Novel sources of uranium: rising from the ashes | the economist by The "E" Generation

Novel sources of uranium: Rising from the ashes | The Economist

5/18/13 11:17 AM

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Novel sources of uranium

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Rising from the ashes

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Coal ash, fertiliser and even seawater may provide nuclear fuel Apr 8th 2010 | From the print edition

ONE of the factoids trotted out from time to time by proponents of nuclear power is that conventional coal-burning power stations release more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear stations do. The reason is that the ash left over when coal is burned contains radioactive elements, notably uranium and thorium. Turn that logic on its head and it suggests that such ash is worth investigating as a source of nuclear fuel. And that is exactly what Sparton Resources, a firm based in Toronto, is doing. It has signed a deal with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), the authority that runs the country's nuclear-power stations, to recover uranium from coal ash at a site in Lincang, in Yunnan province. Uranium is usually extracted from ore that contains 1,000 or more parts per million (ppm) of the element. The Lincang coal ash holds much less, about 300ppm. That said, it does not need to be minedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which brings costs down. Sparton says it can extract a kilogram of uranium for $77 or less. Uranium's spot price is now near $90 a kilo. That is not a huge margin, but it is a profit nonetheless. To extract the uranium, Sparton adds sulphuric and hydrochloric acids to the ash, along with water, to make a

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Polls apart 1,289 people recommended this.

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What a waste

Protection racket

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acids dissolve the uranium, and various other things,

Dotty but dashing

Snow dragons

leaching them from the ash. The trick is to get the dissolved

Rising from the ashes

uranium out of the resulting solution.

A new giant lizard

slurry. With some sorts of ash, nitric acid is also used. The

Sparton's process uses a charcoal filter made from burned coconut husks to trap floating particles and eliminate organic

remove uranium ions while leaving the others behindâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; extracting about two-thirds of the uranium in the ash,

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