Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry – Page 2

The future for nuclear is bright, but only if we learn lessons of the past – by Erin O’Toole (Financial Post – March 5, 2025)

March 11, 2025March 11, 2025

Canada was the third country to achieve nuclear fission, but our history is littered with cautionary tales and cost overruns

As Canada prepares to meet its growing energy needs, there is no longer debate about the central role nuclear will play.

Critics have become converts in what is being called the “nuclear renaissance,” but before we break ground on the next generation of reactors, Canadian policymakers must answer one crucial question: Who bears the risk for cost overruns, and how do we prevent them in the first place? If we fail to get this right, we will struggle to expand nuclear power precisely when we need it most.

Canada has to develop uranium enrichment if wants to succeed in the new nuclear era – by Michael Joel-Hansen (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix – February 28, 2025)

March 6, 2025

https://thestarphoenix.com/

A number of steps need to be taken, including in legislation, to lay the groundwork to build up Canada’s enrichment capacity

In the push to decarbonize power generation in Canada, many provinces have begun to explore deploying nuclear power to help eliminate carbon-emitting sources, just as many countries are doing.

The looming expansion of nuclear power generation is leading to growth in the uranium mining industry in northern Saskatchewan, but some industry observers are pointing to another pressing area in need of further development: the enrichment of uranium.

As tensions rise, Canada to lean on U.S. for uranium enrichment – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – February 24, 2025)

February 25, 2025

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Even as U.S. President Donald Trump talks of waging a campaign of “economic force” to persuade Canada to join a political union with the United States, Ontario Power Generation is preparing to construct an American reactor at its Darlington Nuclear Generating Station. The reactor’s uranium fuel would be enriched at a facility in New Mexico, a new vulnerability U.S. administrations could exploit.

Canada’s 17 operating reactors are of the homegrown Candu design, which consume natural uranium. Canada possesses uranium in abundance and has long made its own fuel. But nearly all the reactors promoted for construction now require enriched uranium, which Canada can’t produce.

How Canada supplied uranium for the Manhattan Project – by Peter C. van Wyck (CBC Documentaries – January 10, 2025)

February 18, 2025

https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/

Ore mined in the Northwest Territories was transported to Port Hope, Ont., then used to develop the bombs that

In the past couple of years, the public imagination has been taken up with all things nuclear — the bomb, energy and waste. The film Oppenheimer recasts the story of the bomb as a Promethean and largely American narrative, while the series Fallout depicts a post-nuclear world. Russia has repeatedly emphasized its readiness for nuclear conflict. Nuclear energy has been regaining popularity as a hedge against climate change.

And yet, the story of Canada’s nuclear legacy — and our connection to the bombs that the U.S. military dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands in an instant — is rarely told.

U.S. hurting itself, not Canadian uranium producers, with tariffs on energy – by Michael Joel-Hansen (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix – February 12, 2025)

February 13, 2025

https://thestarphoenix.com/

Canadian producers are in a good position to handle the tariffs, expert says

United States President Donald Trump is only biting the hand that feeds his country’s nuclear power system if he follows through on his threat to impose a 10 per cent tariff on uranium and other energy-related imports.

Devan Mescall, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business, said the uranium industry is better positioned to deal with tariffs in the short term than other industries, in part because there are no available alternatives.

Uranium ban repeal in Greenland could revive massive rare earth project, licence holder says – by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen (Reuters – February 11, 2025)

February 13, 2025

https://www.reuters.com/

NUUK, Greenland – The mining company that owns the licence to Greenland’s Kvanefjeld deposit is hopeful that a new government will repeal a ban on uranium mining after next month’s election, potentially rejuvenating one of the world’s largest rare earth projects.

U.S President Donald Trump last month voiced renewed interest in acquiring the strategically important Arctic island. In response to Trump’s comments, CEO Daniel Mamadou of Kvanefjeld licence holder Energy Transition Minerals said: “I think it certainly puts everything related to minerals back on the map.”

CanAlaska Uranium posts top grade at West McArthur – by Blair McBride (Northern Miner – February 6, 2025)

February 7, 2025

https://www.northernminer.com/

CanAlaska Uranium cut its highest grade intersection yet at the West McArthur project it holds in a joint venture with Cameco in northern Saskatchewan.

Hole WMA076-01 in the Pike zone cut 14.5 metres grading 12.2% uranium oxide (U3O8) from 790.1 metres depth, including 5 metres at 34.38% U3O8, CanAlaska reported Thursday. That result, among the first five holes completed in the company’s winter program, expands the Pike zone’s ultra-high grade footprint at the unconformity by at least 15 metres to the east.

Column: Nuclear revival puts uranium back in the critical spotlight – by Andy Home (Reuters – Janaury 30, 2025)

January 31, 2025

https://www.reuters.com/

Is uranium a critical mineral? Not according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which dropped it from its critical minerals list in 2022 on the grounds it didn’t qualify because it was a “fuel mineral”. US President Donald Trump wants it to think again.

One of Trump’s many “Unleashing American Energy” directives requires the Secretary of the Interior to instruct the director of the USGS to “consider updating the survey’s list of critical minerals, including for the potential of including uranium.”

Shipments of uranium ore can resume under agreement reached with the Navajo Nation – by Susan Montoya Bryan (Associated Press – January 29, 2025)

January 30, 2025

https://apnews.com/

Shipments of uranium ore from a revived mining operation just south of the Grand Canyon are expected to resume in February after the Navajo Nation reached a settlement with the mining company, clearing the way for trucks to transport the ore across the largest Native American reservation in the U.S.

The agreement announced Wednesday settles a dispute that erupted last summer when Energy Fuels Inc. began trucking ore from the Pinyon Plain Mine to a mill site in Utah. Navajo authorities attempted to put up roadblocks but the trucks already had left tribal roadways.

Cameco hopes to repeat its 2018 success in fending off Trump uranium tariffs as threat looms once more – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – January 28, 2025)

January 30, 2025

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s Cameco Corp. fought off U.S. tariffs on uranium during President Donald Trump’s first term and it hopes to do so again as the global uranium heavyweight pushes for cooler heads to prevail in Washington.

After he was elected for a second term last fall, Mr. Trump said he was planning to impose 25-per-cent tariffs on all imports of Canadian goods. On the day he was inaugurated, he said those tariffs could take effect on Saturday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday confirmed that Mr. Trump’s Saturday timeline for tariffs against Canada is still in the cards.

Uranium price falls as DeepSeek disrupts tech – by Blair McBride (Northern Miner – January 28, 2025)

January 28, 2025

Global mining news

Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek is making a splash in the tech world with downloads surpassing ChatGPT’s, pushing major tech stocks down, while prices of uranium – which could help power the AI revolution – declined 5% Monday night.

The AI chatbot DeepSeek, founded by tech entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng, has rocketed to the top of iPhone’s app downloads list, ahead of ChatGPT, Threads and Google. The chatbot has achieved that even though its AI model, known as R1, was made with leaner resources than other comparable programs. Top AI firms reportedly train their models with supercomputers using as many as 16,000 integrated circuits, while DeepSeek uses only around 2,000 chips from Nvidia’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) H800 series.

Wiring, energy, geopolitics drive 2025 metals: Sprott – by Staff (Northern Miner – Janaury 22, 2025)

January 22, 2025

https://www.northernminer.com/

Critical metals, uranium and gold will shine this year driven by accelerating deglobalization and energy security demands, Sprott said in a special report Monday.

Broader trade conflicts affecting allies and adversaries alike could reduce business investment and global GDP, while decoupling due to rising protectionism and trade tensions will likely accelerate in sectors that are strategic like AI, advanced technology, finance and defence, the asset management company stated.

The ‘terrifying’ crackdown on mining companies in Africa’s coup belt – by Aanu Adeoye and Camilla Hodgson (Financial Times – January 13, 2025)

January 14, 2025

https://www.ft.com/

Military regimes in the Sahel have turned to tactics including arrests to assert control over critical mineral supplies

International mining companies are at the mercy of “terrifying” tactics from military regimes in Africa’s Sahel, whose leaders are using legal disputes, nationalisations and arrests to assert greater control over crucial minerals like gold and uranium.

Barrick Gold on Tuesday temporarily suspended operations in Mali after the government started seizing gold from its mine, weeks after the country issued an arrest warrant for chief executive Mark Bristow. Authorities separately detained Australian gold miner Resolute’s chief executive Terence Holohan for nearly two weeks.

Uranium Fever Collides With Industry’s Dark Past in Navajo Country – by Jacob Lorinc (Financial Post/Bloomberg – January 14, 2025)

January 14, 2025

https://financialpost.com/

The world’s re-embrace of nuclear power creates tensions in the US Southwest

(Bloomberg) — A few miles south of the Grand Canyon, thousands of tons of uranium ore, reddish-gray, blue and radioactive, are piled up high in a clearing in the forest. They’ve been there for months, stranded by a standoff between the mining company that dug them deep out of the ground, Energy Fuels Inc., and the leader of the Navajo Nation, Buu Nygren.

Back in the summer, Energy Fuels had triggered an uproar when it loaded some of the ore onto a truck, slapped a “radioactive” sign over the taillights and drove it through the heart of Navajo territory.

Canada aims to become world’s biggest uranium producer as demand soars – by Ilya Gridneff, Jamie Smyth and Camilla Hodgson (Financial Times – January 4, 2025)

January 8, 2025

https://www.ft.com/

Demand for emissions-free power and energy security mark a turnaround for the resource-rich

Canada is racing to become the world’s biggest uranium producer as prices for the radioactive metal surge in response to soaring demand for emissions-free nuclear power and geopolitical tensions threaten supplies.

Cameco, the country’s largest producer, said that production of uranium would jump by almost a third in 2024 to 37mn pounds at its two mines in the heartland of the country’s uranium industry in northern Saskatchewan.