Uranium mining has to be an option

(As published in the Lynchburg News and Advance (Lynchburg, Va.) on March 30, 2008

Anti-nuclear activists are waging a battle against uranium mining in southern Virginia. They warn of the catastrophic potential for radioactive uranium-milling wastes to pollute the environment.

However, those opposed to Virginia Uranium’s plans to mine a 200-acre site in Pittsylvania County ignore the reality that numerous studies dating from the 1980’s show that uranium mining is tightly regulated, environmentally safe and an economically productive enterprise. As with all types of mining, radon is released in uranium mining and milling, but the health effects, if any, are smaller than the effects of coal burning.

Contrary to the assertions of antinuclear groups, the public is not at risk from uranium mining. A landmark 1982 study done by a team of scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that the health risk is vanishingly small. The team, headed by Richard L. Blanchard, chief of the Radiochemistry and Special Studies Branch at EPA’s Eastern Environmental Radiation Facility in Montgomery, Alabama, found that the lifetime risk of fatal cancer to the general public from airborne radioactive emissions from uranium mines is 0.0002 percent above a person’s normal risk of dying from cancer from all causes. And the scientists determined that the health risk is even less as a result of discharging uranium mine water to surface streams. Their findings were published in the Journal of Nuclear Safety. Other studies since then have confirmed that public health is not at risk from uranium mining.

Nevertheless, it would be worthwhile for the National Academy of Sciences to undertake a statewide study of uranium mining in Virginia.

Over the years, uranium mining and milling has provided the fuel used to produce nuclear energy which does not pollute the air or emit global warming gases. What’s more, nuclear-generated electricity helps reduce America’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil, for which Americans are shelling out more than $300 billion a year.

Currently, nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of America’s electricity. But despite conservation and improvements in energy efficiency, the need for additional clean power generation is increasing. Utilities are gearing up to build as many as 35 new nuclear plants, mainly in the Southeast, and they will require more fuel. The existing supply of highly enriched uranium being converted to fuel is projected to end in five years – just as uranium from the Pittsylvania County site would become available for use.

The great advantage of nuclear power is its ability to wrest enormous energy from a small amount of fuel. One ton of nuclear fuel produces energy equivalent to 2 to 3 million tons of fossil fuel. The estimated 110 million pounds of uranium at the Pittsylvania site contain the energy equivalent of almost 7.5 billion barrels of crude oil, a quarter of America’s proven oil reserves.

The spectacular energy value of this uranium deposit helps explain its appeal. If the Virginia State Legislature lifts a decades-old moratorium on uranium mining, as it should, the economic boost from mining will encourage investment in Pittsylvania and nearby counties that will not only reduce unemployment but generate millions of dollars in tax revenues. It also will go a long way toward providing a dependable supply of electricity and rescuing America from its overwhelming dependence on foreign oil.

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J. Winston Porter is president of the Waste Policy Center in Leesburg and was formerly an assistant administrator of the EPA with national responsibility for solid and hazardous waste programs.