Uranium mining Cornwall. The first deliberate mining of radioactive ores took place in Jáchymov, a silver-mining city in the Czech Republic. Marie Curie used pitchblende ore from Jáchymov to isolate the element radium, a decay product of uranium. Until World War II uranium was mined primarily for its radium content; some carnotite deposits were mined primarily for the vanadium content. Sources for radium, contained in the uranium ore, were sought for use as luminous paint for watch dials and other instruments, as well as for health-related applications, some of which in retrospect were certainly harmful. The byproduct uranium was used mostly as
Jaduguda uranium mine mines and the smugglers were trying to sell it to Nepal. The market value of the seized uranium was estimated at on the international market. When uranium ore is extracted from the ground, 99.28% of the mined ore is treated as waste as the uranium isotopes used in nuclear power plants mainly is uranium-235 leaving behind the major portion of the ore which constitutes of uranium-236 and uranium-238 as well as some other components. This waste (also referred to as tailings) is then neutralised with lime and carried through pipelines to a tailing pond. This transport is made possible through