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Escalating costs of taxpayer funded uranium mining cleanup

Hot Rocks: Hidden Cost and Foreign Ownership of “Clean” Nuclear Fuel Emerging,THE HUFFINGTON POST, D.A. Barber, 1 April 2010,  Western U.S. supporters of “clean” nuclear power say it means more jobs at uranium mines and mills. But critics say the escalating costs of past uranium facility clean-up, billion-dollar subsidies, and the fact that most of the companies are foreign-owned, has seemingly gone unnoticed.
During the State of the Union speech, President Obama announced that a green energy portfolio should include “safe, clean nuclear power plants.” It was reminiscent of former President Bush, who pushed nuclear power as an “alternative energy” in the 2005 energy Act, which offered $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees. Mr. Obama has proposed tripling those guarantees to $54 billion. The Department of Energy has already approved $8.3 billion for two reactors in Georgia, costing approximately $14 billion and taking six to 10 years to come on line. Last year, DOE also announced $2.9 million in scholarships to nuclear engineering students, and another $6 million in grants to universities for nuclear research. And on March 8th, the government gave $40 million to Westinghouse Electric Co. and General Atomics, the defense contractor that builds the Predator drones used in Afghanistan, to design the “Next Generation Nuclear Plant.”
The uranium industry apparently saw this windfall coming and has quietly been dealing with one irony of U.S. nuclear power: the nation imports nearly 90 percent of its nuclear fuel. Ironically, most mining and milling proposals of recent years are from foreign-owned companies and some of the fuel is potentially destined to be shipped to Belgium, Japan, and South Korea. Even the newest enrichment plant to convert uranium to reactor fuel is wholly foreign owned. And, at a time when the government is still cleaning up1980’s-era uranium mine and mills at a cost of many billions of dollars, some companies responsible for contaminated sites continue to receive leases on public land, including a Canadian company which tried to skirt clean-up laws under the terms of NAFTA.

Complicating the matter is the federal mining law of 1872 – unchanged since it was signed by Ulysses S. Grant – that allows mining claims for as little as $1 an acre on federal land and no royalties to taxpayers despite the fact that some companies routinely leave behind multimillion-dollar cleanup sites……

What is telling are the international connections of the companies involved and the fact that those leases go for “well below market value,……”In Utah,….Western Colorado…Wyoming……. New Mexico…..Some of these projects are encroaching unconfortably close to public lands such Arches National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Canyonlands National Park, the proposed Dolores River Canyon wilderness area in Colorado, and even Arizona’s Grand Canyon…..

D.A. Barber: Hot Rocks: Hidden Cost and Foreign Ownership of “Clean” Nuclear Fuel Emerging

April 2, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | antinuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, uranium