Kyrgyzstan has decided to resume uranium and thorium mining
The Kyrgyz Parliament, the Jogorku Kenesh, at the beginning of June approved a government bill to lift the ban on uranium and thorium mining in force since 2019. The new rules will come into force after the signing of the law by the President Sadyr Japarov, as widely expected soon.
In urging the resumption of mining, the Government argued that uranium production could provide much-needed financial resources for the Kyrgyz economy, which has struggled to overcome disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic and Russian sanctions. Japarov said the resumption of mining activity could create a profit of $2 billion for state coffers.
“We must continue to do any work that provides even a small economic benefit to the state. At least in the next 10 years we will reach the level of neighboring countries,” Japarov said.
While viewing mining as an economic imperative, the country's leadership has promised to use new technologies in deposit development to safeguard operations and maintain "rigorous environmental standards."
Kyrgyzstan has a number of known uranium deposits that have not been exploited since the ban took effect. Some of the largest deposits are located in environmentally sensitive areas, including those adjacent to Lake Issyk-Kul, which is widely regarded by citizens as “the pearl of Kyrgyzstan”.
Uranium mines closed in Kyrgyzstan
The lifting of the mining ban is seen by some environmentalists as paving the way for a nuclear power plant in the Central Asian state. Officials are pushing ahead with efforts to build a reactor with the help of Russia's state entity, Rosatom. Kyrgyzstan officials have confirmed interest in building a small-scale modular reactor that could provide power to around 1 million citizens. Kyrgyzstan's interest in nuclear energy is a consequence of global warming and climate change, which is inhibiting the country's main electricity generator, hydropower.
The Government's push for uranium mining and nuclear energy has alarmed environmentalists. The prospect of a nuclear reactor operating in an earthquake-prone country is unsettling to many. In addition to the threats posed by a natural disaster, Kyrgyzstan's lack of confidence in containing the toxic consequences of mining precious metals, including gold and uranium, is another major concern. Popular protests against environmental contamination, moreover, pushed the Government to suspend uranium mining in 2019.
In May this year, a group of Kyrgyz activists appealed to the Ministry of the Environment, warning that resuming uranium mining could exacerbate existing environmental challenges. “Figures of up to $2 billion in profits from uranium mining are cited, but no one says what the cost of restoring the destroyed lands will be,” the activists wrote.
Fears of new dangers and accidents are not unjustified. On June 1, an accident in the Dzhumgal district of the Naryn Region saw a Rosatom truck end up in a river. The vehicle was involved in a uranium tailings cleanup operation. Officials from the Ministry of Emergency Situations said the truck in question was empty at the time of the accident. But footage circulating on the Internet appears to contradict official reports, showing black mud spilling from the truck into the river.
According to a report published in April by the Reuters news agency, reservoirs with large volumes of uranium tailings are contained by unstable dams. The dams suffered significant damage from landslides in 2017. Another such landslide or earthquake could cause the structures to fail, “threatening a possible Chernobyl-sized nuclear disaster,” according to the Reuters report. Toxic waste could spread into the river network that supplies water to agricultural lands in the Ferghana Valley, which includes Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
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The article Kyrgyzstan has decided to resume uranium and thorium mining comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-kirghizistan-ha-deciso-di-riprendere-lestrazione-di-uranio-e-torio/ on Sun, 23 Jun 2024 07:00:32 +0000.