URANIUM MINING
Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. As uranium ore is mostly present at relatively low concentrations, most uranium mining is very volume-intensive, and thus tends to be undertaken as open-pit mining. It is also undertaken in only a small number of countries of the world, partly because sufficiently high uranium concentrations to motivate mining at current prices are rare.
The worldwide production of uranium in 2009 amounted to 50,572 tonnes, of which 27% was mined in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia are the top three producers and together account for 63% of world uranium production. Other important uranium producing countries in excess of 1000 tonnes per year are Namibia, Russia, Niger, Uzbekistan, and the United States.
A prominent use of uranium from mining is as fuel for nuclear power plants. As of 2008, known uranium ore resources that can be mined at about current costs are estimated to be sufficient to produce fuel for about a century, based on current consumption rates.
After mining uranium ores, they are normally processed by grinding the ore materials to a uniform particle size and then treating the ore to extract the uranium by chemical leaching. The milling process commonly yields dry powder-form material consisting of natural uranium, "yellowcake," which is sold on the uranium market as U3O8.
The worldwide production of uranium in 2009 amounted to 50,572 tonnes, of which 27% was mined in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia are the top three producers and together account for 63% of world uranium production. Other important uranium producing countries in excess of 1000 tonnes per year are Namibia, Russia, Niger, Uzbekistan, and the United States.
A prominent use of uranium from mining is as fuel for nuclear power plants. As of 2008, known uranium ore resources that can be mined at about current costs are estimated to be sufficient to produce fuel for about a century, based on current consumption rates.
After mining uranium ores, they are normally processed by grinding the ore materials to a uniform particle size and then treating the ore to extract the uranium by chemical leaching. The milling process commonly yields dry powder-form material consisting of natural uranium, "yellowcake," which is sold on the uranium market as U3O8.
one of the reason nuclear is the long term solution to global energy crisis is uranium can last for a couple hundreds of years unlike other fossil fuel that in the verge of depletion..... but uranium-235, which is commonly used in NPP, is just about 0.72% out of total uranium found in earth crust, my question is, is it sufficient to meet the always rising global energy demands??????
ReplyDeletemohd nor faris bin mohd nordin(me084035)
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