Uranium: Waste or Potential Future Resource?

From the early days of the nuclear power industry, Australia witnessed a 'yellowcake rush', with prospectors scouring our countryside for uranium resources. Large resources of the metal were identified and a relatively buoyant market led to investment and a uranium export industry, despite a challenging political environment. A prevailing weak market for uranium since the March 2011 Fukushima incident has slowed exploration, seen some resources change commercial operators and constrained investment in the sector. Drawing on mixed commodity resources, which include uranium, a number of companies are developing large mines to extract copper, gold, phosphate and rare earth oxides. Rather than extract the uranium, the operators plan to direct it to tailings repositories. While the resources in question may have been developed for uranium with vigour in the past, market conditions dictate a situation whereby several thousand tonnes of uranium resources will be stored in tailings dams. Should the uranium market improve in the future, it is possible that these resources will become readily extractable uranium resources. The expense of mining, crushing and grinding ore represent sunken costs. Future developments may be considered where uranium is extracted from the tailings resources, by either inexpensive digging and reprocessing, or perhaps by chemical extraction.