Sin­ce the late 19th cen­tu­ry it has been known that alum sha­le from the tab­le mountains of Väs­ter­göt­land con­tai­ned uranium.

As part of the Swe­dish nuclear fuel pro­gram­me, ura­ni­um was extrac­ted from alum sha­le near Ran­stad, between Sköv­de and Fal­kö­ping, between 1965 and 1969.

The mine was known as Ran­stads­ver­ket and yiel­ded around three grams of ura­ni­um per ton of alum sha­le. However, by the late 1960s this yield was too low to make the mine pro­fi­tab­le, and it was shut down. Over the four years that the mine remai­ned in ope­ra­tion, around 250 tons of ura­ni­um were extrac­ted from 1,500,000 tons of rock. A num­ber of attempts were made to resu­me mining in the 1970s, but following pro­tests from local peop­le this never beca­me a reality.

Hit­ta Hit