Nuclear Energy

The radioactivity from the tailing ponds severely affects residents living near these enclosures.
i. Radon gas can affect people very far away from the tailings pond, as it can travel thousands
of kilometres with a light breeze in just a few days.
ii. Heavy rainfall or floods can cause spillover of the sludge into nearby areas; it may also
cause a failure of the tailings dam. This has been occurring around the world with
frightening regularity. These failures can be huge. For instance, on July 16, 1979, the
Church Rock tailings dam in New Mexico collapsed, spilling ninety million gallons of liquid
radioactive waste and eleven hundred tons of solid mill wastes into the Rio Puerco River. It
is the largest release of radioactive waste ever in the US, and second only to the Chernobyl
meltdown globally. Few people have heard of this disaster, because it took place in tribal
lands, so the media simply ignored it. The Navajos of course continue to suffer its
consequences. lxxix
iii. Seepage from the tailing ponds can contaminate the ground and surface water. For example,
seepage is known to be occurring at the uranium mill tailings in the city of Pecs in Hungary
and Stráz pod Ralskem mill tailings in North Bohemia. Sooner or later, it is going to
contaminate the drinking water sources of both these places. lxxx Seepage from tailings pond
of the Atlas uranium mill in Moab, Utah, USA, had been contaminating the Colorado River
for decades. The river is drinking water supply for millions of Americans downstream. After
an intense struggle waged by local people for nearly a decade, finally, in 2005, the
authorities decided to relocate the tailings pond. lxxxi
The tailings have therefore to be safeguarded for tens of thousands of years. In practice, the
settling ponds are simply abandoned. Only when there is a major seepage from the pond, or the dam
breaks, do governments move in and take some damage control measures.
3. Uranium Enrichment
The uranium-235 isotope is enriched from a low concentration of 0.7% to 3% for fuel in
nuclear power plants (except in PHWRs). Workers at all stages of the enrichment process are
exposed to whole-body gamma radiation from by-products of uranium decay. But the most serious
aspect of enrichment is the material that is discarded: uranium-238. This is called “depleted
uranium” (DU) because it has been depleted of its uranium-235. But it is not depleted
radioactively. lxxxii
In March 2009, bowing to pressure from the nuclear industry, the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) voted to declare that depleted uranium (DU) from enrichment plants is a Class
A low-level radioactive waste – the least dangerous kind that supposedly consists mainly of short-
lived radionuclides. In actual fact, the depleted uranium becomes more radioactive with time, and
hence more dangerous, because of the growth of decay products of uranium like thorium-230 and
radium-226. The uranium-238 and its decay products will continue to pollute the environment for
thousands of years.
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