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Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry

One uranium mine in Niger says a lot about China’s huge nuclear-power ambitions – by Armin Rosen (Business Insider Australia – October 25, 2015)

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/

The odds of finding much of anything seem slim in northern Niger’s unnerving expanses of hazy white desert.

The land is so vast, so untethered from any obvious landmarks that when straying just a few hundred feet off of the inconsistently paved road between Abalak and Agadez, it’s hard to shake the fear that the driver won’t be able to find the highway again.

Even with plenty of water, gas, and daylight on hand, there’s a general feeling of being marooned. In the post-World War II years, huge amounts of cheap electricity were needed to fuel the breakneck growth of Western economies.

At the same time, nuclear weapons became the ultimate embodiment of national power and prestige.

So the discovery of uranium in Niger in 1957 was a much-needed economic boon for a country that still ranks 187th on the Human Development Index.

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Camp Concern: Activists reunite for anti-uranium mining protest 40 years later inside Kakadu – by Emilia Terzon and Lisa Pellegrino (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – October 26, 2015)

http://www.abc.net.au/

As uranium mining near Kakadu faces an uncertain future, activists calling themselves Camp Concern have reunited inside the Northern Territory park to mark 40 years on from the launch of an anti-mining protest.

Camp Concern was an anti-uranium mining protest camp that started with five people on October 26, 1975, on land now encompassed by the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.

The camp ended up witnessing hundreds of participants, before being disbanded after four years. The Ranger Uranium Mine was controversially completed in 1980.

Camp Concern founding member Hip Strider was among those who returned to the original protest site at the weekend. “We’re having a gathering to celebrate,” Mr Strider said.

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Radioactive dump that burned in Nevada had past troubles (Associated Press/Mining Gazette – October 25, 2015)

http://www.mininggazette.com/

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The operator of a closed radioactive waste dump that caught fire in southern Nevada had trouble over the years with leaky shipments and oversight so lax that employees took contaminated tools and building materials home, according to state and federal records.

The firm, now called US Ecology Inc., had its license suspended for mishandling shipments in the 1970s — about the same time that state officials say the material that exploded and burned last weekend was accepted and buried.

Nevada now has ownership and oversight of the property, which opened in 1962 near Beatty as the nation’s first federally licensed low-level radioactive waste dump and closed in 1992. State officials said this week they didn’t immediately know what blew up.

A soundless 40-second video turned over by US Ecology to state officials showed bursts of white smoke and dirt flying from several explosions on Oct. 18 from the dump in the brown desert about 110 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

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Australia needs policy reform to milk $9.5 billion uranium cash cow, report argues – by Frank Chung (News.com.au – October 20, 2015)

http://www.news.com.au/finance/

AUSTRALIA is sitting on a figurative gold mine of literal uranium, with a massive untapped opportunity to unlock an export boom and add thousands of jobs to the economy, a new report has argued.

The study, commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia and conducted by RMIT University economists Sinclair Davidson and Ashton de Silva, found that under the right conditions, Australian uranium could generate as much as 5 per cent of the world’s electricity.

“This would be an outstanding contribution to global low-emissions electricity generation,” Minerals Council uranium executive director Daniel Zavattiero said.

Australia is sitting on about 30 per cent of the world’s uranium reserves but produces only 10 per cent of global production, making us the world’s third-largest exporter behind Kazakhstan and Canada.

The authors argue that, under the right policy settings, Australia’s could bring its share of global supply closer to 30 per cent.

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Uranium miner sees China and India as key growth markets – by Ashley Redmond (Globe and Mail – October 20, 2015)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Canada is the world’s second largest uranium producer in the world, next only to Kazakhstan, according to the World Nuclear Association. And we export about 85 per cent of what we mine.

But the uranium sector went into a downturn in recent years, especially after Japan’s post-tsunami nuclear reactor meltdown caused that country to shut down reactors, with ripple effects in other countries. However, with new reactors being built, especially in Asia, and the expected restart of more Japanese reactors in the next few years, some analysts are calling for demand, and spot prices, to increase.

Even with decreased global demand, the value of Canadian-origin uranium exports in 2013 amounted to about $1-billion, according to government figures. Exports are mainly to the United States, Europe and Asia.

Tim Gitzel, president and chief executive officer of Saskatoon-based Cameco Corp., oversees the largest high-grade uranium mines in the country: McArthur River and Cigar Lake, both in Saskatchewan.

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[Saskatchewan Uranium waste] Gunnar cleanup to exceed $250M, 10 times estimate – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – October 17, 2015)

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/

The cost of cleaning up an abandoned uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan is expected to exceed $250 million, more than 10 times the original estimate – and the provincial and federal governments are divided on how the burden will be shared.

Located on the northern shore of Lake Athabasca near Uranium City, about 800 kilometres north of Saskatoon, the Gunnar uranium mine was abandoned in 1964. The site remained littered with radioactive tailings, asbestos-laced buildings and other waste for more than half a century.

The original mine operator, Gunnar Mining Limited, no longer exists.

In 2006, the federal and provincial governments signed an agreement to rehabilitate the site and reduce further ground and water contamination. The project was originally estimated to cost no more than $24.6 million and take 17 years, according to Natural Resources Canada documents.

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Mining tycoon Lukas Lundin promotes Denison-Fission merger to skeptical retail shareholders – by Peter Koven (National Post – October 7, 2015)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

TORONTO – Mining tycoon Lukas Lundin has joined an effort to convince Fission Uranium Corp.’s skeptical retail shareholders that they should approve a friendly merger with Denison Mines Corp.

The shareholder vote is scheduled for Oct. 14, and executives at both companies acknowledged on Tuesday they do not know which way Fission’s investors will go. The vast majority of the stock is held by retail shareholders, some of whom are loudly resisting the deal with Denison, one of Lundin’s companies.

As a result, Lundin himself is speaking with retail investors in Toronto this week to make the case for the $280-million, all-stock deal. For him, the argument is pretty simple.

“We’re trying to become the go-to name in the industry,” he said in an interview. “When uranium moves up again, we should move quite strongly because there’s nowhere else (for investors) to go. You have Cameco (Corp.) and Denison.”

Fission chief executive Dev Randhawa said he appreciates that retail investors would prefer a monster takeover offer from Cameco or Areva to this smaller deal with Denison. But he thinks they are ignoring one simple fact: there is no such deal out there.

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Installment #4 – “My Old Man:” The Uranium King – The Final Chapter (for now) in the colorful history of Charlie Steen – by Mark Steen (Canyon Country Zephyr – August/September 2002)

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/

In order to follow the history of the exploration and development of the Big Indian mining district it is necessary to understand a few things about the geology of the uranium ore deposits that were found after Charlie Steen discovered the Mi Vida mine. The most important thing to remember is that none of the ore deposits discovered during the next four years were exposed on the surface.

Although the ore bearing host rocks in the Moss Back member of the Chinle formation did outcrop in a few places along the face of the escarpment overlooking the Big Indian Wash, all of the uranium that was found after 1952 was discovered by exploration drilling. My father’s discovery proved that someone could walk over $100 million worth of uranium ore without knowing what lay beneath their feet unless they were willing to risk money on wildcat drilling in the search for totally hidden ore deposits.

Although the Big Indian mining district was developed from the single drill hole Charlie Steen had drilled through 14 feet of high-grade uranium ore on July 6, 1952, none of the other mines in the district were brought into production on the basis of one drill hole. After the Mi Vida mine proved the existence of uranium ore in the Chinle formation, drilling became the chief guide to finding more ore in the district.

Any drill hole that encountered good mineralization of minable thickness required additional drilling to block out the ore body.

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Installment #3 – “My Old Man:” The Uranium King – Charlie Steen strikes it rich and fight his partners to han on to the Mi Vida Mine – by Mark Steen (Canyon Country Zephyr – June/July 2002)

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/

A few days after the Denver Post published its closely worded story about my father’s Big Indian uranium discovery, Moab’s Times-Independent ran an article based on the same announcement that Dad had given to the Denver newspaper. Although the Times-Independent article actually contained more details about the high-grade nature of the uranium mineralization contained in the discovery drill core, not a single person among the newspaper’s readership expressed any interest in helping Dad develop his prospect.

None of the area’s long-time uranium prospectors and miners were convinced that Charlie Steen had really found a uranium bonanza. Folks laughed when they heard that someone from Texas was claiming to have discovered a million dollars worth of uranium in a mining district that everyone knew the experts had already examined and written off as a loser.

In early September, Dad received a letter postmarked Casper, Wyoming from William T. Hudson, his former boss at the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company’s Houston, Texas office. Bill Hudson had overseen the college loans that my father worked off during the summers and had written to congratulate him after reading the Denver Post article.

AT LONG LAST! Charlie tries on a new pair of boots.

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Mark Steen remembers… “My Old Man:” The Uranium King…Part 2 – The author debunks a few tall tales and tells what really happened in 1952 – by Mark Steen (Canyon Country Zephyr – April/May 2002)

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/

At the beginning of my first article in The Zephyr about my father, Charlie Steen, and his discovery of the Mi Vida mine and its consequences, I wrote that people couldn’t seem to resist the impulse to distort and rewrite the history of Moab’s most famous prospector. I pointed out that falsehoods about my father’s uranium discovery and his role in the Uranium Boom were now finding their way into print in historical publications.

Potato Chips & Bananas

Two good bad examples of people distorting the truth or concocting half-truths about my father’s role in changing the course of the uranium industry clearly illustrate this point. In Utah’s official centennial history, Utah: The Right Placeby Dr. Thomas G. Alexander, the author has my Dad feeding his family on “potato chips and bananas” while he searched for uranium “with a Geiger counter under one arm and a bundle of Geological Surveys under the other.”

Aside from the well-known fact that my father couldn’t afford a Geiger counter and the lack of printed geological information about the Big Indian area prior to the Uranium Boom, Dr. Alexander, who has three university degrees in history, actually seems to think that six people could live for more than two years on potato chips and bananas! I wonder what level of sobriety the old timer who spun that yarn was in when that tale was told?

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“My Old Man:” The Uranium King (Part 1) – Charlie Steen’s youngest son ‘sets the record straight’ about the life and times of Moab’s most famous prospector – by Mark Steen (Canyon Country Zephyr – February/March 2002)

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/

My father, Charlie Steen, has always maintained that the truth about his discovery of the Mi Vida mine and its consequences is a much better story than the fiction and half-truths that people insist on perpetuating. Despite the fact that his uranium discovery is one of the most publicized and well documented mineral discoveries in history, people can’t seem to resist the impulse to distort and rewrite history.

Unfortunately, this isn’t confined to bar-room reminiscences and tales told by old miners in rest homes. Articles about other peoples’ roles in my father’s discovery and observations by individuals who never met any of the players involved in the events of fifty years ago are now finding their way into print in historical publications. These accounts range from hard-luck stories about people who staked the Mi Vida ore body before my father, but couldn’t raise the money to drill where they knew a fortune was awaiting them, to lies about grubstakers being cheated out of millions because they couldn’t prove they had financed Charlie Steen’s prospecting activities.

Perhaps the most absurd of all of these revisionist discovery stories is the one that has my father’s jeep-mounted drill breaking down two or three miles from his intended destination; and, since he couldn’t go any further, he supposedly decided to drill for uranium where his rig had come to a halt. In this patently false version, Utah’s premier uranium mining area owes its discovery more to mechanical failure than to human endeavor.

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Plan for cleaning up uranium tailings ready for approval – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – September 28, 2015)

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/

The cleanup of a derelict northern Saskatchewan uranium mine could move one step closer this week.

The Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) — which is overseeing the multi-million-dollar Gunnar Remediation Project on behalf of the provincial government — will present its plan to cover the site’s three tailings deposits at a Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) hearing in Ottawa on Wednesday.

Canada’s nuclear watchdog will consider evidence presented by all interested parties, including the SRC and northern First Nations, before making its decision, which is expected in about six weeks, a CNSC spokesman said Monday.

The Gunnar mine site is located near Uranium City on the northern shore of Lake Athabasca, about 800 kilometres north of Saskatoon. The deposit was discovered in 1952 and mining commenced three years later.

When it was operational, the site featured an open pit mine, an underground mine, two acid plants, a uranium mill, and various ancillary buildings. Three tailings deposits totalling some 4.4 million tonnes and a large waste rock pile eventually accumulated on the site.

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BHP Billiton sees strong earnings growth even in low carbon world (Reuters U.S. – September 29, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE – BHP Billiton, the world’s largest miner, said on Tuesday it sees its earnings doubling over the next 15 years, even in a world where carbon emissions are cut to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

Under pressure from UK investors who fear fossil fuel assets could become worthless under tough climate policies, BHP released analyses of its copper, coal, oil, gas, potash, uranium and iron ore assets showing the company will hold up well under what it considers the most realistic scenarios.

Even with the 2 degrees C limit – equivalent to a rise of about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit – that has been set for UN climate talks later this year, demand in 2030 for all of BHP’s commodities except thermal coal would be higher than in 2014.

Uranium would be the biggest winner as more nuclear power would be needed, BHP said. “In this scenario, our portfolio remains resilient, and our analysis indicates that margins remain strong and even increase in some commodities,” Chief Commercial Officer Dean Dalla Valle told reporters ahead of an investor briefing in London.

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Cameco defends safety of uranium mining as Cigar Lake mine opens – by Ian Bickis (Canadian Press/Global News – September 24, 2015)

http://globalnews.ca/

SASKATOON – Cameco’s CEO Tim Gitzel defended the safety of uranium mining as the company opened its operations at Cigar Lake this week amid trying times for the sector.

“Anyone that’s toured these mines, talked to our workers, they can talk to the communities, they can see our statistics, it’s a very safe occupation, and we’re proud to be part of it,” Gitzel said.

Those comments stand in stark contrast to a report released in July by Quebec’s environmental regulation agency (BAPE) concluding after a year of study that it would be premature to allow uranium mining in the province.

The three-person BAPE panel wrote that there are still many uncertainties and “significant gaps in scientific knowledge of the impacts of uranium mining on the environment and public health.”

Gitzel disagrees. “I thought that was a very unfortunate finding in Quebec,” said Gitzel.

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NEWS RELEASE: Cameco and AREVA Celebrate Start of Production at Cigar Lake

http://www.cameco.com/

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada: Cameco (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ) and AREVA officially marked the start of production at the Cigar Lake uranium mine and McClean Lake mill today at the minesite in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.

Cameco president and CEO Tim Gitzel, and Olivier Wantz, member of the executive committee and senior executive vice-president, mining and front end business group for AREVA, welcomed dignitaries including Saskatchewan Economy Minister Bill Boyd and community leaders from northern Saskatchewan, and led a tour of the underground workings.

“I thank all of our stakeholders and partners whose strong support helped us bring this rich and challenging deposit into production,” said Tim Gitzel. “This achievement took 10 years, great perseverance and technical creativity, and I commend the many people who contributed.”

“We are happy to celebrate these two major uranium mining assets in Saskatchewan, the Cigar Lake mine and the McClean Lake mill,” said Olivier Wantz. “Their successful operation demonstrates the determination and expertise of our employees to ensure the safe start-up and continued production.”

Mining at Cigar Lake began in March 2014. The first packaged uranium concentrate was produced in October 2014 at the McClean Lake mill which is majority owned and operated by AREVA Canada Resources Inc.

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