WEBVTT - How Uranium Mining Works 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.280 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.160 and there's Charles w Chuck, Brian over there, and Jerry's 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.200 over there out there in the ether, but here still, 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.759 and this is stuff you should know. Jerry, whom we 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:30.400 love so much. UM. So we're talking Chuck about uranium mining, obviously, 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.800 because anytime Jerry comes up, he goes pretty much hand 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:40.040 in hand with uranium mining, right. Um. And like we 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:44.000 talked about mining before, none of our finest episode, if 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.879 I remember correctly from some of the listener mail corrections 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.840 we got, you know, it's like underground mining. We're gonna 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.640 secret around that. And um, uranium mining is like its 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.560 own thing. Like all mining is pretty bears some resemblance 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.800 to want a but uranium mining in particular, is um 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:08.959 really heavily regulated. Um, the stuff that it produces, uranium 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:15.520 appropriately enough, is a a really regulated substance because it 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.760 can do some pretty powerful stuff. And it's just kind 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.840 of interesting, especially considering the history of uranium and humans, 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.840 which is a fairly recent history. Yeah, I mean, you know, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.080 it kind of depends on what era you're talking about. 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.200 But um, uranium brings to mind a couple of things 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.000 depending on when you're talking about. If you're talking about 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.839 the fifties during the Cold War and the arms race, 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.000 then you can only think about enriched uranium in nuclear 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.920 nuclear war and nuclear bombs. If you fast forward to 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:52.120 the seventies, you think about a kinder, gentler uranium, uh, 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.600 still radioactive, but um one that would be used for 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.400 energy production. And here's a pretty whopping stat on on 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.680 the kind of punch it packs as far as producing energy. 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:07.160 And this is startling, frankly, A seven gram pellet of 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:11.680 uranium fuel produces as much energy as almost eight pounds 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.280 of coal and three and a half barrels of oil. 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.160 I I love that too, So I fiddled with it 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:21.399 on a calculator a little bit. So if you took 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:27.800 about seventy fives of enriched uranium fuel, it would produce 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.360 the same amount of energy as something like almost two 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:36.200 million pounds of coal. Just just hundred and fifty pounds 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.320 produces two million pounds of coal's worth of energy. And 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:45.440 it's pretty amazing stuff. And it's because uranium is is radioactive, 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:50.600 like it decays spontaneously over um over time, right, and 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.960 when it does, it releases gamma, radiation and energy in 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.160 the form of heat. And if you can contain and 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:01.720 kind of encourage this decay um, these these reactions where 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.880 neutrons kind of bombard uranium atoms and create all sorts 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.880 of energy release um, and it happens like trillions of 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.560 times a second. You can generate enough heat to boil 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.040 water to spin a turbine, which to me still is 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.240 one of the most hilarious things that humans have ever 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.320 come up with. Using nuclear fuel to generate steam to 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:26.160 turn a turbine to produce electricity is just as hilariously 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.119 roundabout as it gets. But that's what nuclear energy does. 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.880 That's how it produces electricity. Yeah, And kind of the 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.720 cool thing about that production of electricity and regards to 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:41.920 nuclear warheads is after the de escalation after the Cold War, 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:44.840 and we could still go back and use that stuff. 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:46.800 We could take that enriched uranium that was stored in 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.920 nuclear weapons and reuse a lot of that stuff. In fact, 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.440 most of it, I think for reactors to power reactors. Yeah, 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:56.920 and you can get a lot of use out of 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:01.680 it because typically the nuclear fuel, the enriched uranium that 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.440 they use in a nuclear reactor to create electricity is 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:10.400 about five cent um uranium two thirty five, which is 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.920 that's the money isotope when you're creating nuclear power, that's right. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.680 If you're using it for military purposes like a nuclear bomb, 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.560 it's like, so you could get a lot of nuclear 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.120 fuel out of ranium uranium that was enriched for a 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.320 nuclear bomb and reusing it for nuclear fuel. I think 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.520 that's just such a great like like swords to plowshares, 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.919 kind of kind of fable. Yeah, and there's um, you know, 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:38.600 it can also be used for other stuff. It does, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:43.640 it's not just for making power super efficiently. Um. There's 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.640 something called and I don't know how it's pronounced, but 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:51.120 it's m O l y B denim d U d 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:52.520 E n U M so. I don't know if it's 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.400 the B asylum and it's molly denom ninety nine or 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:00.200 molly B denim, but I think they call it MO 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.960 ninety nine, which is super useful. But it's this is 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:08.880 a decay product, uh, one of the decay products of uranium. 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.039 And it is really useful for medical imaging, like to 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.480 see if your hard is bumping right, or to see 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.200 if your cancer is metastasized and the kind of freaky 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.279 thing is until it was actually made and used from 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:26.160 weapons grade uranium UH, and then starting in two thousand ten, 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.760 now that it's a low enriched version that they used 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.280 for it, and I saw that there are nuclear reactors 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.359 that produce electricity that don't have to use enriched uranium. 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.039 They can actually use like natural uranium or and still 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.080 generate electricity from that UM, which I think that might be. 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:43.640 I don't know if that's a trend or not, but 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:45.480 I'd like to see it become one where it's like, 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.400 if we can get away with nuclear enrichment UH and 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.760 not do that anymore, it would save a lot of 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:56.240 problems because nuclear in and of itself isn't necessarily problematic, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.559 and it is like low carbon or almost carbon free 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.920 a form of energy, but there's a lot of problems 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:09.720 with the byproducts of the enrichment processes we'll talk about. Yeah. 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.400 And another cool little um fact about when they first 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.479 discovered uranium as well as radium is that there really 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:23.080 uses Radium was used to make glow paint, and UH, 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.880 uranium was used as a glaze, a decorative glaze, and 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:28.839 then all of a sudden they're like, hey, guys, this 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:33.120 stuff is actually nuclear no wonder, it glows and it 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.640 makes a nice glaze. Yeah, there's there's also something called 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.880 vasoline glass, which is a collector's item, but it has 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.279 like a radioactive glow to it because it has uranium 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.400 in it. And then Fiesta weare like that celebrated twentieth 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:51.800 century dinner ware the red um used uranium in its 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:58.400 glaze until what's it called Fia you know, the really 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.760 right colored play and bowls and everything that we're like 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.000 really kind of big from the thirties until I think 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.800 it's still around today. You've seen it. Yeah, I like 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.320 that stuff. That's uh, we have some of that stuff 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.520 for like you know, barbecues and stuff exactly well instead 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.160 of fine china and Chris right. Um, So if you 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.880 if you got it in h nineteen seventy three or prior, 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.640 you may want to just update your collection because that's 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:31.160 stuff we we have like the new target versions of that. Okay, 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:36.320 that's probably not radioactive so uranium. It was discovered in 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:40.080 seventeen eighty nine by a subject of the Kingdom of Bohemia, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.120 which is present day Czech Republic. His name was Martin 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.080 Claproth and he was actually a German chemist. I guess 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.880 he liked Bohemia more. But um, he discovered it and 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.280 named it uranium after the planet Uranus, which have been 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.320 discovered earlier in the decade. And I guess it was 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.200 still just the hot new thing everybody's mind, because that's 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.960 what uranium is named after. Yeah, and there's you know, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:09.679 there's different kinds of uranium U. It has different kinds 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.520 of isotopes, which basically are the different forms with different 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:17.280 number of neutrons. And depending on how stable each isotope is, 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.920 each version is Some are more radioactive, some are more 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.960 likely to uh, to produce nuclear fissions, some are less likely. 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.640 I think you mentioned uranium two thirty five is the 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.080 money when for you know, for nuclear war and I 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.120 guess for power production too, Right, that's the one you want. 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.800 You don't want any of that garbage to thirty eight stuff, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:39.760 but to thirty eight is the most abundant, so there 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.800 is more of that stuff. Uh, And you don't even 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:46.880 ask about thirty seven. So there's three that are naturally 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:51.080 occurring to two thirty four And what's really cool about 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.120 it is uranium two thirty five and uranium two thirty 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:59.720 eight or what are called primordial um elements where they're 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.080 like genuine, real deal star dust, like they were created 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:06.880 in or shortly after the Big Bang. So the uranium 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:11.160 around here on Earth was like was around at the 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.800 beginning of the universe. It's way older than Earth, hence 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:18.600 the name primordial and right exactly. And it's half life 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.360 get this, chuck, is three thousand years, which is you 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:26.160 know why it's been around for longer than Earth. Did 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:31.920 you get that joke? I mean, someone's gonna be mad 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.680 at us, but oh man, they're gonna be so man. Now. Actually, 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.480 the half life of two thirty five is about seven 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.320 million years and then two eight a half life. So 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.760 if you take a gram of pure uranium two thirty 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.720 eight and store it in a container and you come 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:48.880 back and check on it in four and a half 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.720 billion years, only half of it will have decayed in 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.800 that time. It is ancient stuff, and it's pretty cool. 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.840 We figured out a way to use that primordial element, 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.520 this ancient stuff that was created in the Big Bang, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:07.360 to generate steam to turn a turbine to generate electricity. 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.640 It's amazing. Uh. If you want to mind this stuff, 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.200 Australia is number one in the world. I think about 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:19.000 thirty percent of all uranium in the world is in Australia. Uh. 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:24.319 Number two is Kazakhstan. Yeah, that was a terrible boor 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:30.920 maybe the worst I've ever heard. Wow. Number three is Russia. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.280 I'm really ashamed of myself. And then number four is 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.680 is Canada. It Russias got Canada beat Yeah, Russia's number 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:43.480 three ahead of Canada this year. Okay, gotcha Gota? Yeah, 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.040 because I know, I guess last year Kazakhstan came up 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.760 in the last Within about the last decade, Canada's got 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.760 the number one producing mind Cigar Lake mine. It produced 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.080 something like thirtcent of the world's geranium single handedly in 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:01.160 two thousand nineteen, just this one mine in can Nada. Um. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:05.719 And Canada's uranium is so rich. Remember we rich? Is it? 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.080 I'm glad you asked Chuck. Um. It's so rich that 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.520 they have to use robots to mine it because the 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.880 humans can't get near it. It's too dangerous. Well, yeah, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:19.600 this will be talking about that a little bit later. 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:23.319 It's as rich as it comes, which is good for Canada. Sure, 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.880 the US doesn't have a ton of it. UM. I 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:31.480 believe that there are currently six states that have mining operations. Wyoming, 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.200 New Mexico and Utah have the bulk of it, and 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:39.000 then there's also some in Arizona, Nebraska, and Texas. And 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:44.679 Arizona's is interesting because there is UH in Grand Canyon 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:49.839 National Park, there is uranium. And in twelve President Obama said, 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.320 you know what, for twenty years, there's a ban on 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.920 uranium uranium mining on this million acres of land around 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.680 the Grand Canyon. And then just a couple of months ago, 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.679 in February of this year, they passed the House passed 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:05.440 the Grand Canyon Protection Act to make that permanent. And 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.680 I think it now goes to Senate committee. UH. It 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.360 passed generally, of course, our long party lines, with Democrats saying, 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.760 you know, we got to protect our land and Republicans saying, oh, 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:22.120 it's fine, right. I saw I saw a press release 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:26.040 from Mark Kelly, who's now a Senator from Arizona, and 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.000 he and I think Kristen Cinema um co sponsored a 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.000 bill because they're both from Arizona to basically do what 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:37.240 that House bill did was protect or make that band permanent. UM. 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.000 And in this press release, he said that the the 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.640 Grand Canyon generated different one. I think it was a 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.560 concurrent bill. Yeah, it was a different bill. I think 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:48.240 that there was the House bill in the Senate bill. 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.559 I think they do this sometimes. It makes it happen 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.480 faster because when it goes through committee, it gets they 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.560 come together and work out the differences, rather than you know, 0:12:57.800 --> 0:12:59.480 it goes through the House and then it goes to Senate. 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.320 Can happen concurrent, Yeah, concurrently. I think that's what was 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.400 going on. But anyway, the upshot of it is that 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.719 the in the press release, Mark Kelly said that the 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.319 Grand Canyon generates something like one point three billion dollars 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.800 in tourist revenue for the state of Arizona every year, 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:20.520 which is like, how long is it going to take 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.800 you to to mind that much uranium? It just makes 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.560 sense to protect the Grand Canyon and that just that 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.959 case alone. Yeah, I mean, that was the point that 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.080 that they were making on the Democrat side, is the 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.360 amount of uranium was I can't remember, but it was 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.920 not that much. I think it was like less than 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.680 one percent of the total in the United States, and 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.280 they were just saying the benefits just don't even come 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.079 closed out weighing the risks here. Yeah, And I mean again, well, 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.720 like I don't think I'm not, but I would say 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.800 we're not here to just knock uranium as a as 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.440 an energy source or even uranium mining when it's done correctly. 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:59.640 But yeah, when when it butts up against maybe the 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:04.280 most celebrated natural treasure in an entire nation, on an 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:08.000 entire continent, maybe just skip that one. I think is 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.080 kind of my my take on it. Yeah, to squeeze 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.240 just a little bit of urania there. Yeah, it's just 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:20.160 so shortsighted. I'm so sick of shortsightedness. To um. There's 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.120 a cool quote in here, and this this was from 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.240 originally from the Housetop Works website, right ah, yeah, it 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:29.040 was as a matter of fact, Laurel Bells uh and 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:34.040 this guy, Michael Ahmandson, he's a historian on the atomic age. 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.840 He's talking about, you know, basically World War two coming 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.040 around and uranium being the hot ticket. And he said, 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.080 uranium went from being a weed to a weapon. Uh, 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.480 instead of serving as this useless pigment and glaze, became 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.320 a strategic element of war. And I think that happened 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.720 pretty quickly when the arms race heated up at like Russia, 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:57.240 the Soviet Union, and the United States were really really 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.560 moving fast to get as much uranium as possible on 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.960 their hands. And I mean, up to that point, uranium 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.360 was like again there it was used for pigment, a 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:09.040 ceramic glaze, not for much. And then the Manhattan Project happens, 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.720 and all of a sudden, it's like every country in 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.680 the world is looking to see whether they have uranium 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.400 deposits or not. Because the USSR in the United States 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.120 one as much as it can get, not just even 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.920 necessarily to build up its stock, poled to keep the 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.160 other guy from getting his hands on it as well. 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.280 So the the the human introduction, the general public's introduction 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.720 to uranium was kind of jarring in that sense because 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.960 it came hand in hand with the atomic age. Uranium 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.320 to thirty five was what was used as the nuclear 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:43.200 core for um Little Boy, the bomb that was dropped 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.160 on Hiroshima. So it was like it was a very 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:51.520 um memorable debut uranium had in the public mind for 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:53.400 and it stayed that way for a while until it's 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:56.880 sort to become associated more with nuclear energy. Did we 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:02.480 take a break? I think we should take a break. Yeah, 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:09.200 all right, let's do it. Stuff you should know, h 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:28.440 and sh stuff you should know. Alright. So let's say 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.080 you want to mind uranium. The first thing you have 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:36.000 to do is find uranium. And you know you're looking 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.560 for these large deposits. It's you know, you don't open 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.640 up a mine unless you do the math and you 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.760 figure out that hey, there's enough. I mean, it's a 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:46.960 really simple math formula basically like this is how much 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:48.960 it costs to mind, and this is how much we 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.280 can possibly get from this place. Is it worth it 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.280 or not? Because I think one and every one thousand 0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:00.400 exploration sites of all metals and minerals are ever really 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.920 used as the mining site. So they're just they're poking 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.400 around at first, and they're using these Uh you can 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.199 actually walk around with a Geiger counter on the on 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.159 the ground and look for it close up after you 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.480 have used something called a I'm gonna go with centilometer. 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.560 Oh yeah, that's good. I was gonna say sentilometer because 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:25.040 it's based on the word scintillating, like exciting. You can 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:26.920 do that from further range and that picks up gamma 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.240 rays at at bigger distances, so you'll use that at first. 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.840 Then you'll zero in with that Geiger counter. You'll check 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.600 out the landscape and see how viable it is, and 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.840 you know, you'll just enter that all into your little 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.800 spreadsheet or however you're determining that equation, and if it 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.160 spits out, yes, good place for a mine, then they'll 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.760 go through this really long, arduous process of getting permitted. Yeah, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.920 and the stuff that you're going to mind then becomes 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.840 what's known as or bodies, which are deposits that are 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:02.879 economically worth mining and extracting. Right, Um, and yeah, it 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.720 does take a lot of time. I saw this article 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.680 says between three and ten years to go from basically 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:15.760 prospecting to production. I saw a ten to fifteen elsewhere, 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:20.520 but right to add another year onto that one. But um, yeah, 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.480 so say anywhere between three and fifteen years. I'm leaning 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.119 more towards the ten to fifteen years side, just because 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.880 of the permitting, having to deal with the public saying 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:30.800 like you're not going to do that in my backyard 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.000 kind of thing. Um, it's there. It's rather involved. It's 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.720 involved for any mind because you have to plan the 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:39.880 mind too. Is You'll see in a second, like we've 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.480 got to. You've got a plan what kind of mind 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.280 you're going to build. You have to plan the mind itself. 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:46.520 You have to figure out what to do with it, 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:48.320 who you're gonna sell it to. Then you have to 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.399 go through the permitting process. Then you have to actually 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:52.320 start to extract it. And one of the things that 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.199 really jumped out to me, Chuck, was how few people 0:18:55.760 --> 0:19:00.439 it actually takes to mine. Yeah, I mean this article 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.800 made it sound like kind of a full scale operation. 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.200 I'm sure they range in size, but it has to 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.080 be a certain size to make it worth your while. 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:10.840 Like we said, so it seems like a hundred people 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.480 are less, yeah, total and run this mining. So the 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.399 whole shebang, hundred people of the mine uranium, which I 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:21.200 just thought that was really surprising. Yeah, and we should 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.440 also mention too that, uh, they just don't go digging 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.840 in there, like uranium could be mistaken for u when 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.280 it decays. Their byproducts called daughter elements radon and radium, 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.720 and that can also set off the Geiger counter. So well, yeah, 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.680 they make they make super sure that it's uranium down 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:39.880 there before they get coming. Right. Well, that's actually how 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.480 they find it using the Geiger counters because because the 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.480 uranium itself it has such a long half life, it 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.880 decays so slowly that it's it's daughter isotopes or daughter 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.800 elements that are the ones where setting the Geiger counter off. 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.440 But then you have to say, okay, well, how much 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.320 uranium is in here, because I don't want that rate on. 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:00.919 That's just a hazard to our health. Even though we 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.480 use it to find the uranium. How much uranium is 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.479 here and how much rate on is there? Because if 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.399 you find a really really ancient deposit that's just been 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.240 sitting undisturbed and it has been slowly but surely decaying, 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.600 all of those daughter isotopes are going to keep building up. 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:17.919 So you might find a deposit that's a lot of 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.000 raid on you don't want to have anything to do with, 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:24.359 but not that much uranium to thirty five, you know. Yeah, 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:28.360 So once you have found your stuff, you've got your permit, 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:31.040 you're all ready to go. It's ten to fifteen years on. 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.080 You need to figure out and you probably already figure 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.560 out at this point what kind of mind you're gonna have. Uh, 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:39.480 And there's a few different ones. I know, we've talked 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:44.080 about mountain top removal mining and regular underground mining, um, 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:48.760 but open pit mining is one one thing they can do, 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.960 which is basically they blast away land and create a 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.320 big pit and then they go in there and they 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.520 remove big uranium or chunks and say, here you go, 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:02.159 go process it, go crush it up and slurry and 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.920 what's that? Uh, what's that saying? They have? That's kind 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.320 of cool. So apparently the miners themselves like, if you're 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.959 a if you're a uranium miner, you're not just an 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.359 ordinary miner, in no disrespect to ordinary miners, but you're 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:19.800 especially trained, especially to recognize uranium because it's up to 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.840 you in an open pit process to pick the stuff 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:25.480 out and and get as as much of the actual 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.560 uranium as possible. So they do have this saying a 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:31.879 mind is a terrible thing to waste. You want to 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.159 get all the uranium out, and a waste is a 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:36.119 terrible thing to mind. You don't want to mind the 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:38.919 stuff that's not uranium. And so I added a little 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.520 bit of extra to that, saying it's a lot more 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:46.240 succinct than that. But I think you get let's hear it. Oh, 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.879 I thought you I thought you were gonna add even more. No, surprisingly, 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:56.520 I wasn't uh the um, I think you can also 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.399 strip mine, Is that true? Yeah? Open pit and strip 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.440 mining are like within if you've got the deposit within 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:07.240 like fot of the surface. Um. But I think the 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:09.399 big difference between those two, chucks, Strip mining is just 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:11.879 like taking the layers of soil off the top until 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.880 you reach the deposit. Whereas open pit, like you were saying, 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.639 you use you know, you blasted in the rubble. But 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.080 they're related, they're like, um, they're surface mining. I think 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.439 they both qualifies that. Yeah. I mean then you've got 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:28.199 underground mining, of course, which is just deeper and they 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:31.440 you go down in those mine shafts or what's called adits, 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:34.920 which are the vertical and horizontal tunnels, and it's just 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.000 way more labor intensive. It's obviously a bit more expensive, 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:41.960 it's a bit more dangerous, higher health risks. Uh. So 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:48.080 they would prefer out of those two two, probably open 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.480 pit mine. Well, yes, but it also depends on you 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:54.760 know who you're talking about prefers that. Like, if you're 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.680 a miner, you probably prefer open pit because you're exposed 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:02.919 open air. If you're um concerned agent of the e 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:07.440 p A, you probably prefer a well run underground mind, 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:12.000 because if it's done correctly and built properly, it's probably 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:14.800 going to have less of an environmental foot print then 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:17.919 blowing a huge pit into the earth and getting all 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:21.680 the radioactive chunks out. Yeah, and I think the one 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:25.600 that's has the least environmental impact is in situ, which 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:29.920 means in the original place. And this is interesting and 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.440 that they basically, you know, they don't take these big 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:37.360 chunks out of the ground and process it. They use chemicals. 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:39.359 They use baking soda and sort of like a club 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:44.280 soda mixture solution, and they they inject it into the 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:48.399 rock through pipes and that separates that the uranium from 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:50.199 the rock, but it turns it into a solution that 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:53.120 they then pump back up to the surface. Yeah, there's 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:57.120 injection wells that go down into the deposit because sometimes 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:00.399 the like uranium can be kind of suspence ended in 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:05.840