eco-propaganda indeed.....Consider their statement:"Not least...

eco-propaganda indeed.....

Consider their statement:

"Not least because there are much more thorium than uranium in Kvanefjeld and all the thorium is discarded, the refinery tailings are about ten times as radioactive as the ore rocks"

I am using estimated numbers here to illustrate a point.

Now we know there is 1.2% rare earth content and 0.4% Uranium in the Kvanefjeld ore.

Let's do the numbers- start with 1000 million tonnes with 1.6% good stuff which means we have 16 million tonnes of PURE good stuff.

Now run that through a concentrator and end up with a 20% concentrate product- that 16 million tonnes of the good stuff will be contained in 80 million tonnes of concentrate and there will be 920 million tonnes of tailings.

I don't know the thorium assay but if ALL the thorium is left behind then the concentration of thorium in the region ("X") will rise from X/1000 before mining to X/920 after mining. There is no new thourium created, so the claim that thorium will magically multiply by ten is oviously bogus and scaremongering at its worst.

Now I KNOW this analysis is far too simple, because not all the good stuff will end up in the concentrate but instead end up back in the tailings, and of course some of the thorium will end up being shipped out in the concentrate and not left in the tailings, but the principal remains. The funny thing is that after mining stops in 100 years there will be far LESS radioactive unanium left in the precinct.

Dust and tailings dam run off can be deal with......