Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry – Page 44

Is A Green World A Safer World? – by David Rothkopf (Foreign Policy – August 22, 2009)

April 29, 2016

A guide to the coming green geopolitical crises.

Greening the world will certainly eliminate some of the most serious risks we face, but it will also create new ones. A move to electric cars, for example, could set off a competition for lithium — another limited, geographically concentrated resource.

The sheer amount of water needed to create some kinds of alternative energy could suck certain regions dry, upping the odds of resource-based conflict. And as the world builds scores more emissions-free nuclear power plants, the risk that terrorists get their hands on dangerous atomic materials — or that states launch nuclear-weapons programs — goes up.

The decades-long oil wars might be coming to an end as black gold says its long, long goodbye, but there will be new types of conflicts, controversies, and unwelcome surprises in our future (including perhaps a last wave of oil wars as some of the more fragile petrocracies decline).

Chernobyl wounds still fresh as Ukrainians mark 30th anniversary of disaster – by Andrew Roth (Washington Post – April 26, 2016)

April 27, 2016

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

KIEV, Ukraine — As Ukrainians solemnly commemorated the 30th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident on Tuesday, President Petro Poroshenko said that Russia’s support for separatists in the country’s east posed the threat of a repetition of the atomic catastrophe.

The remarks came at Chernobyl, where an international effort to seal the destroyed remains of the nuclear reactor that exploded in Ukraine 30 years ago is finally close to completion. Remarkably, despite the political revolution and armed conflict that have rocked the country since 2014, it’s close to being on schedule.

On Tuesday, Poroshenko stressed the political importance of nuclear power for Ukraine, saying the country would “neither today, nor tomorrow,” halt nuclear reactors because of the importance of maintaining the country’s energy independence, implying away from Russian gas.

Cameco Corp to shutter Rabbit Lake mine, cut 500 jobs due to weak uranium market – by Peter Koven (National Post – April 22, 2016)

April 22, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Cameco Corp. announced it will shutter its long-running Rabbit Lake operation in Saskatchewan as the company tries to adjust to an extremely weak uranium market.

The shutdown will lead to roughly 500 job losses, Saskatoon-based Cameco said on Thursday night. The miner is also curtailing production at its U.S. operations, which will result in an additional 85 job cuts.

Cameco chief executive Tim Gitzel said these moves were unavoidable as the company needs to be prepared for a “lower-for-longer” scenario in the uranium business. “It was just a tough day for all of us here at Cameco and we’re thinking of our employees,” he said in an interview.

Uranium market is getting crushed – by Frik Els (Mining.com – April 21, 2016)

April 22, 2016

http://www.mining.com/

Uranium price falls to lowest since May 2005 as bearishness overwhelms the sector

Iron ore is on an insane run, copper’s dug itself out of January’s seven-year trough, tin and zinc are in bull markets, coking coal is heading for triple digits and crude’s holding onto 60% gains since February’s low despite the Doha disaster.

Uranium? It’s having the worst start to a year in a decade. U3O8 is down more than 25% in 2016 with the UxC broker average price sliding to $25.69 a pound on Friday. That’s the cheapest uranium has been since May 2, 2005.

Haywood Securities in a research note points out that the spot U3O8 price “saw three years of back-to-back double-digit percentage losses from 2011-13, but none worse than what we’ve seen thus far in 2016, and at no point since Fukushima, did the average weekly spot price dip below $28 a pound.” The long term price, where most uranium business is conducted, is languishing at around $44 a pound.

Cameco Corp. shuts down Rabbit Lake uranium mine indefinitely and cuts 500 jobs (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – April 21, 2016)

April 21, 2016

http://thestarphoenix.com/

Cameco Corp. is shuttering its Rabbit Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan and curtailing production at its U.S. operations, resulting in the loss of about 585 jobs.

“Unfortunately, continued depressed market conditions do not support the operating and capital costs needed to sustain production at Rabbit Lake and the US operations,” Cameco CEO Tim Gitzel said in a statement late Thursday afternoon.

Rabbit Lake, which began production in 1975, will be placed in a “safe care and maintenance state” until market conditions improve “significantly.” The move will result in a reduction of about 500 jobs at the operation.

Layoffs will take place over the next four months, with affected employees being offered severance packages or alternatives such as relocation to other Cameco operations or job sharing options, the company said in a news release.

India mulls restricted window for atomic mineral mining – by Ajoy K Das (MiningWeekly.com – April 14, 2016)

April 14, 2016

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – The Indian government has proposed tweaking the atomic mineral concession rules, which would offer limited leeway to provincial governments to undertake mining of atomic minerals, subject to conditions.

Currently, mining of atomic minerals was under the sole purview of the federal government’s agencies under the scrutiny of the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research, within the purview of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).

However, once the new concession rules kicked in, provincial governments would be permitted to undertake mining of such minerals, subject to atomic mineral content being lower than a pre-determined threshold.

For The Navajo Nation, Uranium Mining’s Deadly Legacy Lingers – by Laurel Morales(Nevada Public Radio – April 10, 2016)

April 11, 2016

http://knpr.org/

The federal government is cleaning up a long legacy of uranium mining within the Navajo Nation — some 27,000 square miles spread across Utah, New Mexico and Arizona that is home to more than 250,000 people.

Many Navajo people have died of kidney failure and cancer, conditions linked to uranium contamination. And new research from the CDC shows uranium in babies born now.

Mining companies blasted 4 million tons of uranium out of Navajo land between 1944 and 1986. The federal government purchased the ore to make atomic weapons. As the Cold War threat petered out the companies left, abandoning more than 500 mines.

How Saskatchewan remade uranium mining – by Vladimir Basov (Mining.com – March 31, 2016)

April 1, 2016

http://www.mining.com/

String of high-grade high-tonnage discoveries reestablishes Canadian province as the world’s richest uranium jurisdiction

It’s a fact that new high-grade high-tonnage metal deposits are becoming extremely scarce, with falling grades and a lack of new world-class deposit discoveries.

While it is next to impossible to imagine, for example, discovery of a new 200g/tonne 25 million ozt gold deposit, it is just has become a routine process for one particular commodity in one particular jurisdiction.

Athabasca sedimentary basin, located mainly in Canada’s Saskatchewan province, contains both high-grade and high-tonnage unique, a.k.a “unconformity” bonanza-type uranium deposits.

STEELIER THAN STEEL: A new kind of metal could make nuclear reactors stronger and last longer – by Akshat Rathi (Quartz.com – March 21 2016)

March 21, 2016

http://qz.com/

Despite opposition and safety concerns, nuclear power remains a big part of the world’s energy mix—providing about 10% of world’s electricity. And since nuclear reactors typically last 40 years, there are still hundreds of decades-old reactors around the world that must be maintained.

Most of those reactors are made up primarily of some form of stainless steel. But steel is showing its limitations—primarily that it can weaken or become defective over time, and in extreme cases break apart. This is an even bigger concern in newer reactors that run at higher temperatures and have more fast-moving neutrons.

So scientists have been on the hunt for metal alloys that are stronger and can last longer, and researchers in Finland and the US may have found a new category of such alloys.

Like it or not, Toronto is a nuclear city – by Marcus Gee (Globe and Mail – February 20, 2016)

March 21, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Toronto is a nuclear city. The power that keeps its nighttime skyline twinkling, its streetcars trundling, its bank machines churning, its smartphones pinging, its nightclubs throbbing, its hair dryers blasting, its hot tubs steaming, its skating rinks frozen and its softball fields lit on warm summer nights comes in large part from nuclear energy.

About 60 per cent of the electricity generated in Ontario comes from nuclear. About half of that comes from two huge plants, Pickering and Darlington, that sit on the Lake Ontario shore just east of the city, quietly splitting atoms and throwing off huge quantities of clean, reliable energy round the clock.

Torontonians barely give a thought to this inconvenient truth. Many are squeamish about the whole idea of nuclear energy, which summons up words like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Well, they had better get used to it. Like it or not, Toronto is going to rely on the atom for the lion’s share of its energy well into the foreseeable future.

WHO Tests Hair to Probe Uranium From Johannesburg Gold Mines – by Kevin Crowley (Bloomberg News – March 16, 2016)

March 16, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The World Health Organization is collecting hair samples west of Johannesburg to see if residents near South Africa’s biggest city are suffering from excessive uranium pollution due to ore dumps from 130 years of gold mining.

The Geneva-based United Nations unit will analyze hair samples from about 1,600 people living in neighborhoods near mine-waste dumps, mainly west of Johannesburg, it said in an e-mailed response to questions. Uranium, which can cause cancer, can be ingested through drinking contaminated water or inhaling dust.

“The objective is to study the environmental exposure to uranium and its decay products of the population living in close proximity to gold mine tailing dumps in and around Johannesburg,” the WHO said. “These residue areas are often densely populated and create the potential for substantial levels of exposure to uranium.”

Soviet uranium legacy blights eastern EU – by Adrian Mogos and Michael Bird (Euobserver.com – March 14, 2016)

March 16, 2016

https://euobserver.com/

ROMANIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, GERMANY – The Soviet Union mined uranium across its empire for decades, leaving a legacy of environmental damage, social breakdown and widespread health issues. In the first of a two-part investigation, we reveal how the devastating effects are still being felt in Germany, Romania and the Czech Republic.

“We live here, with radon [radioactive gas] across the road and with chalk dust from down in the valley – God damn it – it will kill us all,” says 53-year-old Vasile Mocanu, a former miner.

He is describing how his life has been trapped between two sources of pollution – a uranium mine and a chalk mine. Baita Plai, an ex-Communist workers’ colony built by the Soviets in the 1950s, lies on the edge of the Transylvanian countryside, 500km north-west of Bucharest.

Uranium miners cautious on new output, despite forecast shortfall – by Rod Nickel (Reuters U.S. – March 8,, 2016)

March 9, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO – Several of the world’s biggest uranium producers say they are taking a cautious approach to building new mines, preferring to shave expenses and wait for higher prices despite forecasts for a supply shortfall by the end of the decade.

France’s state-owned Areva SA will trim 100 to 200 more jobs this year and stay out of the hunt for new mine exploration projects, Jacques Peythieu, Areva senior executive vice president of mining business, said in an interview from Paris on Tuesday.

“We are very focused to reduce our cost and to reduce our investment, to be able to manage this period of low price,” he said. France state-owned utility EDF is buying Areva’s reactor arm, leaving the company to focus on uranium mining and fuel after struggling with losses and scant reactor sales.

‘A CITY LOST IN THE DESERT’: A visit to the Sahara’s uranium capital – by Armin Rosen (Business Insider India – February 23, 2016)

February 23, 2016

http://www.businessinsider.in/

In May 2013, a car bomb detonated near the Somair uranium mine in Arlit, in northern Niger, killing one person. Moments earlier, in Agadez, some 150 miles south, Al Qaeda-affiliated militants waged an assault on Nigerien army positions that killed over 20 people.

That same year, Niger’s two uranium mines produced 4,238 tons of uranium, down from 4,572 the year before – but up from 4,159 tons in 2011. The mines didn’t miss their production targets. Extraction continued as if the bombing had barely even happened.

The Somair mine is one of two uranium sites in Arlit that are largely owned and operated by Areva, a majority state-owned French nuclear-services company.

Cameco posts lower earnings amid “really tough” global market: CEO – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – February 8, 2016)

February 9, 2016

http://thestarphoenix.com/

Five years after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the uranium market has not recovered as quickly as expected, forcing Cameco Corporation to “learn to live in a different paradigm,” according to its president and CEO.

“I think everybody underestimated the reaction of Japan,” Tim Gitzel said, noting that while the Japanese government abandoned its plan to phase out nuclear power entirely, its stringent regulatory regime has allowed for just three reactor restarts to date. “We thought that would happen a lot faster,” Gitzel said.

The “really tough” global market, combined with factors such as the devalued Canadian dollar, resulted in Cameco posting a $10 million, or $0.03 per share, loss in the fourth quarter, bringing its yearly earnings to $65 million, or $0.16 per share — a 65 per cent slide from the $185 million it made in 2014.