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How is uranium mined if it's so radioactive?

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Mostly because it's not all that radioactive. Natural uranium consists primarily of U-238, which has such a long half-life (almost 4.5 billion years) and is so weakly radioactive that it's actually used for radiation shielding - that's 99. read more

Well, it’s not very radioactive, its half life is 4.5 billion years, and decays by emitting alpha particles (Helium nuclei). The ore will have mostly U238 with a little bit of U235 and both of these isotopes can absorb a neutron and fission with the release of lots of radioactive products. read more

Uranium occurs in its native state in the form of UO2 and U2O3. The grade of the ore is very low. I have undergone a training as a part of my academic curriculum at one of the uranium mine. The grade of the ore at mine was ROM 0.03% (Run of mine). It is too low to release the harmful radiation to affect the workers working there. read more

Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. The worldwide production of uranium in 2015 amounted to 60,496 tonnes. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia are the top three producers and together account for 70% of world uranium production. Other important uranium producing countries in excess of 1,000 tons per year are Niger, Russia, Namibia, Uzbekistan, China, the United States and Ukraine. Uranium from mining is used almost entirely as fuel for nuclear power plants. read more

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