Greenland green lights uranium mining

Greenland’s parliament voted to overturn a 25-year-old ban on uranium mining on the island nation, the Associated Press reports. Lifting the ban on uranium mining will allow the country to unearth rare earth metals as well.

Greenland is a semi-autonomous nation of the Kingdom of Denmark. Subsidies from Denmark account for two-thirds of Greenland’s economy, but opening the island’s mines could lead to complete independence. Greenland’s untapped uranium and rare earth metals may outnumber China, which currently accounts for 90 percent of global production.

But environmental activists are concerned about the impacts: “It can have great consequences for the environment and the people of Greenland,” said Greenpeace spokesman Jon Burgwald in Copenhagen in an Associated Press story. “So we suggest that specific maximum limits on how much radiation, wastewater discharge, etc. are decided.”