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Comment by throwaway50606 | Hacker News Reader

America's energy independence [from fossil fuels] - yeah indeed it does. Also, what stops America from producing its own?

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Uranium mining has significant health risks, and it is pretty much guaranteed to result in significant pollution of the surrounding area. The enrichment phase isn't much better either.

Turns out the US has things like worker protection laws and environmental protection laws. Producing it locally is expensive, it is much cheaper to outsource the problem to a country with a more relaxed view on the issue.

There is plenty of uranium mining in developed nations and the price of nuclear fuel is not particularly relevant - 90 of the cost is pther stuff

A bit of googling shows there are about 1,000 abandoned uranium mining/prospecting sites in New Mexico. Probably many with uncontained tailings. Yikes. But we can count on extraction projects to clean up after themselves now. Right?

Do you really think the situation in Russia is better?

No. It is very likely worse. Same for other places with less regulation than the US.

So, it'd be preferable to move it to the US where it can have better oversight and there's a potential of regulatory-driven change.

No, actually.

You're pretending option C "don't give the nuclear scammers more public money" doesn't exist.

Of course! And they'll also maintain the tailings dam for the thousands of years required.

Why would we even doubt that?

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