Gregory, of the Wyoming Geological Survey released a report in 2016. In the introduction, he indicates for background that uranium has been a valued natural resource for centuries and a strategic commodity since the 1940s. It occurs nearly everywhere on the planet. Its unique radioactive properties were utilized in the medical field as well as in making the world’s first nuclear weapons, bringing about the end of World War II. An entire industry has been built around its mining, processing, and utilization. With the largest economic reserves in the United States, Wyoming has benefited greatly from the uranium industry by way of jobs, tax revenues, and economic diversification. Among a wide variety of uses, uranium first and foremost provides energy for the generation of electricity worldwide and should continue to do so well into the future.
Uranium is a naturally occurring chemical element. It is a heavy metal usually found in nature as a mineral oxide. In the laboratory, uranium can be isolated as a ductile and malleable silvery white metal in its pure state. Uranium metal is about 60 percent denser than lead and almost as dense as gold (see Uranium Facts below). Uranium is a radioactive element and spontaneously decays into daughter elements at a unique and constant decay rate. The decay rate (half-life) is the length of time it takes for one half of any given amount to decay.
Uranium occurs as several different isotopes (elements with the same number of protons butdifferent numbers of neutrons). More than 99 percent of all uranium is 238U (atomic weight 238, or about 238 times the weight of one hydrogen atom), and less than 1 percent is in the form 235U; other uranium isotopes are very rare. The atomic number of uranium is 92, as it contains 92 protons in its nucleus. The rest of the particles in the nucleus are neutrons; 146 in 238U and 143 in 235U. The 235U isotope is less stable than 238U and decays more rapidly.
235U is the isotope that is used as fuel in nuclear reactors. In nature, uranium is found as 238U (99.284 percent of all naturally occurring uranium), 235U (0.711 percent), and a very small amount of 234U (0.0058 percent). Several other isotopes of uranium are known but are very rare and usually very short-lived. Uranium decays slowly by emitting alpha particles. An alpha particle emitted from the uranium nucleus is positively charged and made up of two protons and two neutrons, which is physically and chemically identical to a helium nucleus. The half-life of 238U is about 4.47 billion years and that of 235U is 704 million years, making them useful in dating rocks and even the age of the Earth.
Major Uranium Discoveries in Wyoming
The first uranium discovery in Wyoming was at the Silver Cliff Mine near Lusk. This mine was first developed in 1879 for silver and copper but failed to produce much ore. In 1918, prospectors discovered radium at Silver Cliff, which was the first reported uranium discovery in Wyoming (Galloway, 1961). Radium, a radiogenic daughter product of uranium, was in demand for scientific research purposes, particularly by Marie Curie. Ore samples were shipped to Curie in France from Wyoming and Colorado. She named the ore mineral Carnotite after the French Inspector General of Mines, Marie-Adolphe Carnot.
The most famous and significant uranium discovery in Wyoming was on October 15, 1951, by J.D. Love of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Love, along with geologists Dick Hose and F.B. Van Houten, were investigating radioactivity anomalies identified by airborne surveys. The team discovered a uranium deposit in the Pumpkin Buttes area of southwest Campbell County. Love and his associates were excited about the discovery because it supported the idea of Denson, Bachman, and Zeller (1950) that uranium deposits could be derived from Tertiary volcanic ash beds (Love, 1952). The Pumpkin Buttes find led to the discovery of even larger deposits in similar geologic settings across the state, particularly the Gas Hills, Crooks Gap, and Shirley Basin.
The author concludes the report by looking forward that the future of uranium remains strong, as there is a growing international and existing domestic demand. This stems from the growing demand for electric power from burgeoning economies as well as from smaller nations trying to modernize and elevate their standard of living. In pursuit of meeting these electricity demands, nuclear energy has received growing favorable opinion in light of concerns over CO2 and other emissions from fossil fuel-based electricity generation. Nuclear power plants do not emit CO2; the vapors seen coming from their large
towers is only steam from cooling the process water. Advanced reactor and fuel technology have made nuclear power plants far more efficient than plants that burn fossil fuels. For example, one small nuclear fuel pellet (about the size of the tip of your little finger) can provide as much energy as 149 gallons of oil, 1,780 pounds of coal, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Five of those pellets can provide electricity to the average household for one year.
Additionally, a windfarm that could produce 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt) of electricity would need more than 235 square miles of land. A one-gigawatt nuclear plant occupies a little over 2 square miles of land and can meet the electrical needs of a city the size of Boston or Seattle for one year
(Nuclear Energy Institute, 2014).
Rising prices of harder-to-find petroleum energy sources have also led countries to choose nuclear over fossil fuels. Given the abundant supply of uranium that exists around the world and its advantages over fossil fuels, the use of uranium could increase and keep the industry strong for the foreseeable future.
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