The Long Term Stabilization of Uranium Mill Tailings


Book Description

Summarizes the current state of the art of uranium mill tailings disposal and the results from an IAEA Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on technologies and strategies for their long term stabilization. The aim of the CRP was to develop conceptual and technical solutions that render tailings more inert over prolonged time spans.




Management of Commingled Uranium Mill Tailings


Book Description




Warm Sands


Book Description

From 1978 to 1998, Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project contractors removed and secured nearly forty million cubic yards of low-level radioactive uranium reduction mill tailings waste from abandoned mill sites in eleven states and four Indian reservations, enough material to bury 2300 football fields in ten feet of radioactive sand. The contractors also decontaminated over five thousand residential, commercial, and public properties that had been polluted with tailings. In addition to these federal efforts, the private uranium industry interred millions of tons of tailings generated by their mill operations. The UMTRA Project was the world??'s largest materials management program designed to shield the public from potentially hazardous radioactive materials. This is the story of that project, contextualized within the history of American atomic power and uranium mining. "Warm Sands" explores the structural factors that drove the formation of tailings policy, focusing on certain variables such as the legal centralization of authority over atomic energy in the federal government, the autonomy of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Congress??'s Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), public health concerns, and traditional American democracy???vital to understanding the evolution of milling policy. Mogren discovered that non-elected governmental technocrats, scientists, lawyers, and administrators played a more influential role than did politicians or the public in the policy-making process. Furthermore, governmental organizations and semi-autonomous atomic bureaucrats did not function in predictable ways in the formation of mill tailings policy.




Remediation of Uranium Mill Tailings


Book Description

This book covers issues pertaining to uranium tailings with special reference to consolidation of radioactivity including systematic ecological strategy for consolidation of radionuclides in uranium tailings. It discusses sustainable consolidation of radioactivity and checks the migration of unextracted uranium from tailing piles to plants and atmosphere supported by a case study from a uranium mine. It provides simple ecological solutions for the remediation of radioactivity in mill tailings. Features: Provides insight into the application of applied ecology for bioremediation of radioactive wastes. Discusses species selection criteria for tailings radioactivity consolidation. Explains safe treatment of the tailings of radioactive ore processing plants. Illustrates the role of ethnobotany in the selection of the most appropriate species to effectively use in bioremediation. Focuses on experimental outcomes. This book is aimed at researchers and professionals in mining engineering, applied geology, nuclear tailings and environmental protection.




Chemical Separation Technologies and Related Methods of Nuclear Waste Management


Book Description

Separation technologies are of crucial importance to the goal of significantly reducing the volume of high-level nuclear waste, thereby reducing the long-term health risks to mankind. International co-operation, including the sharing of concepts and methods, as well as technology transfer, is essential in accelerating research and development in the field. The writers of this book are all internationally recognised experts in the field of separation technology, well qualified to assess and criticize the current state of separation research as well as to identify future opportunities for the application of separation technologies to the solution of nuclear waste management problems. The major emphases in the book are research opportunities in the utilization of innovative and potentially more efficient and cost effective processes for waste processing/treatment, actinide speciation/separation methods, technological processing, and environmental restoration.













Mine Wastes


Book Description

Today's best practice in environmental mine-waste management requires a thorough understanding of the wastes produced. The knowledge of mine wastes represents a new interdisciplinary science and this book provides an introductory, descriptive and analytic overview of the wastes produced in the mineral industry. It describes the characterization, prediction, monitoring, disposal and treatment as well as environmental impacts. Intended for undergraduate courses, it systematically builds the reader’s understanding and knowledge of the wastes produced, their physical and chemical characteristics, and how to deal responsibly with them on a short and long-term basis. The text employs 22 case studies spanning the world’s mineral industry that elucidate best practice and specific challenges in mine-waste management and site rehabilitation.