Uranium deposits were first discovered in Saskatchewan in the early 1950s and, from that moment on, the province was Canada’s premier player in the uranium mining industry.
The Athabasca Basin, located in northern Saskatchewan, boasts some of the highest-grade uranium ore in the world. Mining, consequently, is a key industry in this region, which generated the lion’s share of Canada’s 13,330 tonnes of uranium in 2017.
Could Nova Scotia’s uranium deposits offer this kind of economic potential? At this point, given known deposits, a spokesperson from the federal Department of Natural Resources says no.
But all is not lost, says Sean Kirby, the president of the Mining Association of Nova Scotia, who points out that the province’s existing moratorium on uranium exploration and mining has prevented the province from discovering the industry’s true potential.
The initial exploration stages, said Kirby, were promising. The problem is that there hasn’t been enough subsequent drilling to deem the deposits economically viable. “The case isn’t proven at this point for the simple reason that we haven’t been allowed to do exploration and try and prove the case in the last 30 odd years.”
For the rest of this article: http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1584919-saskatchewan-a-model-for-uranium-riches