Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry – Page 50

Saskatchewan Dene group wants more consultation on Areva’s Kiggavik project – by Sarah Rogers (Nunatsiaq Online.com – February 6, 2014)

February 7, 2014

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

Project proposes flying uranium to northern Saskatchewan

Athabasca Dene in northern Saskatchewan say they have not been properly consulted on Areva’s Kiggavik uranium project near Baker Lake. Although the Kiggavik site is hundreds of kilometres away from their traditional lands, the Athabasca Dene oppose the proposed transportation of milled uranium — known as yellowcake — by plane from the mine to northern Saskatchewan.

Areva proposes to fly some 5,000 tonnes of yellowcake each year to Points North, Saskatchewan, where it would then be transported by truck or train.

In December 2013, the Athabasca Denesuline Né Né Land Corp., which represents First Nations in Black Lake, Fond du Lac and Hatchet Lake, passed a resolution opposing the transport of uranium over their territory.

In a letter addressed to the Nunavut Impact Review Board that same month, the corporation said Dene are worried about accidents and the potential damage to their local environment.

Special Report: Areva and Niger’s uranium fight – by Daniel Flynn and Geert de Clercq (Reuters India – February 5, 2014)

February 5, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

ARLIT, Niger/PARIS – (Reuters) – When France began mining uranium ore in the desert of northern Niger in the early 1970s, Arlit was a cluster of miners’ huts stranded between the sun-blasted rocks of the Air mountains and the sands of the Sahara.

The 1973 OPEC oil embargo changed that. France embraced nuclear power to free itself from reliance on foreign oil and overnight this remote corner of Africa became crucial to its national interests.

Arlit has grown into a sprawling settlement of 117,000 people, while France now depends on nuclear power for three-quarters of its electricity, making it more reliant on uranium than any country on earth. Niger has become the world’s fourth-largest producer of the ore after Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia.

But uranium has not enriched Niger. The former French colony remains one of the poorest countries on earth. More than 60 percent of its 17 million people survive on less than $1 a day.

Arlit is a dusty and neglected place, scoured by desert sandstorms and barely touched by the mineral wealth it ships off to Europe each year.

[Suzuki] An admission of bombast – by Lorne Gunter (Toronto Sun – January 21, 2014)

January 22, 2014

http://www.torontosun.com/home

Last fall, David Suzuki, the high priest of Canadian enviro-alarmism, used an eco-conference to predict the likelihood of another Japanese earthquake comparable in size to the March 2011 monster Tohoku quake at “over 95% … in the next three years.”

True to his all-scaremongering, all-the-time form, Suzuki predicted that when a second catastrophic seismic event occurred, the remaining fuel rods at the Fukushima power plant would unleash a nuclear disaster that would mean “bye bye Japan” and would force an evacuation of the entire North American west coast.

This is about as crazy as the hoaxes circulating around the Internet claiming that a giant squid, driven eastward by radiation emanating from Japan, had beached itself at Santa Monica, Calif., or that 98% of the Pacific’s sea bottom is strewn with irradiated fish. (In fact, less than 5% of the Pacific’s floor has even been mapped, so knowing what is on 98% of it is impossible.)

This week, Suzuki told the Vancouver Province that he had stirred up his Japanese quake scenario “off-the-cuff” and he now regretted being so bombastic.

INTERVIEW-Greenland eyes mines as melting ice cap unlocks mineral riches – by Balazs Koranyi (Reuters India – January 21, 2014)

January 21, 2014

http://in.reuters.com/

TROMSOE, Norway – Jan 21 (Reuters) – Greenland will push ahead with a uranium and rare earths mine despite the objections of its former colonial ruler and main benefactor as the melting of the polar ice cap unlocks the country’s natural resources, its prime minister said.

Arctic Greenland, with the lowest population density in the world, could open its first big iron ore mine in five years and award the first rare earths exploitation licence by 2017, hoping for riches that could attract thousands of workers and leave the locals in a minority, Aleqa Hammond told Reuters.

“We simply refuse to go under as a culture because of climate change,” Hammond, 48, said on Tuesday on a visit to Norway. “We have to adapt because the ice is disappearing and hunting is no longer the main source of income.

“But climate change gives us a new chance to survive because our minerals become accessible so we’ll adapt,” Hammond, an Inuit woman brought up to skin seals, said. “We are one of the very few countries around the world where climate change is giving us benefits.”

Greenland Seeks Advice on Uranium Extraction – by Clemes Bomsdorf (Wall Street Journal – January 10, 2014)

January 13, 2014

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

Government Has Worked to Lure Developers and Miners, but Small Populace Lacks Experts

COPENHAGEN—Greenland’s leader said Friday the nation is looking to implement the toughest possible rules for exporting uranium, a radioactive material that is a natural byproduct when mining rare-earth minerals.

Greenland Prime Minister Aleqa Hammond, in an interview, said “it is our duty and obligation” to pursue the same conditions as nations considered to be leaders when it comes to security precautions. “We will be following the highest international standards [and are aiming at] Canada and Australia.”

The future of Greenland’s mining sector is one of the more important questions facing Ms. Hammond, elected in 2013. Because Greenland still is under Danish sovereignty, Ms. Hammond has been negotiating with Denmark’s leaders, including Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt —on how to approach the sensitive issue of uranium extraction and export, and an agreement is expected later this year.

[Ontario] Nuclear waste decisions loom – by John Spears (Toronto Star – January 7, 2014)

January 7, 2014

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Questions about two proposed nuclear waste sites continue to provoke controversy.

More than half a century after miners started gouging uranium out of the Canadian Shield at Elliot Lake, William Elliott wants it back. He’s leading the campaign by the town and surrounding communities to become the place where the used fuel from Canada’s nuclear reactors is stored forever.

But the long-running saga of finding a spot for Canada’s nuclear waste still has years more to run as those who want the waste — and those who don’t — struggle over what to do with it.

And the question gets even more vexed as a decision nears on a second radioactive waste site for less potent — but still hazardous — nuclear waste that Ontario Power Generation wants to develop at its Bruce nuclear site near Kincardine, Ont.

Decisions about nuclear waste, which have simmered for decades, are starting to heat up, as two processes move forward.

TNM’s 2013 Mining Persons of the Year: Fission’s Ross McElroy and Dev Randhawa – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – December 23, 2013)

December 24, 2013

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry. Editor John Cumming MSc (Geol) is one of the country’s most well respected mining journalists. jcumming@northernminer.com

Since the days of the Manhattan project, there have been three conventional rules for finding uranium mineralization in Saskatchewan: it occurs in the Athabasca basin, usually in the lowest sandstone unit that’s in contact with the basement rock; the best place to look is in the eastern part of the basin; and the shallow stuff has all been found, so you need to go deeper into the basin to find more.

Well, the new Patterson Lake South ultra-high-grade uranium discovery by joint-venture partners Fission Uranium (TSXV: FCU; US-OTC: FCUUF) and Alpha Minerals turns all that conventional wisdom on its head: the deposit is 8 km outside the southwestern edge of the basin in a relatively unexplored area, and it lies almost at surface, covered only by glacial overburden and a shallow lake.

And for this, we are awarding our 2013 “Mining Persons of the Year” to Fission president and COO Ross McElroy, the technical point man on the discovery, and Fission chairman and CEO Dev Randhawa, who has ably guided the company through not one, but two major corporate overhauls in a single year.

Ross McElroy is a veteran geologist with an uncanny ability to place himself at the heart of the discovery of high-grade Canadian mineral deposits.

The battle between Cree First Nations and Strateco Resources heats up – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – December 21, 2013)

December 23, 2013

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

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The grand council of the Crees of Eeyou Istchee, the Cree regional authority and the Cree nation of Mistissini on Friday said they had filed a declaration of intervention in the legal proceedings recently started by uranium explorer Strateco Resources against the Quebec Environment Minister Yves-François Blanchet.

Strateco, who seeks permission to undertake underground exploratory drilling in search of uranium at its Matoush advanced exploration project, early this month asked the Superior Court of Quebec to nullify the minister’s decision to refuse to grant a certificate of authorisation for the exploration.

Strateco had also asked the court to force the minister to issue a certificate of authorisation for the project. In his decision of November 7, Blanchet said that he refused to authorise the Matoush project owing to the absence of social acceptability for the project, particularly among the Crees.

Through the intervention filed today, the Crees sought full rights of participation in the proceedings, and urged the court to dismiss Strateco’s request.

Wyoming uranium miners look to capitalize on end of Russian exchange program – by Benjamin Storrow (Casper Star-Tribune – December 15, 2013)

December 16, 2013

http://trib.com/

It is hard to imagine, staring out into the expanse of the Great Divide Basin, how events in Russia could shape the future of the Lost Creek uranium mine.

The closest town, Bairoil (pop. 106), is some 30 miles of bumpy dirt road away. The Wind River Mountains to the west and Green Mountain to the east offer the only break on the horizon, an otherwise unabated sea of rolling sagebrush. And the sole inhabitants, besides the bands of roving wild horses, are the Lost Creek miners themselves, though to call them miners is slightly disingenuous. Lost Creek is more oil field than it is mine, and those that work here are far more likely to tap a keyboard than wield a pickax.

But as unlikely as it may seem, this isolated facility in south-central Wyoming is inextricably linked to the land of Catherine the Great, Lenin and, more recently, Vladimir Putin.

Lost Creek began production in June. On Dec. 3 the mine made its first shipment of yellowcake uranium to a conversion facility in Illinois. A few weeks prior, on the other end of the globe, the final shipment of weapons-grade uranium was packed into a shipping container in St. Petersburg and sent via boat to Baltimore.

Strateco seeks to force deal on disputed uranium mine – by Jordan Fletcher (Globe and Mail – December 10, 2013)

December 10, 2013

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.

The battle over uranium mining in northern Quebec is heating up again. Strateco Resources Inc. petitioned a Quebec court on Dec. 5, seeking to force the province’s environmental minister to allow underground uranium exploration at the company’s Matoush project, located in the Otish mountains 200 kilometres northeast of Mistissini.

Quebec’s Minister of Sustainable Development, the Environment, Wildlife and Parks had denied Strateco’s permit on Nov. 7 after the local Mistissini Cree community refused to consent to uranium development near its hunting grounds and trap lines.

“Many Cree work in the mining industry; we are not anti-development,” said Cree Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come. “But uranium is a special case. The tailings will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. It is a burden for future generations that we are not prepared to assume.”

Miner Cameco Trains Canadian Aboriginals to Beat Shortage – by Greg Quinn (Bloomberg News – November 27, 2013)

November 28, 2013

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Phil Morin is in demand. Mining companies are recruiting worldwide to find skilled workers like him they need to develop projects in remote parts of Canada.

The problem, Morin says, is that they’re hunting in the wrong place. They could more easily solve their shortage if they looked closer to home, hiring and training aboriginals like him, the industrial mechanic said.

Cameco Corp. hired Morin 13 years ago to drive a truck between uranium mines and mills in northern Saskatchewan. With company training, he now has certifications for industrial mechanics and electrical work. About half the company’s 3,300 workforce at its Saskatchewan sites are natives, who are also known as First Nations or Indians.

“That opens a lot of doors not only for yourself but your family’s future, your children’s education,” Morin, 41, who is also head of the local union, said in a phone interview. “I would love to see this grow right across Canada and to help with aboriginal people.”

Cameco is implementing its policies of training and hiring aboriginal workers as the country prepares for C$650 billion ($616 billion) of resource development over the next decade.

Saskatchewan: the place to be [Mining and Oil] (Regina Leader-Post – November 13, 2013)

November 13, 2013

http://www.leaderpost.com/index.html

When it was announced in late September that Saskatchewan’s population had surpassed 1.1 million for the first time ever, Premier Brad Wall was quick to offer comment, and understandably so. According to the figures from Statistics Canada, the province had added 100,000 people since 2007. At the time of the announcement, it had grown by 6,895 in the preceding quarter-the largest increase in any quarter since Statistics Canada began keeping quarterly estimates.

“Saskatchewan is the place to be in Canada right now,” Wall said. “We have the strongest job growth and lowest unemployment in Canada, and we have a great quality of life in this province. “It’s a great place to find a job or start a business. It’s a great place to live and raise a family. It’s no wonder our population is growing.”

Such a statement is not hyperbolic. There are approximately 100,000 new Saskatchewan residents who apparently agree with Wall’s assessment of where their fortunes are potentially brightest. It’s one of the fastest and most sustained periods of population growth the province has experienced in living memory, and the latest signs of a sea change for a province that once saw its residents, its investment dollars and its economic fortunes trickle across its borders to other jurisdictions.

Better Than Ping Pong: Panda Diplomacy Builds [Resource] Relationships – by Cassie Ryan (Epoch Times Oct. 31 – Nov. 6, 2013)

November 8, 2013

http://www.theepochtimes.com/

Cute bears involved in uranium sales and free-trade agreements

A new study from Oxford University holds that the 50 something giant pandas on loan around the world are aimed at building ‘guanxi’ or deep, long-lasting relationships in exchange for “trades and foreign-investment deals.”

Australia, France, and most recently Canada received panda loans when uranium deals were struck with the Chinese regime. Panda transactions also took place with Asian nations like Malaysia and Thailand as part of free-trade agreements.

Published in the journal Environmental Practice, the study points to an emergent third phase in the Chinese Communist Party’s strategy of gifting and loaning pandas, whereby countries with important resources and technology can lease the black and white bears for a hefty fee. This new pattern appears to be related to the 2008 earthquake that struck Sichuan Province and damaged the Wolong Breeding Center, meaning that the 60 pandas there needed rehousing.

In phase one, during Mao Zedong’s era in the 1960s and 1970s, pandas were gifted to build strategic friendships. During Deng Xiaoping’s regime, starting in 1978, phase two involved loaning the bears in a capitalist lease model based on financial transactions.

Uranium investors eye NAFTA challenge in Quebec – by Nicolas Van Praet (National Post – November 8, 2013)

November 8, 2013

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

MONTREAL – U.S. investors are readying legal action against the Canadian government over Quebec’s resistance to Strateco Resources Inc.’s Matoush uranium mining project, the company’s chief executive says.

“We have been informed that certain important American shareholders have the intention to sue under Chapter 11 of the [North American Free Trade] agreement,” Guy Hébert said in an interview Thursday.

Mr. Hébert said he has advised them to wait for the outcome of the company’s own separate case against Quebec’s environment minister on the matter, in which it is seeking to get a definitive answer on whether the project can move forward. Some industry players say privately the confusion surrounding Matoush has made Quebec a laughing stock abroad, preventing other firms from being able to raise capital for mining projects in Canada’s second-largest province.

“Investors are telling us ‘You’re too risky’ because you’re in Quebec,’” said one senior mining executive who asked that his name not be used. “They’re saying ‘We don’t know if you can get your permitting and we don’t know how long it will take.’”

Saskatchewan Premier presses Ottawa for Asian free-trade deals – by Iain Marlow (Globe and Mail – October 29, 2013)

October 29, 2013

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.

TORONTO — In late September, a Shanghai-bound cargo ship left the port of Seattle bearing containers stuffed with drums of uranium concentrate dug from a Saskatchewan mine, the first ever shipment of Canadian-sourced uranium concentrate to China.

For Cameco Corp., the Saskatoon-based mining giant behind the shipment, the demand from China, the world’s fastest-growing nuclear energy market, has translated into two agreements struck in 2010. Those deals, combined with subsequent accords, are worth about $3-billion.

Increasing shipments to Asia, such as Cameco’s, helped push the prairie province’s exports to $32.6-billion earlier this year, surpassing British Columbia for the first time, according to Statistics Canada. That made Saskatchewan Canada’s fourth-largest provincial exporter.

Premier Brad Wall, who was in Toronto on Monday to speak to a business lunch at the Shangri-La hotel, used Cameco as an example and said much of the province’s success is a result of seeking out emerging markets and cultivating ties with countries such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.