the environmental cost of mining in the desert

[Plays In The Dirt]

[quote="Sal"]

above you see the Borax mine at Boron, Ca. now owned by Rio Tinto in London. They will NEVER have to restore this area even after all the ore is gone (in another 30 years)

Now here's where we're in disagreement Sal, and it only took me working for a mine for the past (7) months to see this. The company I work for, (as well as all mining companies), are governed under very strict environmental laws, and they do follow them or they're shut down. The governing bodies do monitor this very closely. Not only that, but the company I work for, (as well as others), go beyond what the laws state. I see this everyday that I'm there. The huge waste piles, (piles of dirt that contain very little to no useful ore), are constantly groomed to blend-in to the surrounding landscape, and then planted with native vegetation. In several years you will not be able to tell the difference. Spills of any kind are immediately cleaned-up using accepted standards. Water supplies are cleaned and re-cycled. Waste from the mining operations is safely treated, handled, and monitored by environmental enforcement officers. If you were to visit the mine site you would not find so much as a gum wrapper lying around anywhere.

It's true that through history mining companies have paid no regard to the environment, but it's an entirely different story these days. If you don't believe me, Google "Mining Environmental Law," or the environmental policies of individual companies and you will see what great lengths they go to - to protect the environment. Here's a couple: Newmont - Barrick.

Now I'm sure someone will try and equate mining with the damage caused by OHV use but they are in no way related.

[Sal]

Thanks for your perspective PITD.

regarding Dan's comment about reprocessing nuclear waste, here's what the Union of concerned Scientists states:

reprocessing does not reduce the need for storage and disposal of radioactive waste, and a geologic repository would still be required. Plutonium constitutes only about one percent of the spent fuel from U.S. reactors. After reprocessing, the remaining material will be in several different waste forms, and the total volume of nuclear waste will have been increased by a factor of twenty or more, including low-level waste and plutonium-contaminated waste. The largest component of the remaining material is uranium, which is also a waste product because it is contaminated and undesirable for reuse in reactors. Even if the uranium is classified as low-level waste, new low-level nuclear waste facilities would have to be built to dispose of it. And to make a significant reduction in the amount of high-level nuclear waste that would require disposal, the used fuel would need to be reprocessed and reused many times with an extremely high degree of efficiency—an extremely difficult endeavor that would likely take centuries to accomplish.

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuc ... ssing.html

[Dan]

Is that the same Union of Concerned Scientists who have been claiming to support policy based entirely on science, then pushing for the Kyoto Treaty and frantically fanning the flames of hysteria about global warming, which is just now finally being discredited as a political movement disguised as a scientific one? The same group which called for George W Bush to quit "politicizing science", when they support modern-day radical environmental groups' political agenda?

The same organization that was described this way: In a 2005 article for Jewish World Review, consumer reporter, author, and co-anchor for the television newsmagazine 20/20 John Stossel commented, "The key word in 'Union of Concerned Scientists' isn't 'Scientists' — you don't need any particular degree or experience to join — but 'Concerned,' and the concerns in question are decidedly left wing."

There are others who see UCS for what it is: a left-wing propaganda group disguised as a science club. You don't even need to be a scientist to join.

[Dan]

In essence, Sal, what UCS is saying is that we MUST find a way to stop global warming, but we CAN'T because no one wants to store the spent fuel from the only resource we have that works. Their only solution at this point is for the United States taxpayers, in the form of grants, must increase funding dramatically for them to study this until they come to the same conclusion that the industry has already come to willingly: that nuclear fuel can successfully be reprocessed and managed, so there is no longer any significant reason we shouldn't be using it everywhere. But in the meantime, these "scientists" receive nearly unlimited funding to conduct hundreds of long-term studies. It's essentially the "Concerned Left-Wing Scientists' Full-Employment Act" without having to legislate or to be honest about their desires.

How do we know their views on fuel reprocessing are bogus? Because it's already being done in France, Sal.

[Sal]

Despite recent interest by the Bush administration in reviving commercial reprocessing—the separation of uranium and plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel—this is not a solution to the country’s nuclear waste problem. Reprocessing—sometimes incorrectly called “recycling”—is simply the separation of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. This process is extremely expensive, poses a security threat, and contaminates the environment. Most importantly, reprocessing cannot solve the nation’s nuclear waste problem.

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_envi ... rocessing/

Every reprocessing site (France, UK, Russia, and
soon Japan have the largest sites) is an
environmental catastrophe, with massive releases
of radioactivity to air, land and water; high worker
radiation exposures; and residues that are harder
to handle than the terrible waste it begins with.
Reprocessing creates stockpiles of nuclear
weapons-usable plutonium, and is unviable
without large taxpayer subsidies. President Carter
banned reprocessing as a nuclear non-proliferation
measure; while Reagan lifted the ban, no
commercial interest has pursued this expensive
boondoggle, since it is not a profitable enterprise.

http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/reproces ... lution.pdf

Ahearn says reprocessing could reduce the needed volume of the repository by 30 percent, which "would go a long way toward resolving the issue of whether there is enough space in Yucca Mountain." Still, he says the technical questions about reprocessing would need 10 to 20 years of further study, so even if reprocessing proves helpful, it will not help in the short term.

http://whyfiles.org/275nukewaste/index.php?g=2.txt

Additionally, although the most potent nuclear waste is recycled, there is an increased amount of lower grade nuclear waste not reused that must still be stored.

http://forcechange.com/2008/04/30/the-d ... ear-waste/

[Sal]

Nevertheless, although it may be safe to proceed with reprocessing, France’s experience suggests that reprocessing as done now is not ready to catalyze a full-blown nuclear renaissance. The problem in a nutshell is that without breeder reactors, which can break down the most long-lived elements in nuclear waste, reprocessing comes nowhere near achieving Finck’s 100-fold reduction in that waste.

France’s engineers tried harder than those in any other country to build and run breeder reactors reliably at a commercial scale, but ultimately they failed. The result is that even in France—the best real-world model of what reprocessing can accomplish—the technology remains a tantalizing but only partial solution to the problem of high-level nuclear waste.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4891

[Dan]

http://www.ecolo.org/

[Dan]

http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/

[Dan]

http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepag ... esandaudio

[Dan]

Does the guy who posts the most links to his side of the story win, Sal?