Uranium Mining and ManHatten Project..

[bridav58]

I've seen debates that the US couldn't have developed the bomb because all of the Uranium came from Canada but according to this link the US apparently had substantial deposits. Was the Canadian Ore purchased because it was easier to mine? Was it better grade?

http://websearch.cs.com/gw/boomframe.jsp?query=US+uranium+production&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3D6 c2a5533602ac1f6%26clickedItemRank%3D4%26userQuery% 3DUS%2Buranium%2Bproduction%26clickedItemURN%3Dhtt p%253A%252F%252Fen.wikipedia.org%252Fwiki%252FUran ium_mining%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DGWYResultsT%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F Uranium_mining

[old_pop2000]

Just a few figures to chew on. The ratio of enriched uranium to uranium ore is 500:1. The extracted Uranium is U-238 which is almost 99% and useless for atom bombs.

For every 25,000 tons of uranium ore mined, only 500 tons is pure uranium, with 99% useless. Both U-238 and 235 have similar molecular structures and therefore are hard to distinguish.

The only known supplies, close to the proposed sites for production of A bombs was the Eldorado Gold Mine in the Great Bear Lake region, of Canada and Colorado. The mine was closed in 1940 and allowed to fill with water. Money was provided and the mine was drained and reopened to provide the required uranium oxide necessary for the Manhattan project. This site was chosen because it was a known supply of the rare metal and could be reactivated the quickest and easiest. Other sites were unknown and time did not allow for investigations. Expediency is the real issue here.