On account of worries about possible contamination of subsurface water, Namibian authorities have ordered Russia’s federal nuclear energy agency to cease uranium exploration.
One Uranium, a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, was denied a water usage permission by Namibia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Water, and Land Reform because the firm had not demonstrated that the way it extracted uranium would not pollute the environment.
In 2019, Namibia, the second-largest nuclear fuel producer in the world and in Africa, gave exploration rights to Russia’s federal atomic energy agency.
Namibia could not issue a permission to One Uranium for its mining, according to Namibian official Calle Schlettwein. To start mining, the Russian organisation still requires a water use licence.
Schlettwein stated that no additional permits would be issued because to environmental problems with the in-situ leaching mining technique the business proposed.
In situ mining involves recovering minerals by dissolving them in an acid pumped into the ground and then pumping the solution back to the surface.
Farmers in Namibia’s eastern Omaheke region, according to Schlettwein, have petitioned against the practice. Although Riaan Van Rooyen, a spokesman for One Uranium, downplayed the worries, Namibian campaigners insist the mining proposal is not worth the danger. The subsidiary of Rosatom is anticipated to challenge Namibia’s rejection of the water permission for uranium mining.