2 lines
1.9 KiB
TeX
2 lines
1.9 KiB
TeX
Uranium mining in Wyoming – the state with the largest known uranium ore reserves – embraces traditional methods like open-pit and underground mining alongside insitu recovery (ISR), a less intrusive technique involving solution injection for uranium extraction. Historically, traditional mining contributed substantially to the State's economy, providing jobs and revenue. However, ISR's emergence signifies a shift toward more environmentally friendly practices, aiming to reduce surface disturbance and environmental impact. Despite its overall efficiency, one of the most expensive and time-consuming issues facing in-situ uranium recovery today is the legal and regulatory requirements for groundwater restoration. To potentially enable the future utilization of groundwater found in the mining vicinity, after completing in-situ recovery (ISR) mining operations, as per the regulatory guidelines of groundwater restoration, the operators must restore the water quality in the mining area to its original levels for various elements such as metals, metalloids, anions, and total dissolved solids. However, we argue that in situ uranium recovery wellfields operate within an exempted portion of an aquifer and therefore, pose a low potential health risk. In this paper, we will develop an micro economic model with a representative mining operator as the agent. Focusing on five active mining operations in Wyoming, we use a primary data on various cost parameters to provide in sights into operator choices. Preliminary cost-benefit analysis from operation data suggest the legal and regulatory groundwater restoration reduce total welfare. Second, we use this model to inform a time series regression which models short and long-run supply elasticities. The findings could have potential policy implications and provide economists with a framework to evaluate other types of in situ operations.
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