URANIUM MINING
Water use in a typical uranium mine is approximately 200 to 300 gallons per minute,
In water-short Australia, BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine has been for years taking 35 million litres of water each day from the underground aquifer, at no cost whatever.
When BHP digs its new biggest hole in the world, it will pay a small fixed price for removing even greater amounts, exceeding 42 million litres.
A typical 1000-megawatt pressurized-water reactor (with a cooling tower) takes in 20,000 gallons of river, lake or ocean water per minute for cooling, circulates it through a 50-mile maze of pipes, returns 5,000 gallons per minute to the same body of water, and releases the remainder to the atmosphere as vapor.
A 1000-megawatt reactor without a cooling tower takes in even more water–as much as one-half million gallons per minute. The discharge water is contaminated with radioactive elements in amounts that are not precisely known or knowable, but are biologically active.
Some radioactive fission gases, stripped from the reactor cooling water, are contained in decay tanks for days before being released into the atmosphere through filtered rooftop vents. Some gases leak into the power plant buildings’ interiors and are released during periodic “purges” and “ventings.” These airborne gases contaminate not only the air, but also soil and water.
200 billion gallons of water withdrawn from America’s water supply each day for every terawatt of electricity produced by nuclear reactors,
At least 20 USA nuclear plants have admitted leakage of radioactive tritium into the groundwater.
Spills and leaks are common at In Situ Leach mines.
The South Australian Department of Primary Industry and Resources lists 59 spills at Beverley mine from 1998 to 2007.
Read more:
http://nuclear-news.net/page/3/
