The Olympic Dam uranium mine in Roxby Downs South Australia, is a uranium, fine grade copper sulphide gold, silver and rare earths mine. BHP has already submitted an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a three fold expansion.
BHP also enjoys the most ridiculous privileges through the Roxby Downs Indenture Act which exempts them from a number of legislation including the Aboriginal Heritage Act, the Water Resources Act and the Freedom of Information Act.
Grades of uranium greater than 0.2% U3O8 (uranium) are known to occur in some areas of the deposit, although it is not known if these areas have been or are yet to be mined. Based on the initial ore milling data, grades up to 0.12% U3O8 were being processed
The recovery of uranium is not too efficient, with over 30% of the contained uranium being disposed of with tailings due to the refactory (insoluble) nature of this fraction of uranium in the ore.
The primary extraction method is a variant of of sublevel (underground) open stoping, in which blocks of mineralised ore are systematically blasted and the ore recovered for crushing below ground. The crushed ore is then hoisted up one of the shafts to the surface stockpile.
Australia produces 174,689 t U3O8 a year
from roxby 48,596 t U3O8 is produced a year
A typical reactor uses 200 t U per year and produces 30 t spent fuel /high-level waste
so ...
Australia's overall U exports have resulted in production of 26,200 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste (spent nuclear fuel)
Roxby U exports have resulted in production of 7,290 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste (spent nuclear fuel)
Australia's overall exports have resulted in production of over 80 tonnes plutonium, enough for over 8,000 weapons
Roxby exports have resulted in production of enough plutonium to build over 2,200 nuclear weapons, 1% of what is exported from Roxby could end up as 22 nuclear weapons the potential to kill over 2 million people!
For more downloads see http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/mining/roxby