nuclear-news

Another nuclear crisis would wipe out investment in uranium

While currently abandonment of nuclear power remains an option limited to affluent countries, one more cataclysm may nail the coffin lid of the nuclear power industry shut for good…., as another nuclear debacle in the U.S. following in the wake 1979’s Three Mile Island accident will undoubtedly prove too much, even for Madison Ave.’s PR spin doctors. No NPPS have been built in the U.S. since Three Mile Island and should bad things happen at Ft. Calhoun, where the Missouri’s water’s are still rising, the global market for uranium fuel for NPPs worldwide is going to crater, beginning with the U.S.

Kazakhstan’s Uranium Industry Could Lose Its Luster, By. John Daily,  OilPrice.com, 18 June 11-– What a difference a year and a tsunami make!

Western investors have been salivating over the post-Soviet space’s energy riches since the 1991 collapse of communism. While focusing on the Caspian’s hydrocarbon reserves other mineralogical riches awaited development as well, none more so than Kazakhstan’s vast uranium deposits.  Given an investor-friendly government in Astana, the country’s uranium deposits seemed to be the Next Big Thing, an attitude encouraged by the government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan contains the world’s second-largest uranium reserves, estimated at 1.5 million tons. Until 2009 Kazakhstan was the world’s No. 3 uranium miner, exceeded only by Australia and Canada; the three countries account for more than half of global uranium production.

And that news may be coming from the United States, birthplace of the nuclear era and currently home to 104 NPPs. On 7 June, a fire at Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant knocked out the cooling process for spent nuclear fuel rods for 90 minutes. The NPP, adjacent to the still-flooding Missouri River, is close to the capital Omaha and has been closed since April for refueling. According to local NBC affiliate WOWT, “The Ft. Calhoun Nuclear Facility is an island right now but it is one that authorities say is going to stay dry. They say they have a number of redundant features to protect the facility from flood waters that include the aqua dam, earthen berms and sandbags.” A spokesman for Omaha Public Power District says the plant is at a “notification of unusual event” classification because of the flooding.

In an era of globalization, Ol’ Man River may drown Kazakhstan’s hopes for its uranium mining industry, as another nuclear debacle in the U.S. following in the wake 1979’s Three Mile Island accident will undoubtedly prove too much, even for Madison Ave.’s PR spin doctors. No NPPS have been built in the U.S. since Three Mile Island and should bad things happen at Ft. Calhoun, where the Missouri’s water’s are still rising, the global market for uranium fuel for NPPs worldwide is going to crater, beginning with the U.S.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Kazakhstans-Uranium-Industry-Could-Lose-Its-Luster.html

June 19, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Kazakhstan, Uranium