Submitted by giteam t3_y7wrvv in dataisbeautiful
SpyMonkey3D t1_it1xvfn wrote
Reply to comment by Gawkhimm in [OC] Biggest uranium companies in the world by giteam
Piggybacking for visibility since I see people upvoting this...
> and how they treat the local population and the environment
Then, he saw they treat them well. At least for Orano.
Canada is a western country with fairly high standard and a working law system, and same in Kazakhstan, because if they act badly, kazakahstan can 100% and easily kick them out and exploit their uranium themselves, no problem. The biggest company in the world is theirs, after all. Or they could invite literally any other country, starting with Russia or China. (In this case, they wanted westerner to open themselves up/don't depend on russia, though. That's their logic.)
So the only potential case would be Niger, and even there, the idea they treat the locals badly is largely a myth propagated by anti-nuclear people. Like for example, people like to say the city near the mine is exposed and anti-nuclear association start talking of "catastrophic" environmental damage and whatever, but they never demonstrated with proof. At best, they will detect a bit of radiation that is within the allowed margins/law, and act as if they discovered something the company was tyring to hide... People also forget to say that city didn't exist before they openned the mine, and Orano didn't make them to come there. They came anyway (hoping for work). That's how a city meant for 4000 workers (a lot of them europeans, btw) turned into a big city for 120.000 or more (especially as Orano ended up building additional services like Hospitals, etc) There's also accusation that Orano came in like a colonialist to steal Niger's ressources, but they don't tell you Niger gets 80% of the revenue... And it's not always worthwhile economically, to the point Orano is closing one of the mine now (because price of uranium tanked).
Really, once you stop listening to anti-nuclear NGO, the picture you get isn't exactly good, but you see you can't blame Orano for it...
Really, the real problem would be that Niger is a dictatorship (and well, they are the ones getting the money, not regular people) + the rebellions in the area, but that's another story. And it would probably happen regardless of Orano's presence there. They just found another thing to fight about.
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