The Council on Legislation - Prohibition of uranium extraction, for consideration Scope of the Prohibition – Excerpts translated from Swedish to English:
The Swedish nuclear regulatory exemption regulations and the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority's regulations make it easy to determine whether or not mining activities involving non-uranium minerals are covered by the prohibition. Operations dealing with low levels of uranium (less than 200 ppm) are always excluded from the prohibition (Section 11 of the Nuclear Engineering Regulation). Operations dealing with high levels of uranium (over 200 ppm) are exempted from the prohibition, provided that the operation does not involve processing or physical or chemical enrichment for the purpose of extracting the radionuclides or the use of the radioactivity of the material.
A special situation is when, for example, the rare earth metal, e.g. yttrium is bound in the same mineral as uranium. Then it is only at the physical or chemical enrichment that the substances can be separated from each other. In this process, aqueous solutions with more or less pure uranium may occur. Provided that this solution is allowed to form waste, the procedure is also subject to the exception in the regulations. However, if uranium becomes a by-product and uses the uranium's fissile properties, the exception in the regulations does not apply.
According to the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU), there are currently 15 mines in production in Sweden, of which 14 are metal mines and 1 clay mine. In the areas where these activities are carried out, the uranium content is so low that they are covered by the exception in Section 11 of the Nuclear Engineering Regulation. If the content in any case exceeds 200 ppm, these activities are also covered by the exemption in the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority's regulations.
