Word: mcarthurs
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...freeze plant is only one of the technological innovations at McArthur River. The primary one is the method of production: known as "raisebore" mining, it has been commonly used to dig vertical elevator or ventilation shafts for close to 20 years. But before McArthur River came online in 1999, it had never been used to mine...
Here's how it works: McArthur River uses two horizontal floors, above and below the uranium-ore zone. One floor is 1,740 ft. underground and the other is at 2,100 ft., where Powder was stationed on the day of our visit. To start mining a new section of ore, a drill is used to dig a 15-in. pilot hole from the upper level to the lower one. Once the drill bit punches through the ceiling of the lower horizontal shaft, the drill is removed and a 10-ton, 10-ft.-wide reamer with tungsten-carbide teeth...
There, far underground, rock-breaking machines crumble and grind the ore and mix it with water to form a soupy slurry, which is piped to surface containers to await transport to the Cameco refining mill at Key Lake, about 50 miles away. This underground processing plant is McArthur River's third major innovation. "What we've done," says Doug Beattie, the mine's chief engineer, "is essentially bring the front end of the mill down to the mine...
...U3O8 is worth about $134,000. A single hole produces something like $150 million worth of uranium in the 10 days or so it takes to bore it. By mining just 140 tons of ore a day (a thimbleful compared with big copper-or iron-ore mines), McArthur River produces more than 18 million lbs. of uranium a year. That's 20% of the world's annual production, enough to run 40 standard 1,000-MW reactors for a year. That much uranium can satisfy fully 2% of the world's electricity demand--as much as would be provided...
Pick up a chunk of uranium ore (a low-yield variety, please, and don't hold it for long), and you will be surprised by its weight. Uranium is denser than lead. McArthur River ore is a glossy black that gleams like marble. It's easy to imagine the radioactive energy stored in this rock. Whatever your environmental stance, at McArthur River you can sense the elemental power of uranium, a clean-burning source of seemingly limitless electricity. And you can understand former Cameco CEO Bernard Michel's assessment: "The world is seeing a fresh start for nuclear power...