uranium exploration companies’ bleak outlook, with low uranium prices
Low uranium prices take toll on African exploration, Ft.com Jan 21, 2014 Low uranium prices, especially in the post-Fukushima era, are taking a toll on African exploration.
Between 2005 and 2007, the uranium price increased steeply from $20 per pound ($44 per kg) to almost $140 per pound ($311 per kg) during what came to be described as a ‘nuclear renaissance’……
But the spot price decreased after 2007. By late 2013 it had dropped to $35 per pound ($78 per kg), a challenge for an industry characterised by long timelines and heavy investments. Countries keen on building new nuclear capacity seemed to stall, including the US and the UK. Then came the Fukushima crisis, which “raised questions in the public mind about the feasibility and desirability of nuclear. It came on top of already negative market developments,” according to Ian Anthony, a nuclear expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Finally, the shale boom brought gas into the spotlight, and nuclear lost a little of its shine.
Low price trends also caused a delay to a feasibility study of Zambia’s Chirundu mine, and Areva was forced to postpone work on its Bakouma project in the Central African Republic for the same reason. The country’s serious conflict since has undermined the investment case further.
This has left companies in the lurch. In June 2013, Paladin boss John Borshoff warned that a minimum $70 per pound price level was necessary to justify investment and give risk reward to shareholders, adding that such a price appeared to be “a long way away”.
Big players are struggling too, with the likes of Areva left holding significant extraction investments which turned out to be commercial white elephants when there was no short term demand. Similar challenges have faced BHP Billiton and Canada’s Cameco in other regions…..http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/01/21/low-uranium-prices-take-toll-on-african-exploration/#axzz2rFiM1T6k
Decline in uranium market hits URENCO
Urenco hit by slowdown in uranium enrichment market By Sylvia Pfeifer Ft.com 22 Jan 14 Urenco, the uranium enrichment company being privatised by its government and utility owners, expects revenues for the past 12 months to be down “around 5 per cent” on record levels of €1.6bn in 2012.
It blamed a continued slowdown of the enrichment market but stressed that despite the expected drop for the year to end December 2013, there had been “a substantial rebalancing of revenue” in the second half of the year.
Pittsylvania residents not happy with uranium advertising
Residents Raise Questions About Legality Of Uranium Mining Billboard abc 13 Virginia: Jan 22, 2014 By Whitney Delbridge Pittsylvania Co., VA – A sign declaring Pittsylvania County “the future home of theworld’s safest uranium mine” has stood on Route 29 for months now, but local anti-uranium groups want to see it come down.
“Acceptable nuclear risk”- Is there such a thing?
Whatever we decide, the outcome may not be as relatively benign next time
What is ‘acceptable risk’ when planning a nuclear power plant, The Conversation, Peter Bernard Ladkin Professor of Computer Networks and Distributed Systems at University of Bielefeld 23 Jan 14, Modern safety engineering follows the aphorism, “there is no such thing as zero risk, only acceptable risk”. However, calculating chances and risk is a finicky process, especially when played out against factors of cost, time and complexity. Major accidents such as at Fukushima Dai-ichi – still unfolding as it approaches its third anniversary – demonstrate how essential it is to correctly assess risks and safeguards.
Risk is expectation of loss, and is dependent on the chance of a loss-event occurring combined with its magnitude. The chance can be tiny, but the loss huge, and the risk therefore considerable. Analyses of the possibility that the universe would collapse when operating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) were undertaken, despite the infinitesimal chance.
Calculating risk is now de rigeur in big engineering projects, but it wasn’t always so. Built in the late 1940s, the Windscale piles, Britain’s first two nuclear reactors, used air blown over the core and up a chimney as their cooling. Exhaust filters were added to the chimneys only as an afterthought, insisted on by designer Sir John Cockcroft at some expense – the so called “Cockcroft’s Follies”. Continue reading
Seven nuclear disasters. Who’s next?
Is Nuclear Experimentation Fascism? OpEdNews Op Eds 1/22/2014By Ethan Indigo Smith (about the author) opednews.com
“……..HANFORD, USA, 1943 — 1987
As an early “flagship’ nuclear experiment, many of the safety procedures and waste disposal practices employed at the Hanford site were completely inadequate. Although most of the reactors were shut down between 1964 and 1971, government documents have since confirmed that operations at the Hanford site released significant amounts of radioactive materials into the air and the Columbia River, which still threatens the health of residents and ecosystems today. Hanford is currently the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States, representing two-thirds of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste by volume. .
BIKINI ATOLL, NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN, 1946
The United States military undertook nuclear weapons tests at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. At the request of the US military, Bikini’s 146 native residents agreed to temporarily evacuate the island so the United States government could begin testing atomic bombs for “the good of mankind and to end all world wars.” After “confused and sorrowful deliberation”, the Bikinians agreed to the relocation request, announcing “we will go believing that everything is in the hands of God.”
Most residents were moved by the military to Rongerik Atoll, 125 miles away. Only one-sixth the size of Bikini Atoll, no one lived on Rongerik because it had an inadequate water and food supply, however the United States Navy left the natives there with only a few weeks of food and water. Predictably, this soon proved to be insufficient and the Bikinians were left starving on Rongerik. (Read more: http://www.bikiniatoll.com/history.html)
As a series of large thermonuclear tests continued at Bikini Atoll into the 1950″s, the island was eventually rendered unfit for subsistence farming and fishing, and because of radioactive contamination still remains uninhabitable today. So much for the “temporary” evacuation of the Bikinians from their native island to help the United States “end all world wars.”
WINDSCALE FIRE, UK, 1957
The worst nuclear accident in Great Britain’s history, the core of the nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumberland (now Sellafield, Cumbria) caught fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. Caused by operators pushing the first-generation design of the Windscale facility beyond its intended limits, the fire burned for three days releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere that spread across the UK and Europe.
SANTA SUSANA, USA, 1959
A reactor at the Atomics International field laboratory in the Santa Susana Mountains, California, experienced a power surge and subsequently spewed radioactive gases into the atmosphere. According to a 2009 report from the Los Angeles Times, residents blame the facility for their health issues and say the site remains contaminated.
THREE MILE ISLAND, USA, 1979
The worst accident in U.S. commercial history, the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor near Middletown (PA) partially melted down on March 28, 1979. A combination of equipment malfunctions, design-related problems and worker errors led to TMI-2″s partial meltdown and off-site releases of radioactivity. 14 years later, the clean up effort officially ended in December
CHERNOBYL, UKRAINE, 1986
Widely considered to have been the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, Chernobyl’s reactor four suffered a catastrophic power increase leading to explosions in its core. The explosion and resulting fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR (the then-Soviet Republic) and Europe.
ROCKY FLATS PLANT, USA 1987
Following insider reports of unsafe conditions, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found numerous violations of federal anti-pollution laws, including the contamination of water and soil. A grand jury report released following this incident criticized the Department of Energy and Rocky Flats contractors for “engaging in a continuing campaign of distraction, deception and dishonesty”, and noted that Rocky Flats had discharged pollutants, hazardous materials and radioactive matter into nearby creeks and water supplies for many years. But even the DOE itself acknowledged that Rocky Flats’ ground water was (at the time) the single greatest environmental hazard at any of its nuclear facilities.
The contamination levels at Rocky Flats itself, as measured by the United States government remain sealed records and have not been reported to the public. Clean-up was not declared complete until October 13, 2005 — 18 years later.
FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI, JAPAN 2011
The troubled Fukishima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan has experienced a number of “incidents’ since its construction in 1971, culminating in total reactor failure when the plant was hit by a tsunami triggered by the Tōhoku earthquake. At the time of the disaster, the plant began releasing substantial amounts of radioactive materials making it the largest nuclear incident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the second in history (with Chernobyl) to measure at Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. More than two years after the incident it was revealed that the plant is still leaking radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, and despite the technical assistance of GE (the corporation that designed the failing reactor) the situation appears to keep deteriorating as time goes on.
WHO IS NEXT?
Madhya Pradesh. India, takes to renewable energy in a big way
Renewable energy projects worth Rs 30,000 crore being implemented in Madhya Pradesh Economic Times India By Shreya Jai, ET Bureau | 23 Jan, 2014 NEW DELHI: Renewable energy projects worth Rs 30,000 crore are being implemented in Madhya Pradesh, which have quietly reached out to companies and attracted GE, Reliance Power, Spanish wind major Gamesa and others, giving tough competition to Gujarat in the sector.
Solar power for Pakistan’s Parliament House will save $millions
Pakistan Parliament House Going Solar, Renewable Energy News, 23 Jan 14 A 1.8 megawatt (MW) solar farm is being installed at the Parliament House building in Pakistan’s capital city Islamabad.
According to Trust.org, the USD $60 million project has been funded by the Chinese government; which also recently assisted in the preparation of a solar park project on over 10,000 acres that could ultimately host 1,000 MW of solar panel capacity.
The Parliament House project will not only save Pakistan’s government around a million dollars a year in electricity costs, it’s hoped the high profile array will also spur on broader adoption……http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4138
Nuclear power project stalled in Vietnam
Vietnam delays nuclear plant project Bangkok Post, : 22 Jan 2014
The Vietnamese government has decided to defer a plan to build a nuclear power plant for at least two years to ensure safety measures are put in place.
Vietnam planned to launch the project this year but Vietnamese Science and Technology Minister Nguyen Quan expected the delay due to additional safety measures, the Vietnam News reported……http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/390931/vietnam-delays-nuclear-plant-project
Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant shut down due to electric malfunction
Electric malfunction shuts down Calvert Co. power plant By Nayana Davis, The Baltimore Sun, 22 Jan 14
Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant shut down on Tuesday evening following an electric malfunction.
The outage, which occurred at around 9:25 p.m., resulted from a breakdown on the non-nuclear side of the Calvert County facility, according to a news release. http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-md-power-plant-closure-20140122,0,4226643.story#ixzz2rEnyJIhc
Lucky they fixed nuclear reactor’s coolant leak
Workers discovered the leak Monday in a valve on a water line that carries reactor water back to the reactor after it has run through the plant’s steam turbine and then been condensed back into water.
The leaky valve was in a pipe contained in a hallway-sized steam tunnel running from the turbine and generator building through a second, auxiliary equipment building and then back into the reactor containment building, said Young.
Cameras monitoring the tunnel 24 hours a day first spotted the small spray of water and steam coming from the pipe, she said. ……http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2014/01/perry_nuclear_power_plant_trit.html
Radiation health debate – LNT: an idea which should be retired? No, it should be retained!
Last year I wrote a post expressing regret that ill-informed journalists and others often wrote nonsense articles about radiation risks.
Sadly, it’s happened again.
Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue, has recently stated that the Linear No Threshold theory of radiation’s effects should be retired because it “.. is based on no knowledge whatever.” In fact, much powerful evidence backs the LNT. Some of this is discussed here.
Brand also states ” Below 100 millisieverts per year, however, no increased cancer incidence has been detected…” Well again he’s plain wrong. At least ten studies show effects below 100 mSv: they are listed here.
Mr Brand is an American so he should be aware of the US government’s premier body on radiation risks – the US National Academy of Sciences’s BEIR committee. Its 2005 report, BEIR VII, strongly supported LNT with a great deal of scientific evidence. (BEIR stands for Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation). It gave a very clear account of why LNT should be used down to very low doses: Mr Brand would be able to understand it.
The problem for Mr Brand and others like him is that radiation’s cancer and genetic risks are anonymous and remote in time so can be difficult to grasp. Here’s a good way to understand them. If 100,000 US adults were each exposed to one mSv of radiation, 10 to 15 would die of radiation-induced cancer several years even decades later. Such exposures act like a reverse lottery: each exposed person would get a reverse ticket and some unlucky people would later die. For example, after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, tens of millions of Europeans were exposed to low levels of radioactive fallout. They received reverse lottery tickets and many will ultimately die from cancers from the fallout’s radiation. The same occurred to Japanese people after Fukushima.
By the way, credit for the reverse lottery analogy goes to Jan Beyea in the US.
Japan – “A Young Girl Died of Leukemia” – 2013
Published on 7 May 2013
From a weekly protest gathering outside the Prime Minister’s official residence.
On April 12, 2013.
Filmed by Koki Kiyose
http://www.youtube.com/user/starslife…
Translated by Fukushima Voice
http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.co…
Edited by the Fukushima Collective Evacuation Trial Team
http://fukushima-evacuation-e.blogspo…
Military: China Conducts Long-Range Nuclear Missile Drill
http://mobile.defensenews.com/article/301230037
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Posted: Thursday Jan 23, 2014
China’s military has released images of an intercontinental ballistic missile with enough range to reach the United States, as Beijing is involved in a series of rows threatening to embroil Washington.
A truck carries a Chinese Dongfeng 31 ICBM to a 2009 military parade rehearsal in Beijing. China is pursuing a capability to equip ICBMs with multiple nuclear warheads, a Chinese state-controlled newspaper said this week (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan).
Image source ; http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/chinese-missile-push-seeks-counter-us-protections-experts/
The pictures of Chinese soldiers test-firing a Dongfeng-31 missile, which is said by experts to be able to carry nuclear warheads 8,000 kilometers (4,960 miles), appeared in the People’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper on Tuesday.
Further images showing soldiers dressed in protective suits, suggesting that the drill was simulating the launch of an armed warhead, were also posted on the sohu.com news portal, attributed to the newspaper.
Sohu.com said it was the first time that images of such an exercise had been released.
The images could not be found on the PLA Daily’s website when checked by AFP on Thursday.
China is embroiled in a series of territorial disputes with its neighbors in the South China Sea, and is locked in a row with Japan in the East China Sea over islands administered by Tokyo and claimed by Beijing.
The US has a security alliance with Japan and Vice President Joe Biden said last month that a strategic shift to Asia would continue.
UK gets carte blanche to expand nuclear power, fracking under new EU energy goals
http://rt.com/news/nuclear-power-wind-farms-077/
January 23, 2014
New energy goals set out by the European Union for 2030 will allow Britain to meet emissions targets by building more nuclear power plants instead of wind farms and expand fracking operations, despite criticism by green campaigners.
The European Commission has proposed a new target for 2030 across the EU – to provide 27 percent of energy from renewable sources. Each country will decide for itself how to meet the target in order to limit rising energy costs. The commission decided not to introduce any laws on environmental damage during the extraction of shale gas by the potentially dangerous drilling process known as fracking.
On Wednesday, the EC stated that EU governments should cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent compared with 1990 levels. Current national targets aimed at boosting the share of renewable energy to 20 percent would not be renewed after 2020.
“What we are presenting today is both ambitious and affordable,” EC President Jose Manuel Barroso stated.
For Germany, France and Italy – which spoke in favor of the wind and solar power development – the new goals came as a disappointment, while Britain welcomed them. The UK will still have to provide 15 percent of its energy from renewable power by 2020, but after that benchmark there will be no target.
The new policy gives the UK government the long-awaited go-ahead to develop nuclear power and fracking as its key energy source. The less stringent rules allow Britain to use a mix of energy sources, including nuclear, to tackle emissions in a cost-effective way.
“This is a really good package,” UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey said. “It looks very much in line with the things the coalition has been arguing for.”
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