UNSW Australia offers a nuclear engineering specialisation in the Masters of Engineering Science degree. The course continues 30 years of leadership in energy research and education at UNSW. The course is the only dedicated nuclear engineering program offered in Australia and includes an elective course in the fundamentals of uranium mining, which is the subject of this presentation. The uranium mining course is presented by academic experts and mining industry personnel and runs in a distance education format over several weeks including online forums and webinars. This postgraduate training is therefore accessible to personnel working at sites around the world. The presentation will outline the content of this training course, designed at a fundamental level to cover all stages of uranium mining from exploration and ore geology, to mine feasibility and design, mine operation, mine closure and rehabilitation. Mining methods for efficient and safe extraction of uranium that are covered in the course include open cut, underground and in situ recovery (ISR) leach methods, along with fundamentals of ground control, mine ventilation and mineral processing. Technical aspects of mining and milling operations are complemented with consideration of health and safety, economic, community, environmental and regulatory issues associated with uranium mining, presented within a risk management framework. Teaching is enlivened with current research that seeks solutions to technical challenges associated with uranium mining. The presentation will also highlight recent research by our staff and students related to uranium mining including:- assessment of the supply train for uranium mining - a study of climate change adaptions- water use productivity and reuse in the global uranium mining industry- groundwater modelling in a highly seasonal mining environment and the effectiveness of engineered reactive and low permeability barriers to groundwater flow- reactive groundwater transport of actinide analogues to radionuclides, through clayey materials using centrifuge permeameter technology- uranium (VI) absorption on natural mineral assemblages.
展开▼
