title: Uranium mining

text: The use of airborne detectors to prospect for radioactive minerals was first proposed by G.C. Ridland, a geophysicist working at Port Radium in 1943. In 1947, the earliest recorded trial of airborne radiation detectors (ionization chambers and Geiger counters) was conducted by Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited. (a Canadian Crown Corporation since sold to become Cameco Corporation). The first patent for a portable gamma-ray spectrometer was filed by Professors Pringle, Roulston & Brownell of the University of Manitoba in 1949, the same year as they tested the first portable scintillation counter on the ground and in the air in northern Saskatchewan.


title: Uranium mining

text: Airborne gamma-ray spectrometry is now the accepted leading technique for uranium prospecting with worldwide applications for geological mapping, mineral exploration & environmental monitoring. Airborne gamma-ray spectrometry used specifically for uranium measurement and prospecting must account for a number of factors like the distance between the source and the detector and the scattering of radiation through the minerals, surrounding earth and even in the air. In Australia, a Weathering Intensity Index has been developed to help prospectors based on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) elevation and airborne gamma-ray spectrometry images.


title: Uranium mining

text: A deposit of uranium, discovered by geophysical techniques, is evaluated and sampled to determine the amounts of uranium materials that are extractable at specified costs from the deposit. Uranium reserves are the amounts of ore that are estimated to be recoverable at stated costs. As prices rise or technology allows for lower cost of recovery of known, previously uneconomic, deposits, reserves increase. For uranium this effect is particularly pronounced as the biggest currently uneconomic reserve – uranium extraction from seawater – is bigger than all known land based resources of uranium combined.


title: Uranium mining

text: As with other types of hard rock mining there are several methods of extraction. In 2016, the percentage of the mined uranium produced by each mining method was: in-situ leach (49.7 percent), underground mining (30.8 percent), open pit (12.9 percent), heap leaching (0.4 percent), co-product/by-product (6.1%). The remaining 0,1% was derived as miscellaneous recovery.


title: Uranium mining

text: In open pit mining, overburden is removed by drilling and blasting to expose the ore body, which is then mined by blasting and excavation using loaders and dump trucks. Workers spend much time in enclosed cabins thus limiting exposure to radiation. Water is extensively used to suppress airborne dust levels. Groundwater is an issue in all types of mining, but in open pit mining, the usual way of dealing with it - i.e. when the target mineral is found below the natural water table - is to lower the water table by pumping off the water. The ground may settle considerably when groundwater is removed and may again move unpredictably when groundwater is allowed to rise again after mining is concluded. Land reclamation after mining takes different routes, depending on the amount of material removed. Due to the high energy density of uranium, it is often sufficient to fill in the former mine with the overburden, but in case of a mass deficit exceeding the height difference between the previous surface level and the natural water table, artificial lakes develop when groundwater removal ceases. If sulfites, sulfides or sulfates are present in the now-exposed rocks acid mine drainage can be a concern for those newly developing bodies of water. Mining companies are now required by law to establish a fund for future reclamation while mining is ongoing and those funds are usually deposited in such a way as to be unaffected by bankruptcy of the mining company.


title: Uranium mining

text: If the uranium is too far below the surface for open pit mining, an underground mine might be used with tunnels and shafts dug to access and remove uranium ore.


title: Uranium mining

text: Underground uranium mining is in principle no different from any other hard rock mining and other ores are often mined in association (e.g., copper, gold, silver). Once the ore body has been identified a shaft is sunk in the vicinity of the ore veins, and crosscuts are driven horizontally to the veins at various levels, usually every 100 to 150 metres. Similar tunnels, known as drifts, are driven along the ore veins from the crosscut. To extract the ore, the next step is to drive tunnels, known as raises when driven upwards and winzes when driven downwards, through the deposit from level to level. Raises are subsequently used to develop the stopes where the ore is mined from the veins.


title: Uranium mining

text: The stope, which is the workshop of the mine, is the excavation from which the ore is extracted. Three methods of stope mining are commonly used. In the "cut and fill" or "open stoping" method, the space remaining following removal of ore after blasting is filled with waste rock and cement. In the "shrinkage" method, only sufficient broken ore is removed via the chutes below to allow miners working from the top of the pile to drill and blast the next layer to be broken off, eventually leaving a large hole. The method known as "room and pillar" is used for thinner, flatter ore bodies. In this method the ore body is first divided into blocks by intersecting drives, removing ore while so doing, and then systematically removing the blocks, leaving enough ore for roof support.


title: Uranium mining

text: The health effects discovered from radon exposure in unventilated uranium mining prompted the switch away from uranium mining via tunnel mining towards open cut and in-situ leaching technology, a method of extraction that does not produce the same occupational hazards, or mine tailings, as conventional mining.


title: Uranium mining

text: With regulations in place to ensure the use of high volume ventilation technology if any confined space uranium mining is occurring, occupational exposure and mining deaths can be largely eliminated. The Olympic Dam and Canadian underground mines are ventilated with powerful fans with radon levels being kept at a very low to practically "safe level" in uranium mines. Naturally occurring radon in other, non-uranium mines, also may need control by ventilation.


title: Uranium mining

text: Heap leaching is an extraction process by which chemicals (usually sulfuric acid) are used to extract the economic element from ore which has been mined and placed in piles on the surface. Heap leaching is generally economically feasible only for oxide ore deposits. Oxidation of sulfide deposits occurs during the geological process called weathering. Therefore, oxide ore deposits are typically found close to the surface. If there are no other economic elements within the ore a mine might choose to extract the uranium using a leaching agent, usually a low molar sulfuric acid.


title: Uranium mining

text: If the economic and geological conditions are right, the mining company will level large areas of land with a small gradient, layering it with thick plastic (usually HDPE or LLDPE), sometimes with clay, silt or sand beneath the plastic liner. The extracted ore will typically be run through a crusher and placed in heaps atop the plastic. The leaching agent will then be sprayed on the ore for 30–90 days. As the leaching agent filters through the heap, the uranium will break its bonds with the oxide rock and enter the solution. The solution will then filter along the gradient into collecting pools which will then be pumped to on-site plants for further processing. Only some of the uranium (commonly about 70%) is actually extracted.


title: Uranium mining

text: The uranium concentrations within the solution are very important for the efficient separation of pure uranium from the acid. As different heaps will yield different concentrations, the solution is pumped to a mixing plant that is carefully monitored. The properly balanced solution is then pumped into a processing plant where the uranium is separated from the sulfuric acid.


title: Uranium mining

text: Heap leach is significantly cheaper than traditional milling processes. The low costs allow for lower grade ore to be economically feasible (given that it is the right type of ore body). US environmental law requires that the surrounding ground water is continually monitored for possible contamination. The mine will also have to have continued monitoring even after the shutdown of the mine. In the past mining companies would sometimes go bankrupt, leaving the responsibility of mine reclamation to the public. 21st century additions to US mining law require that companies set aside the money for reclamation before the beginning of the project. The money will be held by the public to insure adherence to environmental standards if the company were to ever go bankrupt.


title: Uranium mining

text: In-situ leaching (ISL), also known as solution mining, or in-situ recovery (ISR) in North America, involves leaving the ore where it is in the ground, and recovering the minerals from it by dissolving them and pumping the pregnant solution to the surface where the minerals can be recovered. Consequently, there is little surface disturbance and no tailings or waste rock generated. However, the orebody needs to be permeable to the liquids used, and located so that they do not contaminate ground water away from the orebody.


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium ISL uses the native groundwater in the orebody which is fortified with a complexing agent and in most cases an oxidant. It is then pumped through the underground orebody to recover the minerals in it by leaching. Once the pregnant solution is returned to the surface, the uranium is recovered in much the same way as in any other uranium plant (mill).


title: Uranium mining

text: In Australian ISL mines (Beverley, Four Mile and Honeymoon Mine) the oxidant used is hydrogen peroxide and the complexing agent sulfuric acid. Kazakh ISL mines generally do not employ an oxidant but use much higher acid concentrations in the circulating solutions. ISL mines in the USA use an alkali leach due to the presence of significant quantities of acid-consuming minerals such as gypsum and limestone in the host aquifers. Any more than a few percent carbonate minerals means that alkali leach must be used in preference to the more efficient acid leach.


title: Uranium mining

text: The Australian government has published a best practice guide for in situ leach mining of uranium, which is being revised to take account of international differences.


title: Uranium mining

text: The uranium concentration in sea water is low, approximately 3.3 parts per billion or 3.3 micrograms per liter of seawater. But the quantity of this resource is gigantic and some scientists believe this resource is practically limitless with respect to world-wide demand. That is to say, if even a portion of the uranium in seawater could be used the entire world's nuclear power generation fuel could be provided over a long time period. Some anti-nuclear proponents claim this statistic is exaggerated. Although research and development for recovery of this low-concentration element by inorganic adsorbents such as titanium oxide compounds has occurred since the 1960s in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan, this research was halted due to low recovery efficiency.


title: Uranium mining

text: At the Takasaki Radiation Chemistry Research Establishment of the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI Takasaki Research Establishment), research and development has continued culminating in the production of adsorbent by irradiation of polymer fiber. Adsorbents have been synthesized that have a functional group (amidoxime group) that selectively adsorbs heavy metals, and the performance of such adsorbents has been improved. Uranium adsorption capacity of the polymer fiber adsorbent is high, approximately tenfold greater in comparison to the conventional titanium oxide adsorbent.


title: Uranium mining

text: One method of extracting uranium from seawater is using a uranium-specific nonwoven fabric as an adsorbent. The total amount of uranium recovered from three collection boxes containing 350 kg of fabric was >1 kg of yellowcake after 240 days of submersion in the ocean. The experiment by Seko "et al." was repeated by Tamada et al. in 2006. They found that the cost varied from ¥15,000 to ¥88,000 depending on assumptions and "The lowest cost attainable now is ¥25,000 with 4g-U/kg-adsorbent used in the sea area of Okinawa, with 18 repetitionuses." With the May, 2008 exchange rate, this was about $240/kg-U.


title: Uranium mining

text: In 2012, ORNL researchers announced the successful development of a new adsorbent material dubbed "HiCap", which vastly outperforms previous best adsorbents, which perform surface retention of solid or gas molecules, atoms or ions. "We have shown that our adsorbents can extract five to seven times more uranium at uptake rates seven times faster than the world's best adsorbents," said Chris Janke, one of the inventors and a member of ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division. HiCap also effectively removes toxic metals from water, according to results verified by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.


title: Uranium mining

text: In 2012 it was estimated that this fuel source could be extracted at 10 times the current price of uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: In 2014, with the advances made in the efficiency of seawater uranium extraction, it was suggested that it would be economically competitive to produce fuel for light water reactors from seawater if the process was implemented at large scale. Uranium extracted on an industrial scale from seawater would constantly be replenished by both river erosion of rocks and the natural process of uranium dissolved from the surface area of the ocean floor, both of which maintain the solubility equilibria of seawater concentration at a stable level. Some commentators have argued that this strengthens the case for nuclear power to be considered a renewable energy.


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium can be recovered as a by-product along with other co-products such as molybdenum, vanadium, nickel, zinc and petroleum products. Uranium is also often found in phosphate minerals, where it has to be removed because phosphate is mostly used for fertilizers. Phosphogypsum is a waste product from phosphate mining that can contain significant amounts of uranium and radium. Coal fly ash also contains significant amounts of uranium and has been suggested as a source for uranium extraction.


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium occurs naturally in many rocks, and even in seawater. However, like other metals, it is seldom sufficiently concentrated to be economically recoverable.


title: Uranium mining

text: Like any resource, uranium cannot be mined at any desired concentration. No matter the technology, at some point it is too costly to mine lower grade ores.


title: Uranium mining

text: Mining companies usually consider concentrations greater than 0.075% (750 ppm) as ore, or rock economical to mine at current uranium market prices.


title: Uranium mining

text: There is around 40 trillion tons of uranium in Earth's crust, but most is distributed at low parts per million trace concentration over its mass.


title: Uranium mining

text: Estimates of the amount concentrated into ores affordable to extract for under $130 per kg can be less than a millionth of that total.


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium-235, the fissile isotope of uranium used in nuclear reactors, makes up about 0.7% of uranium from ore. It is the only naturally occurring isotope capable of directly generating nuclear power.


title: Uranium mining

text: While Uranium-235 can be "bred" from , a natural decay product of present at 55 ppm in all natural uranium samples, Uranium-235 is ultimately a finite non-renewable resource.


title: Uranium mining

text: Due to the currently low price of uranium, the majority of commercial light water reactors operate on a "once through fuel cycle" which leaves virtually all the energy contained in the original - which makes up over 99% of natural uranium - unused. Nuclear reprocessing can recover part of that energy by producing MOX fuel or Remix Fuel for use in conventional power generating light water reactors. This technology is currently used at industrial scale in France, Russia and Japan. However, at current uranium prices, this is widely deemed uneconomical if only the "input" side is considered.


title: Uranium mining

text: Breeder reactor technology could allow the current reserves of uranium to provide power for humanity for billions of years, thus making nuclear power a sustainable energy.


title: Uranium mining

text: About 96% of the global uranium reserves are found in these ten countries: Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Brazil, Namibia, Uzbekistan, the United States, Niger, and Russia.


title: Uranium mining

text: The known uranium resources represent a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so the significant increase in exploration effort that we are now seeing could readily double the known economic resources. On the basis of analogies with other metal minerals, a doubling of price from price levels in 2007 could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time.


title: Uranium mining

text: Exploration for uranium has increased: from 1981 to 2007, annual exploration expenditures grew modestly, from US$4 million to US$7 million. This increased to US$11 million in 2011.


title: Uranium mining

text: Australia has just over 30% of the world's reasonably assured resources and inferred resources of uranium – about .


title: Uranium mining

text: It will take a significant exploration and development effort to locate the remaining deposits and begin mining them. However, since the entire earth's geography has not been explored for uranium at this time, there is still the potential to discover exploitable resources.


title: Uranium mining

text: The OECD Redbook cites areas still open to exploration throughout the world. Many countries are conducting complete aeromagnetic gradiometer radiometric surveys to get an estimate the size of their undiscovered mineral resources. Combined with a gamma-ray survey, these methods can locate undiscovered uranium and thorium deposits.


title: Uranium mining

text: The U.S. Department of Energy conducted the first and only national uranium assessment in 1980 – the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) program.


title: Uranium mining

text: Secondary resources are essentially recovered uranium from other sources such as nuclear weapons, inventories, reprocessing and re-enrichment. Since secondary resources have exceedingly low discovery costs and very low production costs, they may have displaced a significant portion of primary production. Secondary uranium was and is available essentially instantly. However, new primary production will not be. Essentially, secondary supply is a "one-time" finite supply, with the exception of the re-processed fuel.


title: Uranium mining

text: Due to reduction in nuclear weapons stockpiles, a large amount of former weapons uranium was released for use in civilian nuclear reactors. As a result, starting in 1990, a significant portion of uranium nuclear power requirements were supplied by former weapons uranium, rather than newly mined uranium. In 2002, mined uranium supplied only 54 percent of nuclear power requirements. But as the supply of former weapons uranium has been used up, mining has increased, so that in 2012, mining provided 95 percent of reactor requirements, and the OCED Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency projected that the gap in supply would be completely erased in 2013.


title: Uranium mining

text: The US DOE keeps inventories for security of supply in order to cover for emergencies where uranium is not available at any price.


title: Uranium mining

text: Both the US and Russia have committed to recycle their nuclear weapons into fuel for electricity production. This program is known as the Megatons to Megawatts Program.


title: Uranium mining

text: Down blending of Russian weapons high enriched uranium (HEU) will result in about of low enriched uranium (LEU) over 20 years. This is equivalent to about of natural U, or just over twice annual world demand. Since 2000, of military HEU is displacing about of uranium oxide mine production per year which represents some 13% of world reactor requirements.


title: Uranium mining

text: Plutonium recovered from nuclear weapons or other sources can be blended with uranium fuel to produce a mixed-oxide fuel. In June 2000, the US and Russia agreed to dispose of each of weapons-grade plutonium by 2014. The US undertook to pursue a self-funded dual track program (immobilization and MOX). The G-7 nations provided US$1 billion to set up Russia's program. The latter was initially MOX specifically designed for VVER reactors, the Russian version of the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), the high cost being because this was not part of Russia's fuel cycle policy. This MOX fuel for both countries is equivalent to about of natural uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: Nuclear reprocessing (or recycling) can increase the supply of uranium by separating the uranium from spent nuclear fuel.


title: Uranium mining

text: Spent nuclear fuel is primarily composed of uranium, with a typical concentration of around 96% by mass.


title: Uranium mining

text: The composition of reprocessed uranium depends on the time the fuel has been in the reactor, but it is mostly uranium-238, with about 1% uranium-235, 1% uranium-236 and smaller amounts of other isotopes including uranium-232.


title: Uranium mining

text: Currently, there are eleven reprocessing plants in the world. Of these, two are large-scale commercially operated plants for the reprocessing of spent fuel elements from light water reactors with throughputs of more than of uranium per year. These are La Hague, France with a capacity of per year and Sellafield, England at uranium per year.


title: Uranium mining

text: The two large-scale commercial reprocessing plants together can reprocess 2,800 tonnes of uranium waste annually.


title: Uranium mining

text: The United States had reprocessing plants in the past but banned reprocessing in the late 1970s due to the high costs and the risk of nuclear proliferation via plutonium.


title: Uranium mining

text: The main problems with uranium reprocessing are the cost of mined uranium compared to the cost of reprocessing,


title: Uranium mining

text: At present, reprocessing and the use of plutonium as reactor fuel is far more expensive than using uranium fuel and disposing of the spent fuel directly – even if the fuel is only reprocessed once.


title: Uranium mining

text: Reprocessing is most useful as part of a nuclear fuel cycle using fast-neutron reactors since reprocessed uranium and reactor-grade plutonium both have isotopic compositions not optimal for use in today's thermal-neutron reactors.


title: Uranium mining

text: Unconventional resources are occurrences that require novel technologies for their exploitation and/or use. Often unconventional resources occur in low-concentration. The exploitation of unconventional uranium requires additional research and development efforts for which there is no imminent economic need, given the large conventional resource base and the option of reprocessing spent fuel.


title: Uranium mining

text: Phosphates, seawater, uraniferous coal ash, and some type of oil shales are examples of unconventional uranium resources.


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium occurs at concentrations of 50 to 200 parts per million (ppm) in phosphate-laden earth or phosphate rock. As uranium prices increase, there has been interest in extraction of uranium from phosphate rock, which is normally used as the basis of phosphate fertilizers.


title: Uranium mining

text: There are 22 million tons of uranium in phosphate deposits. Recovery of uranium from phosphates is a mature technology; it has been utilized in Belgium and the United States, but high recovery costs limit the utilization of these resources, with estimated production costs in the range of US$60–100/kgU including capital investment, according to a 2003 OECD report for a new 100 tU/year project.


title: Uranium mining

text: Worldwide, approximately 400 wet-process phosphoric acid plants were in operation. Assuming an average recoverable content of 100 ppm of uranium, and that uranium prices do not increase so that the main use of the phosphates are for fertilizers, this scenario would result in a maximum theoretical annual output of UO.


title: Uranium mining

text: Unconventional uranium resources include up to of uranium contained in sea water. Several technologies to extract uranium from sea water have been demonstrated at the laboratory scale.


title: Uranium mining

text: In 2012, ORNL researchers announced the successful development of a new absorbent material dubbed HiCap, which vastly outperforms previous best adsorbents, which perform surface retention of solid or gas molecules, atoms or ions. "We have shown that our adsorbents can extract five to seven times more uranium at uptake rates seven times faster than the world's best adsorbents", said Chris Janke, one of the inventors and a member of ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division. HiCap also effectively removes toxic metals from water, according to results verified by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.


title: Uranium mining

text: According to a study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the theoretical maximum energy potential (when used in breeder reactors) of trace uranium and thorium in coal actually exceeds the energy released by burning the coal itself. This is despite very low concentration of uranium in coal of only several parts per million average before combustion.


title: Uranium mining

text: From 1965 to 1967 Union Carbide operated a mill in North Dakota, United States, burning uraniferous lignite and extracting uranium from the ash. The plant produced about 150 metric tons of UO before shutting down.


title: Uranium mining

text: An international consortium has set out to explore the commercial extraction of uranium from uraniferous coal ash from coal power stations located in Yunnan province, China. The first laboratory scale amount of yellowcake uranium recovered from uraniferous coal ash was announced in 2007. The three coal power stations at Xiaolongtang, Dalongtang and Kaiyuan have piled up their waste ash. Initial tests from the Xiaolongtang ash pile indicate that the material contains (160–180 parts per million uranium), suggesting a total of UO could be recovered from that ash pile alone.


title: Uranium mining

text: Some oil shales contain uranium, which may be recovered as a byproduct. Between 1946 and 1952, a marine type of Dictyonema shale was used for uranium production in Sillamäe, Estonia, and between 1950 and 1989 alum shale was used in Sweden for the same purpose.


title: Uranium mining

text: A breeder reactor produces more nuclear fuel than it consumes and thus can extend the uranium supply. It typically turns the dominant isotope in natural uranium, uranium-238, into fissile plutonium-239. This results in hundredfold increase in the amount of energy to be produced per mass unit of uranium, because U-238, which constitute 99.3% of natural uranium, is not used in conventional reactors which instead use U-235 which only represent 0.7% of natural uranium. In 1983, physicist Bernard Cohen proposed that the world supply of uranium is effectively inexhaustible, and could therefore be considered a form of renewable energy.


title: Uranium mining

text: He claims that fast breeder reactors, fueled by naturally-replenished uranium-238 extracted from seawater, could supply energy at least as long as the sun's expected remaining lifespan of five billion years.


title: Uranium mining

text: Efforts at commercializing breeder reactors have been largely unsuccessful, due to higher costs and complexity compared to LWR, as well as political opposition.


title: Uranium mining

text: A few commercial breeder reactors exists. In 2016, the Russian BN-800 fast-neutron breeder reactor started producing commercially at full power (800 MWe), joining the previous BN-600. , the Chinese CFR-600 is under construction after the success of the China Experimental Fast Reactor, based on the BN-800. These reactors are currently generating mostly electricity rather than new fuel because the abundance and low price of mined and reprocessed uranium oxide makes breeding uneconomical, but they can switch to breed new fuel and close the cycle as needed.


title: Uranium mining

text: The CANDU reactor, which was designed to be fueled with natural uranium, is capable of using spent fuel from Light Water Reactors as fuel, since it contains more fissile material than natural uranium. Research into "DUPIC" - direct use of PWR spent fuel in CANDU type reactors - is ongoing and could increase the usability of fuel without the need for reprocessing.


title: Uranium mining

text: A fast breeder, in addition to consuming U-235, converts fertile U-238 into Pu-239, a fissile fuel. Fast breeder reactors are more expensive to build and operate, including the reprocessing, and could only be justified economically if uranium prices were to rise to pre-1980 values in real terms. In addition to considerably extending the exploitable fuel supply, these reactors have an advantage in that they produce less long-lived transuranic wastes, and can consume nuclear waste from current light water reactors, generating energy in the process.


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium turned out to be far more plentiful than anticipated, and the price of uranium declined rapidly (with an upward blip in the 1970s). This is why the United States halted their use in 1977, and the UK abandoned the idea in 1994.


title: Uranium mining

text: Significant technical and materials problems were encountered with FBRs, and geological exploration showed that scarcity of uranium was not going to be a concern for some time. By the 1980s, due to both factors, it was clear that FBRs would not be commercially competitive with existing light water reactors. The economics of FBRs still depend on the value of the plutonium fuel which is bred, relative to the cost of fresh uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: At higher uranium prices breeder reactors may be economically justified. Many nations have ongoing breeder research programs. China, India, and Japan plan large scale utilization of breeder reactors during the coming decades. 300 reactor-years experience has been gained in operating them.


title: Uranium mining

text: Fissile uranium can be produced from thorium in thermal breeder reactors. Thorium is three times more plentiful than uranium. Thorium-232 is in itself not fissile, but it can be made into fissile uranium-233 in a breeder reactor. In turn, the uranium-233 can be fissioned, with the advantage that smaller amounts of transuranics are produced by neutron capture, compared to uranium-235 and especially compared to plutonium-239.


title: Uranium mining

text: Despite the thorium fuel cycle having a number of attractive features, development on a large scale can run into difficulties, mainly due to the complexity of fuel separation and reprocessing.


title: Uranium mining

text: Advocates for liquid core and molten salt reactors such as LFTR claim that these technologies negate the above-mentioned thorium's disadvantages present in solid-fueled reactors.


title: Uranium mining

text: The first successful commercial reactor at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, New York (Indian Point Unit 1) ran on thorium. The first core did not live up to expectations.


title: Uranium mining

text: The world's top uranium producers are Kazakhstan (39% of world production), Canada (22%) and Australia (10%). Other major producers include Namibia (6.7%), Niger (6%), and Russia (5%).


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium production in 2017 was 59,462 tonnes, 93% of the demand. The balance came from inventories held by utilities and other fuel cycle companies, inventories held by governments, used reactor fuel that has been reprocessed, recycled materials from military nuclear programs and uranium in depleted uranium stockpiles.


title: Uranium mining

text: As some countries are not able to supply their own needs of uranium economically, countries have resorted to importing uranium ore from elsewhere. For example, owners of U.S. nuclear power reactors bought of natural uranium in 2006. Out of that 84%, or , were imported from foreign suppliers, according to the Energy Department.


title: Uranium mining

text: Because of the improvements in gas centrifuge technology in the 2000s, replacing former gaseous diffusion plants, cheaper separative work units have enabled the economic production of more enriched uranium from a given amount of natural uranium, by re-enriching tails ultimately leaving a depleted uranium tail of lower enrichment. This has somewhat lowered the demand for natural uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: According to Cameco Corporation, the demand for uranium is directly linked to the amount of electricity generated by nuclear power plants. Reactor capacity is growing slowly, reactors are being run more productively, with higher capacity factors, and reactor power levels. Improved reactor performance translates into greater uranium consumption.


title: Uranium mining

text: Nuclear power stations of 1000 megawatt electrical generation capacity require around of natural uranium per year. For example, the United States has 103 operating reactors with an average generation capacity of 950 MWe demanded over of natural uranium in 2005. As the number of nuclear power plants increase, so does the demand for uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: As nuclear power plants take a long time to build and refuelling is undertaken at sporadic, predictable intervals, uranium demand is rather predictable in the short term. It is also less dependent on short-term economic boom-bust cycles as nuclear power has one of strongest fixed costs to variable costs ratios (i.e. The marginal costs of running, rather than leaving idle an already constructed power plant are very low, compared to the capital costs of construction) and it is thus nearly never advisable to leave a nuclear power plant idle for economic reasons. However, nuclear policy can lead to short term fluctuations in demand, as evidenced by the German nuclear phaseout, which was decided upon by the government of Gerhard Schröder (1998-2005) reversed during the second Merkel cabinet (2009-2013) only for a reversal of that reversal to occur as a consequence of the Fukushima nuclear accident, which also led to the temporary shutdown of several German nuclear power plants.


title: Uranium mining

text: Generally speaking, in the case of nuclear energy the cost of fuel has the lowest share in total energy costs of all fuel consuming energy forms (i.e. Fossil fuels, biomass and nuclear). Furthermore, given the immense energy density of nuclear fuel (particularly in the form of enriched uranium or high grade plutonium), it is easy to stockpile amounts of fuel material to last several years at constant consumption. Power plants that do not have online refuelling capabilities, as is the case for the vast majority of commercial power plants in operation, will refuel as seldom as possible to avoid costly downtime and usually plan refuelling shutdowns long in advance so as to allow maintenance and inspection to use the scheduled downtime as well. As such power plant operators tend to have long-term contracts with fuel suppliers that are – if at all – only minorly affected by the fluctuations of uranium prices. The effect on electricity price for end consumers is negligible even in countries like France, which derive a majority of their electric energy from nuclear power. Nonetheless, short term price developments like the 2007 uranium bubble, can have drastic effects on mining companies, prospection and the economic calculations as to whether a certain deposit is worthwhile for commercial purposes.


title: Uranium mining

text: The import price dropped from 32.90 US$/lb-UO in 1981 down to 12.55 in 1990 and to below 10 US$/lb-UO in the year 2000. Prices paid for uranium during the 1970s were higher, 43 US$/lb-UO is reported as the selling price for Australian uranium in 1978 by the Nuclear Information Centre. Uranium prices reached an all-time low in 2001, costing US$7/lb, but in April 2007 the price of Uranium on the spot market rose to US$113.00/lb, a high point of the uranium bubble of 2007. This was very close to the all time high (adjusted for inflation) in 1977.


title: Uranium mining

text: Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the global uranium sector remained depressed with the uranium price falling more than 50%, declining share values, and reduced profitability of uranium producers since March 2011 and into 2014. As a result, uranium companies worldwide are reducing costs, and limiting operations. As an example, Westwater Resources (previously Uranium Resources), has had to cease all uranium operations due to unfavorable prices. Since then, Westwater has tried branching out into other markets, namely lithium and graphite.


title: Uranium mining

text: As of July 2014, the price of uranium concentrate remained near a five-year low, the uranium price having fallen more than 50% from the peak spot price in January 2011, reflecting the loss of Japanese demand following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. As a result of continued low prices, in February 2014 mining company Cameco deferred plans to expand production from existing Canadian mines, although it continued work to open a new mine at Cigar Lake. Also in February 2014, Paladin energy suspended operations at its mine in Malawi, saying that the high-cost operation was losing money at current prices.


title: Uranium mining

text: In general short term fluctuations in the price of uranium are of more concern to operators and owners of mines and potentially lucrative deposits than to power plant operators. Due to its high energy density, uranium is easy to stockpile in the form of strategic reserves and thus a short term increase in prices can be compensated by accessing those reserves. Furthermore, many countries have "de facto" reserves in the form of reprocessed uranium or depleted uranium which still contain a share of fissile material that can make re-enrichment worthwhile if market conditions call for it. Nuclear reprocessing of spent fuel is - as of the 2020s - done commercially primarily to use the fissile material still contained in spent fuel. The commonly employed PUREX process recovers uranium and plutonium which can then be converted into MOX-fuel for use in the same light water reactors that produced the spent fuel. Whether reprocessing is economical is subject to much debate and depends in part on assumptions as to the price of uranium and the cost of disposal via deep geological repository or nuclear transmutation. Reactors that can run on natural uranium consume less mined uranium per unit of power produced but can have higher capital costs to build due to the need for heavy water as moderator. Furthermore they need to be capable of online refueling because the burnup achievable with natural uranium is lower than that achievable with enriched uranium - having to shut down the entire reactor for every refueling would quickly make such a reactor uneconomic. Breeder reactors also become more economical as uranium prices rise and it was among other things a decline in uranium prices in the 1970s that led to a decline in interest in breeder reactor technology. The thorium fuel cycle is a further alternative if and when uranium prices remain at a sustained high level and consequently interest in this alternative to current "mainstream" light water reactor technology is dependent in no small part on uranium prices.


title: Uranium mining

text: In the beginning of the Cold War, to ensure adequate supplies of uranium for national defense, the United States Congress passed the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1946, creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) which had the power to withdraw prospective uranium mining land from public purchase, and also to manipulate the price of uranium to meet national needs. By setting a high price for uranium ore, the AEC created a uranium "boom" in the early 1950s, which attracted many prospectors to the Four Corners region of the country. Moab, Utah became known as the Uranium-capital of the world, when geologist Charles Steen discovered such an ore in 1952, even though American ore sources were considerably less potent than those in the Belgian Congo or South Africa.


title: Uranium mining

text: In the 1950s methods for extracting diluted uranium and thorium, found in abundance in granite or seawater, were pursued. Scientists speculated that, used in a breeder reactor, these materials would potentially provide limitless source of energy.


title: Uranium mining

text: American military requirements declined in the 1960s, and the government completed its uranium procurement program by the end of 1970. Simultaneously, a new market emerged: commercial nuclear power plants. In the U.S. this market virtually collapsed by the end of the 1970s as a result of industrial strains caused by the energy crisis, popular opposition, and finally the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979, all of which led to a "de facto" moratorium on the development of new nuclear reactor power stations.


title: Uranium mining

text: In Europe a mixed situation exists. Considerable nuclear power capacities have been developed, notably in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. In many countries development of nuclear power has been stopped and phased out by legal actions. In Italy the use of nuclear power was barred by a referendum in 1987; this is now under revision. Ireland in 2008 also had no plans to change its non-nuclear stance.


title: Uranium mining

text: The years 1976 and 1977 saw uranium mining become a major political issue in Australia, with the Ranger Inquiry (Fox) report opening up a public debate about uranium mining. The Movement Against Uranium Mining group was formed in 1976, and many protests and demonstrations against uranium mining were held. Concerns relate to the health risks and environmental damage from uranium mining. Notable Australian anti-uranium activists have included Kevin Buzzacott, Jacqui Katona, Yvonne Margarula, and Jillian Marsh.


title: Uranium mining

text: The World Uranium Hearing was held in Salzburg, Austria in September 1992. Anti-nuclear speakers from all continents, including indigenous speakers and scientists, testified to the health and environmental problems of uranium mining and processing, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear tests, and radioactive waste disposal. People who spoke at the 1992 Hearing include: Thomas Banyacya, Katsumi Furitsu, Manuel Pino and Floyd Red Crow Westerman. They highlighted the threat of radioactive contamination to all peoples, especially indigenous communities and said that their survival requires self-determination and emphasis on spiritual and cultural values. Increased renewable energy commercialization was advocated.


title: Uranium mining

text: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the help of China has built an extraction facility to obtain uranium yellowcake from uranium ore. According to Western officials with information regarding the extraction site, the process is conducted by the oil-rich kingdom to champion nuclear technology. However, Saudi Energy Minister denied having built a uranium ore facility and claimed that the extraction of minerals is a fundamental part of the kingdom’s strategy to diversify its economy.


title: Uranium mining

text: Despite sanctions on Russia some countries still buy its uranium in 2022, and some argue the EU should stop. S&P Global say non-Russian miners await more certainty before deciding whether to invest in new mines.


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium ore emits radon gas. The health effects of high exposure to radon are a particular problem in the mining of uranium; significant excess lung cancer deaths have been identified in epidemiological studies of uranium miners employed in the 1940s and 1950s.


title: Uranium mining

text: The first major studies with radon and health occurred in the context of uranium mining, first in the Joachimsthal region of Bohemia and then in the Southwestern United States during the early Cold War. Because radon is a product of the radioactive decay of uranium, underground uranium mines may have high concentrations of radon. Many uranium miners in the Four Corners region contracted lung cancer and other pathologies as a result of high levels of exposure to radon in the mid-1950s. The increased incidence of lung cancer was particularly pronounced among Navajo and Mormon (who generally have low rates of lung cancer) miners. This is in part due to the religious prohibition on smoking in Mormonism.


title: Uranium mining

text: Safety standards requiring expensive ventilation were not widely implemented or policed during this period. While radon exposure is the main source of lung cancer in non-smokers who aren't exposed to asbestos, there is evidence that the combination of smoking and radon exposure increases the risk above the combined risks of either harmful substance.


title: Uranium mining

text: In studies of uranium miners, workers exposed to radon levels of 50 to 150 picocuries of radon per liter of air (2000–6000 Bq/m) for about 10 years have shown an increased frequency of lung cancer. Statistically significant excesses in lung cancer deaths were present after cumulative exposures of less than 50 WLM. There is unexplained heterogeneity in these results (whose confidence interval do not always overlap). The size of the radon-related increase in lung cancer risk varied by more than an order of magnitude between the different studies.


title: Uranium mining

text: Since that time, ventilation and other measures have been used to reduce radon levels in most affected mines that continue to operate. In recent years, the average annual exposure of uranium miners has fallen to levels similar to the concentrations inhaled in some homes. This has reduced the risk of occupationally induced cancer from radon, although it still remains an issue both for those who are currently employed in affected mines and for those who have been employed in the past.


title: Uranium mining

text: The power to detect any excess risks in miners nowadays is likely to be small, exposures being much smaller than in the early years of mining. Coal mining in addition to other health risks can also expose miners to radon as Uranium (and its decay product radon) are often found in and near coal deposits and can accumulate underground as radon is denser than air.


title: Uranium mining

text: In the USA, the "Radiation Exposure Compensation Act" provides compensation to sufferers of various health problems linked to radiation exposure, or to their surviving relatives. Uranium miners, uranium mill workers and uranium transport workers have been compensated under the scheme.


title: Uranium mining

text: Despite efforts made in cleaning up uranium sites, significant problems stemming from the legacy of uranium development still exist today on the territory of the Navajo Nation and in the states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Hundreds of abandoned mines have not been cleaned up and present environmental and health risks in many communities. At the request of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in October 2007, and in consultation with the Navajo Nation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Indian Health Service (IHS), developed a coordinated Five-Year Plan to address uranium contamination. Similar interagency coordination efforts are beginning in the State of New Mexico as well.


title: Uranium mining

text: In 1978, Congress passed the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA), a measure designed to assist in the cleanup of 22 inactive ore-processing sites throughout the southwest. This also included constructing 19 disposal sites for the tailings, which contain a total of 40 million cubic yards of low-level radioactive material. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are 4000 mines with documented uranium production, and another 15,000 locations with uranium occurrences in 14 western states, most found in the Four Corners area and Wyoming.


title: Uranium mining

text: The "Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act" is a United States environmental law that amended the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to establish health and environmental standards for the stabilization, restoration, and disposal of uranium mill tailings. Title 1 of the Act required the EPA to set environmental protection standards consistent with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, including groundwater protection limits; the Department of Energy to implement EPA standards and provide perpetual care for some sites; and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review cleanups and license sites to states or the DOE for perpetual care. Title 1 established a uranium mill remedial action program jointly funded by the federal government and the state. Title 1 of the Act also designated 22 inactive uranium mill sites for remediation, resulting in the containment of 40 million cubic yards of low-level radioactive material in UMTRCA Title 1 holding cells.


title: Uranium mining

text: Peak uranium is the point in time that the maximum global uranium production rate is reached. Predictions of peak uranium differ greatly.


title: Uranium mining

text: Pessimistic predictions of future high-grade uranium production operate on the thesis that either the peak has already occurred in the 1980s or that a second peak may occur sometime around 2035. Optimistic predictions claim that the supply is far more than demand and do not predict peak uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: , identified uranium reserves recoverable at US$130/kg were 6.14 million tons (compared to 5.72 million tons in 2015). At the rate of consumption in 2017, these reserves are sufficient for slightly over 130 years of supply. The identified reserves as of 2017 recoverable at US$260/kg are 7.99 million tons (compared to 7.64 million tons in 2015).


title: Uranium mining

text: The expected amount of usable uranium for nuclear power that is recoverable depends greatly on how it is used. The main factor is the nuclear technology: light-water reactors, which comprise the great majority of reactors today, only consume about 0.5% of their uranium fuel, leaving over 99% of it as spent fuel waste. Fast breeder reactors instead consume closer to 99% of uranium fuel. Another factor is the ability to extract uranium from seawater. About 4.5 billion tons of uranium are available from seawater at about 10 times the current price of uranium with current extraction technology, which is about a thousand times the known uranium reserves. The Earth's crust contains approximately 65 trillion tons of uranium, of which about 32 thousand tons flow into oceans per year via rivers, which are themselves fed via geological cycles of erosion, subduction and uplift. The ability to extract uranium from seawater economically would therefore make uranium a renewable resource in practice.


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium can also be bred from thorium (which is itself 3–4 times as abundant as uranium) in certain breeder reactors, although there are currently no commercially practical thorium reactors in the world and their development would require substantial financial investment which is not justified given the current low prices of natural uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: Thirteen countries have hit peak and exhausted their economically recoverable uranium resources at current prices according to the Energy Watch Group.


title: Uranium mining

text: In a similar manner to every other natural metal resource, for every tenfold increase in the cost per kilogram of uranium, there is a three-hundredfold increase in available lower quality ores that would then become economical. The theory could be observed in practice during the Uranium bubble of 2007 when an unprecedented price hike led to investments in the development of uranium mining of lower quality deposits which mostly became stranded assets after uranium prices returned to a lower level.


title: Uranium mining

text: There is around 40 trillion tons of uranium in Earth's crust, but most is distributed at low parts per million trace concentration over its mass. Estimates of the amount concentrated into ores affordable to extract for under $130 per kg can be less than a millionth of that total.


title: Uranium mining

text: One highly criticized life cycle study by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen suggested that below 0.01–0.02% (100–200 ppm) in ore, the energy required to extract and process the ore to supply the fuel, operate reactors and dispose properly comes close to the energy gained by using the uranium as a fissible material in the reactor. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute who analyzed the Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen paper however have detailed the number of incorrect assumptions of Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen that led them to this evaluation, including their assumption that all the energy used in the mining of Olympic Dam is energy used in the mining of uranium, when that mine is predominantly a copper mine and uranium is produced only as a co-product, along with gold and other metals. The report by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen also assumes that all enrichment is done in the older and more energy intensive gaseous diffusion technology, however the less energy intensive gas centrifuge technology has produced the majority of the world's enriched uranium now for a number of decades.


title: Uranium mining

text: In the early days of the nuclear industry, uranium was thought to be very scarce, so a closed fuel cycle would be needed. Fast breeder reactors would be needed to create nuclear fuel for other power producing reactors. In the 1960s, new discoveries of reserves, and new uranium enrichment techniques allayed these concerns.


title: Uranium mining

text: According to Robert Vance of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency, the world production rate of uranium has already reached its peak in 1980, amounting to of UO from 22 countries. However, this is not due to lack of production capacity. Historically, uranium mines and mills around the world have operated at about 76% of total production capacity, varying within a range of 57% and 89%. The low production rates have been largely attributable to excess capacity. Slower growth of nuclear power and competition from secondary supply significantly reduced demand for freshly mined uranium until very recently. Secondary supplies include military and commercial inventories, enriched uranium tails, reprocessed uranium and mixed oxide fuel.


title: Uranium mining

text: According to data from the International Atomic Energy Agency, world production of mined uranium has peaked twice in the past: once, circa 1960 in response to stockpiling for military use, and again in 1980, in response to stockpiling for use in commercial nuclear power. Up until about 1990, the mined uranium production was in excess of consumption by power plants. But since 1990, consumption by power plants has outstripped the uranium being mined; the deficit being made up by liquidation of the military (through decommissioning of nuclear weapons) and civilian stockpiles. Uranium mining has increased since the mid-1990s, but is still less than the consumption by power plants.


title: Uranium mining

text: Various agencies have tried to estimate how long uranium primary resources will last, assuming a once-through cycle. The European Commission said in 2001 that at the current level of uranium consumption, known uranium resources would last 42 years. When added to military and secondary sources, the resources could be stretched to 72 years. Yet this rate of usage assumes that nuclear power continues to provide only a fraction of the world's energy supply. If electric capacity were increased six-fold, then the 72-year supply would last just 12 years. The world's present measured resources of uranium, economically recoverable at a price of US$130/kg according to the industry groups Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are enough to last for "at least a century" at current consumption rates. According to the World Nuclear Association, yet another industry group, assuming the world's current rate of consumption at 66,500 tonnes of uranium per year and the world's present measured resources of uranium (4.7–5.5 Mt) are enough to last for some 70–80 years.


title: Uranium mining

text: There have been numerous predictions of peak uranium in the past. In 1943, Alvin M. Weinberg et al. believed that there were serious limitations on nuclear energy if only U-235 were used as a nuclear power plant fuel. They concluded that breeding was required to usher in the age of nearly endless energy.


title: Uranium mining

text: In 1956, M. King Hubbert declared world fissionable reserves adequate for at least the next few centuries, assuming breeding and reprocessing would be developed into economical processes.


title: Uranium mining

text: In 1975 the US Department of the Interior, Geological Survey, distributed the press release "Known US Uranium Reserves Won't Meet Demand". It was recommended that the US not depend on foreign imports of uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: Many analysts predicted a uranium peak and exhaustion of uranium reserves in the past or the near future.


title: Uranium mining

text: Edward Steidle, Dean of the School of Mineral Industries at Pennsylvania State College, predicted in 1952 that supplies of fissionable elements were too small to support commercial-scale energy production.


title: Uranium mining

text: Michael Meacher, the former environment minister of the UK 1997–2003, and UK Member of Parliament, reports that peak uranium happened in 1981. He also predicts a major shortage of uranium sooner than 2013 accompanied with hoarding and its value pushed up to the levels of precious metals.


title: Uranium mining

text: M. C. Day projected that uranium reserves could run out as soon as 1989, but, more optimistically, would be exhausted by 2015.


title: Uranium mining

text: Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen, an independent analyst with Ceedata Consulting, contends that supplies of the high-grade uranium ore required to fuel nuclear power generation will, at current levels of consumption, last to about 2034. Afterwards, he expects the cost of energy to extract the uranium will exceed the price the electric power provided.


title: Uranium mining

text: The Energy Watch Group has calculated that, even with steep uranium prices, uranium production will have reached its peak by 2035 and that it will only be possible to satisfy the fuel demand of nuclear plants until then.


title: Uranium mining

text: The European Commission said in 2001 that at the current level of uranium consumption, known uranium resources would last 42 years. When added to military and secondary sources, the resources could be stretched to 72 years. Yet this rate of usage assumes that nuclear power continues to provide only a fraction of the world's energy supply. If electric capacity were increased six-fold, then the 72-year supply would last just 12 years.


title: Uranium mining

text: According to the industry groups OECD, NEA and IAEA, the world's present measured resources of uranium, economically recoverable at a price of US$130/kg, are enough to last for 100 years at current consumption. According to the Australian Uranium Association, another industry group, assuming the world's current rate of consumption at 66,500 tonnes of uranium per year and the world's present measured resources of uranium (4.7 Mt) are enough to last for 70 years.


title: Uranium mining

text: All the following references claim that the supply is far more than demand. Therefore, they do not predict peak uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: In his 1956 paper, M. King Hubbert wrote that nuclear energy would last for the 'foreseeable future.'" Hubbert's study assumed that breeder reactors would replace light water reactors and that uranium would be bred into plutonium (and possibly thorium would be bred into uranium). He also assumed that economic means of reprocessing would be discovered. For political, economic and nuclear proliferation reasons, the plutonium economy never materialized. Without it, uranium is used up in a once-through process and will peak and run out much sooner. However, at present, it is generally found to be cheaper to mine new uranium out of the ground than to use reprocessed uranium, and therefore the use of reprocessed uranium is limited to only a few nations.


title: Uranium mining

text: The OECD estimates that with the world nuclear electricity generating rates of 2002, with LWR, once-through fuel cycle, there are enough conventional resources to last 85 years using known resources and 270 years using known and as yet undiscovered resources. With breeders, this is extended to 8,500 years.


title: Uranium mining

text: If one is willing to pay $300/kg for uranium, there is a vast quantity available in the ocean. It is worth noting that since fuel cost only amounts to a small fraction of nuclear energy total cost per kWh, and raw uranium price also constitutes a small fraction of total fuel costs, such an increase on uranium prices wouldn't involve a very significant increase in the total cost per kWh produced.


title: Uranium mining

text: In 1983, physicist Bernard Cohen proposed that uranium is effectively inexhaustible, and could therefore be considered a renewable source of energy. He claims that fast breeder reactors, fueled by naturally replenished uranium extracted from seawater, could supply energy at least as long as the sun's expected remaining lifespan of five billion years. While uranium is a finite mineral resource within the earth, the hydrogen in the sun is finite too – thus, if the resource of nuclear fuel can last over such time scales, as Cohen contends, then nuclear energy is every bit as sustainable as solar power or any other source of energy, in terms of sustainability over the time scale of life surviving on this planet.


title: Uranium mining

text: His paper assumes extraction of uranium from seawater at the rate of per year of uranium. The current demand for uranium is near per year; however, the use of breeder reactors means that uranium would be used at least 60 times more efficiently than today.


title: Uranium mining

text: James Hopf, a nuclear engineer writing for American Energy Independence in 2004, believes that there is several hundred years' supply of recoverable uranium even for standard reactors. For breeder reactors, "it is essentially infinite".


title: Uranium mining

text: The IAEA estimates that using only known reserves at the current rate of demand and assuming a once-through nuclear cycle that there is enough uranium for at least 100 years. However, if all primary known reserves, secondary reserves, undiscovered and unconventional sources of uranium are used, uranium will be depleted in 47,000 years.


title: Uranium mining

text: Kenneth S. Deffeyes estimates that if one can accept ore one tenth as rich then the supply of available uranium increased 300 times. His paper shows that uranium concentration in ores is log-normal distributed. There is relatively little high-grade uranium and a large supply of very low grade uranium.


title: Uranium mining

text: Ernest Moniz, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the former United States Secretary of Energy, testified in 2009 that an abundance of uranium had put into question plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. The reprocessing plans dated from decades previous, when uranium was thought to be scarce. But now, "roughly speaking, we’ve got uranium coming out of our ears, for a long, long time," Professor Moniz said.


title: Uranium mining

text: As uranium production declines, uranium prices would be expected to increase. However, the price of uranium makes up only 9% of the cost of running a nuclear power plant, much lower than the cost of coal in a coal-fired power plant (77%), or the cost of natural gas in a gas-fired power plant (93%).


title: Uranium mining

text: Uranium is different from conventional energy resources, such as oil and coal, in several key aspects. Those differences limit the effects of short-term uranium shortages, but most have no bearing on the eventual depletion. Some key features are:


title: Uranium mining

text: An alternative to uranium is thorium which is three times more common than uranium. Fast breeder reactors are not needed. Compared to conventional uranium reactors, thorium reactors using the thorium fuel cycle may produce about 40 times the amount of energy per unit of mass. However, creating the technology, infrastructure and know-how needed for a "thorium-fuel economy" is uneconomical at current and predicted uranium prices.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: Dead Island is an action role-playing survival horror video game series published by Deep Silver for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and mobile platforms iOS and Android. There are three installments in the series, with a fourth scheduled to be released on April 28, 2023. "Dead Island" is centered on the challenge of surviving a zombie-infested open world island with a major emphasis on melee combat.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: "Dead Island" was originally announced at E3 2006, but was pushed back to 2011. It was initially released on September 6 in North America, September 9 in PAL regions, and October 20 in Japan. A stand-alone expansion, "", was released in 2013 while a sequel, "Dead Island 2", is in development.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: A spin-off, "Escape Dead Island", was released in 2014. A MOBA game based on the "Dead Island" series called "Dead Island: Epidemic" was cancelled during the open beta phase in 2015. The free-to-play title had been available on Steam early access since May 2014, but eventually never saw a full release and was completely shut down.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: "Dead Island: Survivors", a mobile platform-based game, was launched on iOS and Android in July 2018.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: A one-issue comic book version of the series was released by Marvel Comics. It begins with Roger Howard, an investigative journalist, as he looks into the illegal exploitation of Banoi Island's resources. He appeared in the game as a voice, leaving behind tape recordings.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: The story begins just as Roger Howard arrives. He explains why he's at the Royal Palms Resort, and then begins to target Kenneth Ballard the Royal Palms' manager. After gaining access to his office, Roger finds detailed files on Xian Mei, Purna, Logan Carter, and Sam B. After going through the files, Roger hears a knock on the door. Before opening it, he tries to explain that he was looking for the bathroom. Unfortunately, after opening the door, he comes face-to-face with a zombie. The story suddenly ends, with Roger's fate unknown. In the video game, various audio logs of Roger are found, with him slowly going insane from being infected. When the survivors reach the prison, they find his last audio log, implying a prison guard had killed him once becoming infected, with the recording found next to (presumably) Roger's corpse.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: The audio logs detail his journey. Revealing that he and a group of survivors tried to escape into the jungle, but had crashed. The driver and Roger were attacked by an infected Orangutan, with the driver dying and Roger escaping. Roger makes it to the prison, and states he's making this log for scientists to see the full symptoms of infection, but starts hallucinating about his son.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: On September 27, 2011, Lionsgate announced that they acquired rights to develop a film based on the game's announcement trailer. As its portrayal of a family desperately fighting for their lives provided artistic inspiration. The studio was reported to join with Occupant Entertainment (Producer Co.) and Deep Silver (Gaming Co.) with filming set to begin in 2015. As of 2022 no official update has been given.


title: Dead Island (series)

text: A novel based on the events of the first game, and written by Mark Morris was released concurrently with Dead Island in 2011.


title: DFDS

text: DFDS is a Danish international shipping and logistics company. It is the busiest shipping company of its kind in Northern Europe and one of the busiest in Europe. The company's name is an abbreviation of Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab (literally "The United Steamship Company"). DFDS was founded in 1866, when C.F. Tietgen merged the three biggest Danish steamship companies of that day.


title: DFDS

text: Although DFDS has generally concentrated on freight and passenger traffic on the North Sea and to the Baltic Sea, it has also operated freight services to the US, South America, and the Mediterranean in the past. Since the 1980s, DFDS's focus for shipping has been on northern Europe. Today, DFDS operates a network of 25 routes with 50 freight and passenger ships in the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and the English Channel under the name DFDS Seaways. The rail and land-based haulage and container activities are operated by DFDS Logistics.


title: DFDS

text: Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab was formed on 11 December 1866 as a merger of the three biggest Danish steamship companies under the leadership of a Danish financier Carl Frederik Tietgen. Operations began on 1 January 1867 with 19 ships with Copenhagen as the main starting point. The company's routes at the time were from Denmark to Norway, the Baltic, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Iceland, and The Faeroe Islands, with ships carrying both freight and passengers. As the company grew, new connections were opened to Sweden, France, the Mediterranean and Black Sea, as well as North America and South America. In addition, DFDS operated various domestic services in Denmark. After the continued expansion of the fleet in the 1880s, DFDS became one of the world's ten largest ship-owning companies. After the takeover of Dampskibsselskabet Thingvalla in 1898, the Scandinavian-American Line was established. A long relationship with shipbuilder Helsingørs Jernskibs of Maskinbyggeri A/S (Elsinore Shipbuilding & Engineering Co.) began with delivery of the steamer "Arno" in 1898 for service in the Mediterranean. The last ship Helsingørs delivered was "Dana Minerva", a roll on/roll off ship, in 1978. The Scandinavian-American Line continued trading to the United States until 1935.


title: DFDS

text: The First World War took a heavy toll on the DFDS fleet, with 26 ships lost. During the post-war depression, a further 30 ships were laid up. The company revived with the establishment of new routes, and by the mid-1920s, the fleet consisted of 124 ships with a combined tonnage of .


title: DFDS

text: The Second World War saw further losses to the company, with nine ships lost before the German invasion of Denmark in April 1940. A large number of DFDS ships fell into British hands after the German invasion, and they were used as troopships. German forces commandeered a total of 21 DFDS ships during the war. One DFDS ship, the "Kronprins Frederik", was under construction when the war began. To prevent her usage by the Germans, vital engine parts were "lost", only to be discovered after the end of the war.


title: DFDS

text: Ships, representing about a fourth of the total Danish tonnage, sought refuge from seizure by belligerents in neutral ports. Those ships sat idle with orders not to depart neutral ports and for their seamen not to sign on with other ships. In the United States orders for their seizure were issued on 30 March 1941 and 40 ships were seized and placed under the control of the War Shipping Administration which registered most in Panama for diplomatic reasons and assigned commercial companies for operation. Several were assigned to either the U.S. Army or Navy. Two of the DFDS ships are examples. became the U.S. Army Transport "Sicilien" which was sunk by torpedo in June 1942. survived the war as USS "Aquila" (AK-47) and was returned to Denmark with the other surviving ships after the war.


title: DFDS

text: In total, DFDS lost 31 ships during World War II, with a further three ships lost due to hitting mines after the end of the war. In 1948, 48 people drowned when "Kjøbenhavn" hit a mine. Five people lost their lives in the mine explosion of "Ivar" in 1949 and, as recently as 1950, "Frigga" sank, without loss of life, after having hit a mine. To replace some of the lost ships, several almost-completed motor ships, which had been laid up awaiting the end of the war, were made ready. Gradually, the routes that had been discontinued since the beginning of the war, were reopened.


title: DFDS

text: DFDS created a sensation when they launched the world's first motor-driven short-sea passenger ship in 1925, from Helsingørs Jernskibs of Maskinbyggeri A/S. The first of four sister vessels built between 1925 and 1932, the M.V. "Parkeston" ( ) made her maiden voyage from Esbjerg to Harwich on 8 October 1925 at an average speed of 16.5 knots, burning 18 tons of oil per day compared with 55 tons of coal burnt by a similar predecessor on the route. The shipyard had in 1924 completed and delivered the DFDS ship "Odense", a diesel passenger-cargo ship of . After completing "Jylland" in 1926, sister of "Parkeston", DFDS took delivery in 1927 of the "Dronning Alexandrine". The series of ships was completed with "Esbjerg" in 1929 and "England" in 1932. The next DFDS ship delivered by Helsingørs after "England" was the first of four motor cargo ships, "Tunis" delivered in 1936.


title: DFDS

text: In 1950, DFDS was one of the first to introduce a door-to-door solution. Two ships were specially designed to transport small wooden containers. DFDS commenced a new service, linking the Danish mainland to Greenland. This was discontinued in 1959. In 1957, Gordana Line - cargo service Gulf of Mexico-Mediterranean - began. For the first time in DFDS's history, the company played the role of cross-trader. 1964 saw the introduction of the first ro-ro passenger ferry, when M.S. England entered service on a route connecting Esbjerg to Harwich. In 1965, the Transport Rationalization Department, which later became DFDS Transport, began its activities. M.S. "Akershus", the first real passenger-and-car ship which could also take trucks and trailers, was entered into service on the Frederikshavn-Oslo route.


title: DFDS

text: In 1966, a hundred years after its start, the DFDS fleet consisted of 13 passenger ships, 53 cargo vessels, 4 tugboats, and 39 barges. A comprehensive new ship program commenced, with 25 ships on order. The passenger ships served on routes connecting Denmark to Norway, the UK, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Finland (though the Finland service was discontinued in 1966) alongside domestic services. The freight services continued, linking Denmark to the Americas and various European and Mediterranean ports. "Botnia", the last steamship, was sold after more than 50 years of service. Between 1967 and 1970, four identical car-passenger ferries, originally named "Kong Olav" V, "Prinsesse Margarethe", "Aalborghus" and "Trekroner", entered service on the Copenhagen—Oslo, and Copenhagen—Aalborg routes. However, the Copenhagen—Aalborg service was closed in 1970.


title: DFDS

text: Subsequently, the "Aalborghus" and "Trekroner" were rebuilt and renamed "Dana Sirena" and "Dana Corona", respectively, for ferry services on the Mediterranean. Confusingly, the ships' names were later reversed, with "Dana Sirena" becoming "Dana Corona" and vice versa. For the Denmark—UK service, new ships arrived in 1974 and 1978 in the form of and , respectively. Domestic passenger traffic was discontinued in 1970 and domestic freight service in 1971. A great chapter in the history of DFDS had come to an end. The requirement for transport of cars was sharply on the rise at the beginning of the 1970s. Tonnage was designed to accommodate this, and all DFDS passenger routes were served by passenger ships with roll-on/roll-off facilities.


title: DFDS

text: The 1980s saw a period of growth for DFDS, with the acquisition of Tor Line and Prinzenlinien. In addition to the ferries "Tor Britannia", "Tor Scandinavia" and MS "Prinz Hamlet" which were acquired with these two deals, DFDS also purchased the Effoa ferry "Wellamo" in 1981, renaming "Dana Gloria". Following this brief expansion, in 1982, the Mediterranean ferry services were discontinued and in 1984 DFDS gave up its deep-sea cargo routes completely, now concentrating solely on the European market. 1982 also saw the beginning of an ambitious project of operating a large ferry/cruise ship, MS "Scandinavia", on the US East Coast under the brand of Scandinavian World Cruises. However, in 1983, the "Scandinavia" was moved to the Copenhagen—Oslo service and sold two years later.


title: DFDS

text: From 1982 to 1983, DFDS's passenger operations were branded as DFDS Danish Seaways (Esbjerg—Harwich/Newcastle upon Tyne/Tórshavn, Copenhagen—Oslo, Newcastle upon Tyne—Oslo), DFDS Tor Line (Gothenburg—Harwich/Newcastle upon Tyne/Amsterdam) and DFDS Prins Ferries (Harwich—Hamburg/Bremerhaven). DFDS also operated the Fred. Olsen Bergen Line routes Newcastle upon Tyne—Stavanger/Bergen and Stavanger—Amsterdam.. In 1987, the Transport Division and the Liner Division merged into DFDS Transport. The new division soon expanded, first in Sweden, and subsequently acquired several forwarding companies, e.g. in the UK and the Netherlands. In 1988, it was decided to use Scandinavian Seaways for the DFDS passenger operations as a whole.


title: DFDS

text: In 1989-1990, the tonnage on the Oslo—Copenhagen route was renewed with the entering into service in June 1990 of " Queen Of Scandinavia", a ship with a capacity of 2,000 passengers and 400 cars. Queen was followed, in 1994, by " Crown Of Scandinavia", with a similar capacity. In 1999, DFDS took over Dan Transport Holding, including the Dan Transport Travel Bureau and Canal Tours Copenhagen. However, 17 months later, the whole transport division, named DFDS Dan Transport Group, was sold to transport group DSV, and the focus was once again on the former core business activities: ro-ro liner traffic and passenger shipping on overnight routes.


title: DFDS

text: In June 2001, the deal to acquire a 76.4 percent shareholding in the Lithuanian shipping company LISCO was finalized. Lys-Line Rederi AS and Lys-Line AS were taken over 100 percent by DFDS in 2005.


title: DFDS

text: In August 2005 DFDS purchased 66 percent of the trailer-forwarding company Halléns in Belgium. In 2006, DFDS acquired the container shipping company Norfolk Line Containers. In 2010, DFDS purchased Norfolkline from Maersk. In 2010, DFDS sold DFDS Canal Tours because it was not regarded as a core activity.


title: DFDS

text: DFDS Seaways is the shipping division of DFDS A/S operating a network of 25 shipping routes with 50 freight and passenger ships on the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and the English Channel. DFDS Logistics operates land transport and logistics activities including the former DFDS Lys Line and DFDS Container Line. Below is an overview of the shipping activities that are integrated into the DFDS Group.


title: DFDS

text: DFDS Tor Line was the main freight-carrying division of DFDS. It operated a large number of RO-RO freighters on the North Sea as well as the Baltic Sea. It was formed as a merger of DFDS's and Tor Line's freight operations after DFDS bought the latter in 1982 (until 1988 the passenger service between Sweden and the United Kingdom was also marketed as DFDS Tor Line). The operation of the DFDS Tor Line was integrated into DFDS following the acquisition of Norfolkline in 2010.


title: DFDS

text: DFDS Lisco was a Lithuanian subsidiary acquired by DFDS in 2001. It operated five lines with seven ferries for passengers and freight connecting Germany to Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia as well as Germany to Sweden. DFDS Lisco had subsidiaries in Germany (DFDS Lisco GmbH), Sweden (DFDS Tor Line AB), Latvia (DFDS Tor Line SIA), and Russia (OOO DFDS Lisco). The operation of DFDS Lisco was integrated into DFDS Seaways following the acquisition of Norfolkline in 2010.


title: DFDS

text: DFDS Lys Line transported freight from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, offering door-to-door transportation. The company was founded in 1970. The operation of DFDS Lys Line was integrated into DFDS following the acquisition of Norfolkline in 2010.


title: DFDS

text: DFDS Container Line transports containers between Ireland and the Netherlands. On October 2, 2006, the acquisition of Norfolkline Containers by DFDS A/S was completed . Established in August 1997 Norfolkline Containers was set up to offer Direct Port-to-Port services between Ireland and mainland Europe. The operation of the DFDS Container Line was integrated into DFDS following the acquisition of Norfolkline in 2010.


title: DFDS

text: Norfolkline was a European ferry operator and logistics company owned by Maersk. It provided freight ferry services on the English Channel, Irish Sea, and the North Sea; passenger ferry services on the English Channel and the Irish Sea; and logistics services across Europe. Norfolkline employed more than 2,200 employees in 13 countries across Europe, operating out of 35 different locations. It was acquired by DFDS in July 2010. Maersk received a 31.3 percent stake in DFDS as part payment. After a two-year lock-up period the shares were sold in September 2013.


title: DFDS

text: DFDS Denizcilik operates four freight ferry routes connecting Turkey with Trieste in Italy, Sete in France, and Tarragona in Spain with 16 freight ferries and its port terminals in Istanbul and Trieste. In Europe, the company also offers intermodal solutions to and from other European markets. The company has an annual revenue of EUR 240 million and 500 employees. In June 2018, European shipping and logistics group DFDS acquired the Turkish shipping company U.N. Ro-Ro .


title: Mike Gravel

text: Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel ( ; May 13, 1930 – June 26, 2021) was an American politician and writer who served as a United States Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981 as a member of the Democratic Party, and who later in life twice ran for the presidential nomination of that party.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, by French-Canadian immigrant parents, Gravel moved to Alaska in the late 1950s, becoming a real estate developer and entering politics. He served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1967, and also became Speaker of the Alaska House. Gravel was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1968.


title: Mike Gravel

text: As a senator, Gravel became nationally known for his forceful, but unsuccessful, attempts to end the draft during the War in Vietnam, and for putting the "Pentagon Papers" into the public record in 1971. He conducted a campaign for the Democratic nomination in 1972 for Vice President of the United States, and then played a crucial role in obtaining Congressional approval for the Trans-Alaska pipeline in 1973. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1974, but was defeated in his bid for a third term in the primary election in 1980.


title: Mike Gravel

text: An advocate of direct democracy and the National Initiative, Gravel staged a run for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States. His campaign failed to gain support, and in March 2008, he left the Democratic Party and joined the Libertarian Party to compete unsuccessfully for its presidential nomination and the inclusion of the National Initiative into the Libertarian Platform. He ran for president as a Democrat again in the 2020 election, in a campaign that ended four months after it began. Two years before his death, Gravel and his campaign staff founded the progressive think tank The Gravel Institute.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel was born on May 13, 1930, in Springfield, Massachusetts, one of five children of French-Canadian immigrant parents, Alphonse and Marie (née Bourassa) Gravel. His parents were part of the Quebec diaspora, and he was raised in a working-class neighborhood during the Great Depression, speaking only French until he was seven years old. Calling him "Mike" from an early age, his father valued work above all else, while his mother stressed the importance of education.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel was educated in parochial schools as a Roman Catholic. There he struggled, due to what he later said was undiagnosed dyslexia, and was left back in third grade. He completed elementary school in 1945 and his class voted him "most charming personality". A summer job as a soda jerk led to Gravel handing out campaign fliers for local candidates on his boss's behalf; Gravel was immediately impressed with "the awesomeness of political office".


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel then boarded at Assumption Preparatory School in Worcester, Massachusetts, where his performance was initially mediocre. By Gravel's telling, in the summer of 1948 he intended to volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces during the 1947–1949 Palestine war, but Alexandra Tolstaya told him to return to school. There an English teacher, the Assumptionist Edgar Bourque, gave him personal attention, improving Gravel's language skills and instructing him in public speaking. Gravel's grades improved measurably in his final year and he graduated in 1949. His sister, Marguerite, became a Holy Cross nun, but Gravel himself struggled with the Catholic faith. He studied for one year at Assumption College, a Catholic school in Worcester, then transferred for his sophomore year to American International College in Springfield. Journalist I. F. Stone and philosopher Bertrand Russell strongly influenced Gravel in their willingness to challenge assumptions and oppose social convention and political authority.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Around May 1951, Gravel saw that he was about to be drafted and instead enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three-year term so that he could get into the Counterintelligence Corps. After basic training and counterintelligence school at Fort Holabird in Maryland and in South Carolina, he went to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. While he expected to be sent off to the Korean War when he graduated as a second lieutenant in early 1952, he was instead assigned to Stuttgart, West Germany, as a Special Adjutant in the Army's Communications Intelligence Service. In Germany, Gravel conducted surveillance operations on civilians and paid off spies. After about a year, he transferred to Orléans, France, where his French language abilities (if not his French-Canadian accent) allowed him to infiltrate French communist rallies. He worked as a Special Agent in the Counterintelligence Corps until 1954, eventually becoming a first lieutenant.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Following his discharge, Gravel entered the Columbia University School of General Studies in New York City, where he studied economics and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1956. He moved to New York "flat broke" and supported himself by working as a bar boy in a hotel, driving a taxicab, and working in the investment bond department at Bankers Trust. During this time he left the Roman Catholic faith.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel "decided to become a pioneer in a faraway place," and moved to pre-statehood Alaska in August 1956, without funds or a job, looking for a place where someone without social or political connections could be a viable candidate for public office. Alaska's voting age of 19, less than most other states' 21, played a role in his decision, as did its newness and cooler climate. Broke when he arrived, he immediately found work in real estate sales until winter arrived. Gravel then was employed as a brakeman for the Alaska Railroad, working the snow-clearing train on the Anchorage-to-Fairbanks run. Subsequently, he opened a small real estate brokerage in Anchorage (the Territory of Alaska not requiring a license) and saved enough so as not to have to work the railroad again. The firm was named the M. R. Gravel Real Estate Company. Gravel joined the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and continued a sporadic relationship with the movement throughout his life.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Seeing Alaska as a wide-open place with no political establishment or entrenched interests, Gravel quickly became part of the civic scene there. By October 1957, he was a Division Chairman for Anchorage for the Democratic Central Committee in the territory, and by June 1958, he was president of the Alaska Young Democrats organization. He also became active in the United States Junior Chamber (Jaycees), and by early 1958, his duties included handing out awards for farmer of the year.


title: Mike Gravel

text: By early 1958, Gravel was running as Democratic Party primary candidate for a Third Division seat in House of Representatives of the territorial legislature. (This was one of the four administrative divisions into which Alaska was sectioned at the time.) Under the slogan "Gravel, the Roadbed to Prosperity", he lost. At the same time, he was also an advocate for Alaskan statehood.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel went on a 44-state national speaking tour concerning tax reform in 1959, sponsored by the Jaycees, often dressing for events as Paul Revere. Gravel was selected from some two thousand applications for this position. The tour received a good amount of local newspaper coverage at its various stops, with Gravel's first name sometimes given as Mike and other times as Maurice. The tour's general message was an urging of "lower taxes, more efficiency in government and a system of taxation moderate at all levels of income". At several stops Gravel stated that the "tide of socialism" had to be stopped. He elaborated at another stop, "It is part of our Jaycee creed that economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise. We really want to see that free enterprise become our inheritance." The tour was scheduled to conclude in Washington D.C., on Tax Day, April 15, with petition signatures accumulated for reform to be presented to U.S. lawmakers: dressed as Revere, Gravel rode with the petition to the steps of the U.S. Capitol.


title: Mike Gravel

text: The tour over, Gravel married Rita Jeannette Martin at the First Methodist Church of Anchorage on April 29, 1959. She was a native of Montana who had attended Billings Business College before moving to Alaska two years prior and becoming a secretary in the office of the Anchorage city manager. She had also been named Anchorage's "Miss Fur Rendezvous" of 1958. They had two children, Martin Anthony Gravel and Lynne Denise Gravel, born c. 1960 and 1962 respectively.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel ran without avail for the City Council in Anchorage in 1960. During this time, he had become a successful real estate agent; after the 1960 election, he became a property developer in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Anchorage. After a partner ran into financial difficulty, however, the project went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Gravel was forced out in 1962.


title: Mike Gravel

text: With the support of Alaska wholesale grocer Barney Gottstein and supermarket builder Larry Carr, Gravel ran for the Alaska House of Representatives representing Anchorage in 1962, initially assigned the 10th and then 8th districts. Alaska had very crowded primaries that year: Gravel was one of 33 Democrats, along with 21 Republicans, who were running for the chance to compete for the 14 House seats allocated to the 8th district. Gravel made it through the primary, and in November eight Republicans and six Democrats were elected to the House from the district, with Gravel finishing eighth overall and third among with Democrats, with 8,174 votes. Gottstein became Gravel's main financial backer during most of his subsequent campaigns.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives from January 28, 1963, to January 22, 1967, winning reelection in 1964. In his first term, he served as a minority member on two House committees: Commerce, and Labor and Management. He co-authored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. Gravel was the chief architect of the law that created a regional high school system for rural Alaska; this allowed Alaska Natives to attend schools near where they lived instead of having to go to schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the lower 48 states.


title: Mike Gravel

text: During the half-years that the legislature was not in session, Gravel resumed his real estate work. With Gottstein and Carr's backing, he became quite successful as a property developer on the Kenai Peninsula.


title: Mike Gravel

text: During 1965 and 1966, he served as the Speaker of the House, surprising observers by winning that post. Gravel convinced former Speaker Warren A. Taylor to not try for the position against him by promising Taylor chairmanship of the Rules Committee, then reneged on the promise. Gravel denied later press charges that he had promised but not delivered on other committee chairmanships. As Speaker he antagonized fellow lawmakers by imposing his will on the legislature's committees and feuded with Alaska State Senate president Robert J. McNealy.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel did not run for reelection in 1966, instead choosing to run for Alaska's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, losing the primary to four-term incumbent Democrat Ralph Rivers by 1,300 votes and splitting the Democratic Party in the process. Rivers lost the general election that year to Republican state Senator Howard Pollock. Following this defeat, Gravel returned to the real estate business in Anchorage.


title: Mike Gravel

text: In 1968, Gravel ran against 81-year-old incumbent Democratic United States Senator Ernest Gruening, a popular former governor of the Alaska Territory who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood, for his party's nomination to the U.S. Senate. Gravel's campaign was primarily based on his youth and telegenic appearance rather than issue differences. He hired Joseph Napolitan, the first self-described political consultant, in late 1966. They spent over a year and a half planning a short, nine-day primary election campaign that featured the slogans "Alaska first" and "Let's do something about the state we're in", the distribution of a collection of essays titled "Jobs and More Jobs", and the creation of a half-hour, well-produced, glamorized biographical film of Gravel, "Man for Alaska". The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska, and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds of Alaska Native villages. The heavy showings quickly reversed a 2–to–1 Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead. Gravel visited many remote villages by seaplane and showed a thorough understanding of the needs of the bush country and the fishing and oil industries.


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel also benefited from maintaining a deliberately ambiguous posture about Vietnam policy. Gruening had been one of only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and his opposition to President Lyndon B. Johnson's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate; according to Gravel, "all I had to do was stand up and not deal with the subject, and people would assume that I was to the right of Ernest Gruening, when in point of fact I was to the left of him". In "Man for Alaska", Gravel argued that "the liberals" would come to West Germany's defense if it was attacked, and that the same standard should apply to the United States' allies in Asia. During the campaign he also claimed that he was "more in the mainstream of American thought on Vietnam" than Gruening, despite the fact that he had written to Gruening to praise his antiwar stance four years earlier. Decades later, Gravel conceded that "I said what I said [about Vietnam] to advance my career."


title: Mike Gravel

text: Gravel beat Gruening in the primary by about 2,000 votes. Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers. In the general election, Gravel faced Republican Elmer E. Rasmuson, a banker and former mayor of Anchorage. College students in the state implored Gruening to run a write-in campaign as an Independent, but legal battles prevented him from getting approval for it until only two weeks were left. A late appearance by anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy did not offset Gruening's lack of funds and endorsements; meanwhile, Gravel and Rasmuson both saturated local media with their filmed biographies. On November 5, 1968, Gravel won the general election with 45 percent of the vote to Rasmuson's 37 percent and Gruening's 18 percent.