Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry – Page 13

Focusing on abandoned uranium mines across Navajo, EPA opens Flagstaff office – by Adrian Skabelund (Arizona Daily Sun – July 29, 2023)

July 31, 2023

Tuesday saw the opening of a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office in Flagstaff that will be largely focused on investigating and cleaning up hundreds of abandoned uranium mines across the Navajo Nation.

The office comes as the agency, in cooperation with local partners, works toward a goal of remediating 110 high-priority mines by 2030. As it opens, the office, which is located on the U.S. Geological Survey campus near Buffalo Park, will have a staff of at least 14 employees. That number could increase, according to office manager Jacob Phipps.

Niger coup sparks concerns about French, EU uranium dependency – by Giorgio Leali (Politico EU – July 31, 2023)

July 31, 2023

https://www.politico.eu/

The military coup in Niger is raising fears, especially in France, over its potential impact on the import of uranium to power nuclear plants.

Niger supplies 15 percent of France’s uranium needs and accounts for a fifth of the EU’s total uranium imports. Orano, France’s state-controlled nuclear fuel producer, is continuing its activities in Niger and monitoring the situation, a company spokesperson said in a statement emailed to POLITICO, stressing that “our priority is to maintain the safety of our employees in the country.”

What’s Driving Coups in Niger and Across West Africa? – by Neil Munshi (Bloomberg/Washington Post – July 27, 2023)

July 27, 2023

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Members of Niger’s presidential guard have detained the leader of the uranium-rich country, a linchpin in the fight by US, French and African forces against the spread of Islamist militancy across the Sahel region.

The attempted coup follows five successful ones in the past three years across the impoverished region. If the latest power grab succeeds, it would create a strip of military-run countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea — most of which are more closely aligned to Russia than to the West.

1. What happened in Niger?

In the Lab Oppenheimer Built, the U.S. Is Building Nuclear Bomb Cores Again – by W.J. Hennigan (Time Magazine – July 24, 2023)

July 24, 2023

https://time.com/

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – Something unusual is happening inside the plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. PF-4, as it is known to top government officials, is the heart of America’s nuclear complex, a lab where scientists and engineers study and experiment on highly radioactive materials in tight secrecy. Recently, employees have discovered yellow plastic tents encasing equipment and rendering it inaccessible.

At Los Alamos, where even the cleaning crews and firefighters require high-level security clearances, you might think the tents are designed to restrict access to the latest wonder weapon or scientific breakthrough. The truth is more mundane—and more telling. “It’s part of our expansion plans,” Matthew Johnson, a senior lab manager, tells me during a rare tour of the fortified building. “All the old stuff is coming out.”

Nuclear Energy’s Moment Has Come – by Charles Oppenheimer (Time Magazine – May 11, 2023)

July 24, 2023

https://time.com/

Oppenheimer is an entrepreneur and investor, representing the family of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

For all the recent talk about clean energy and a shift away from coal, there’s a major problem in our goal to transition to a net zero-carbon economy. Despite all the growth and advances in renewable energy, globally we consume more fossil fuels than ever, and our rate of CO2 production is in fact increasing, not heading to zero.

But there’s a bipartisan, environmentally friendly solution still sitting on the table, still waiting for its moment — if only we can overcome our predetermined bias. As J. Robert Oppenheimer’s grandson, I believe that my grandfather would support the expansion of nuclear energy as an environmentally friendly solution to address both the world’s energy problems and, perhaps counterintuitively, as a catalyst for peace and unity.

UK to Offer Grants to Builders of Small Reactors in Nuclear Push – by Priscila Azevedo Rocha (Bloomberg News – July 17, 2023)

July 20, 2023

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The UK announced a funding package to support nuclear power generated by small modular reactors in a bid to boost energy security while lowering the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.

The government will provide grants totaling £157 million ($205 million) for companies to accelerate their nuclear business in the UK, as well as develop new reactors, it said on Tuesday with the launch of a competition.

Ontario finally dumps the Liberals’ naive green-energy ideology for reality – by Randall Denley (National Post – July 14, 2023)

July 14, 2023

https://nationalpost.com/

Ford government’s plan dares to put new emphasis on nuclear energy to meet future supply needs

The age of energy ideology is over in Ontario, replaced by power pragmatism. The Ontario government’s new and ambitious plan to meet the province’s power needs until 2050 draws on pretty much every known technology to meet a demand for power that could double by that year.

One doesn’t have to look too far back to remember the era of overhyped and overpriced wind and solar projects that former premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government was so eager to foist off on Ontarians. Across the province, the countryside is scarred with wind farms and solar installations.

Is Ontario entering a clean power renaissance? Why there’s still hope for a turnaround – by David Olive (Toronto Star – July 13, 2023)

July 14, 2023

https://www.thestar.com/

Business opportunities — or the loss of them — are driving Doug Ford’s new energy strategy, David Olive writes.

In the space of just a few days, Ontario has unveiled a thoroughly holistic new approach to securing the province’s energy future. Last week, the Ford government committed to building as many as five additional reactors at Ontario’s Bruce Power nuclear facility.

That could expand Bruce Power’s electricity generating capacity by as much as 76 per cent, with the first new reactors coming onstream in the 2030s. Bruce Power, near Kincardine, about 240 kilometres northwest of Toronto on the shores of Lake Huron, is already one of the world’s biggest nuclear power plants.

OPINION: Nuclear power is a key part of a green future – by Editorial Board (Globe and Mail – July 12, 2023)

July 12, 2023

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

It’s an utterly predictable chain reaction. Any proposal to expand nuclear-generated electricity as part of the effort to reduce carbon emissions is met with instant condemnation from environmentalists who can’t see past their historical antipathy to atomic power.

So it was last week in Ontario, when the Progressive Conservative government sensibly proposed further expansion of its nuclear-generation capacity, which already supplies about half of the province’s electricity.

Ontario looks to go ahead with three more small modular nuclear reactors – by Jeff Gray (Globe and Mail – July 7, 2023)

July 10, 2023

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ontario is charging ahead with its bet on small modular nuclear reactors, announcing that its electricity utility will seek approvals for three more of the units on the grounds of its Darlington power plant, where it has already applied to build one of the new and largely untested systems.

Energy Minister Todd Smith unveiled the province’s plan for the SMRs on Friday at the site next to the existing Darlington nuclear facility in Clarington, about 80 kilometres east of downtown Toronto. Preparatory work is already under way, with newly paved roads leading to a large expanse of sun-baked dirt that has been cleared and flattened by a fleet of bulldozers.

Ontario starts pre-development work for new, large-scale nuclear plant – by Allison Jones (Toronto Star/Canadian Press – July 5, 2023)

July 6, 2023

https://www.thestar.com/

TORONTO – Ontario is looking to build the first new, large-scale nuclear plant in more than 30 years in order to meet the province’s growing electricity demands. Energy Minister Todd Smith announced Wednesday that the government is looking at a new plant to generate up to 4,800 megawatts — enough to power 4.8 million homes — on the site of Bruce Power’s current generating station on the shore of Lake Huron in Tiverton, Ont.

Bruce Power will now start community consultations and conduct an environmental assessment for federal approval to determine the feasibility of another nuclear plant.

Canada’s Top Ten base metals and uranium companies – by Blair McBride (Northern Miner – July 4, 2023)

July 4, 2023

https://www.northernminer.com/

As the push for green energy gathers more momentum, demand for the metals that go into zero-emission technologies is rising while uranium spot prices have seen a steady climb since January. Here’s a list of the top ten Canadian-headquartered base metal and uranium juniors with no production. The ranking is based on the companies’ market capitalization as of June 1, as compiled by Mining Intelligence.

1 Filo Mining – Market Cap: $2.6 billion

Filo Mining (TSXV: FIL) traded spots with NexGen Energy (TSX: NXE; NYSE: NXE) for the top spot this year even though Filo’s market cap fell by more than 11%. A member of the Lundin Group of companies, Filo’s flagship project is its Filo del Sol copper-gold project in South America. The high-sulphidation epithermal copper-gold-silver deposit is associated with a large porphyry copper-gold system.

Review: Oliver Stone wants you to think about ‘Nuclear Now’ in new documentary – by Robert Abele (Los Angeles Times – April 27, 2023)

July 4, 2023

https://www.latimes.com/

With a recent Gallup poll indicating that American support for nuclear power is the highest it’s been in nearly a decade, and the news getting worse about our imminent reckoning with climate change, there may be no time like the present for a documentary to make the case for a maligned energy source — one more associated with war and catastrophe than lighting our homes — as the best solution for a grim future.

The question then is whether a dyed-in-the-wool rabble-rouser like Oliver Stone is the most persuasive guy for this argument when he’s more likely these days to make news for being controversial (he’s been called a Putin apologist); and his most recent feature being 2016’s ignored “Snowden.”

Opinion: The energy transition Ontario really needs is to nuclear – by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post – June 9, 2023)

June 28, 2023

https://financialpost.com/

When you factor in its reliability, nuclear is cheaper than solar or wind, which are available only intermittently

If Ontario wants to keep its lights on and its economy stable, it needs to abandon the fantasy that wind and solar power can make a meaningful contribution to its energy needs. In the absence of untapped hydroelectric sites, the provincial government’s determination to outlaw fossil fuels in pursuit of an all-electric society means Ontario has no choice but to go nuclear.

Large-scale wind and solar have never been competitive, despite the narrative since the first Earth Day in 1970 that plummeting costs eventually would see them overtake fossil fuels. Today, a half century later, wind and solar in Ontario remain two to four times as expensive as nuclear, four to eight times as expensive as hydroelectricity, and 10 to 20 times as expensive as fossil fuels would be in a free market.

USA plants continue to rely on foreign sources of uranium supply (World Nuclear News – June 15, 2023)

June 16, 2023

https://world-nuclear-news.org/

The EIA’s 2022 Uranium Marketing Annual Report, published on 13 June, provides detailed data on uranium marketing activities in the USA from 2017 to 2022, and summary data back to 2001.

The information is based on data collected through the EIA’s Uranium Marketing Annual Survey – known as Form EIA-858 – which collects data on contracts, deliveries, enrichment services purchased, inventories, use in fuel assemblies, feed deliveries to enrichers, and unfilled market requirements for the next 10 years.