 1: space for these days, especially as of late, I found
47:48
Speaker 1: myself literally laughing out loud more often at your jokes
47:51
Speaker 1: and one liners. Uh, at least truly tired obviously. Uh.
47:55
Speaker 1: This is so invaluable to me, as most days end
47:58
Speaker 1: with me feeling like crying or calling in to a
48:00
Speaker 1: ball and sleeping. Also, your most recent post on your
48:03
Speaker 1: respective Instagram accounts showing you all together give me hope
48:07
Speaker 1: that things are returning to normal soon. All this to say,
48:11
Speaker 1: you're providing such an essential service to people around the globe.
48:14
Speaker 1: For most of us who have been confined to our
48:15
Speaker 1: homes and towns, you bring the world to us. I
48:18
Speaker 1: am and will forever be grateful that is Emily Gunch,
48:23
Speaker 1: a truly tired teacher, and Emily that that means more
48:27
Speaker 1: to us than you will ever understand, So thanks for
48:30
Speaker 1: sending that. Let's also really well said. I'm glad that
48:32
Speaker 1: this is like a teacher totally and uh if you
48:37
Speaker 1: don't know what she's talking about. We posted photos of
48:40
Speaker 1: the three of us together again, including a picture of
48:42
Speaker 1: Jerry at Josh mcclark's Instagram and at Chuck the podcasters. Wow, nice, Chuck.
48:48
Speaker 1: I didn't know we were going to get an insta
48:50
Speaker 1: shout out. We never plug our instagrams, but why not?
48:55
Speaker 1: Why not? Why not? You just don't see a picture
48:58
Speaker 1: of Jerry. Yeah, people tape over her mouth, over it,
49:04
Speaker 1: scowling at her, and she looks sheepish. People really did
49:09
Speaker 1: lose their minds to see Jerry's face, her beautiful face. Um,
49:14
Speaker 1: so okay. If you want to get in touch of this,
49:17
Speaker 1: like ms Gunch did right, Yes, gunch rhymes with lunch.
49:22
Speaker 1: She's so nice. I nailed it, you can send us
49:25
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com.
49:32
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49:35
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49:40
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