The Russian state atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, is pushing hard to extract uranium from the arid Kalahari region by pumping sulphuric acid into a transboundary aquifer shared by Namibia, South Africa and Botswana.
Stretching across three countries, the Stampriet Artesian Basin is one of the largest aquifers in southern Africa and the only permanent source of drinking water and farm irrigation in one of the driest parts of the sub-continent. This is an area characterised by several dry river beds that only flow briefly during heavy rainstorms. Underground water is the lifeblood of the region, with water extracted from more than 7,000 boreholes to sustain people, animals and crops.
It is here that the Rosatom subsidiary companies Headspring Investments/Uranium One have drilled several exploration wells near the town of Leonardville as a precursor to a much larger mining proposal named Project Wings.
Rather than digging it out, Rosatom plans to liberate the uranium from buried sandstone deposits by pumping large volumes of sulphuric acid and other chemical agents deep into the ground to dissolve the uranium into a solution that is then sucked up to the surface for processing into yellowcake.
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The company claims that the process is environmentally benign and that the chemicals used are "very weak, with an acidity (pH) similar to red wine or lemon juice".
Other seemingly magical aspects of Rosatom's in-situ leaching (ISL) mining process, the company...
