Rio warning sends resource stocks plummeting | theage.com.au
Rio warning sends resource stocks plummeting
The AgeBarry FitzGerald October 17, 2008 RIO TINTO’S confession that the five-year commodities boom was unravelling has triggered a global sell-off in resource equities and mineral commodities.
The big four of the industry – BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Anglo American – took their biggest one-day share-price hits since the 1987 crash while the slide in metal prices accelerated, in some cases to below marginal costs of production.
Rio let the cat out of the bag on Wednesday in its September quarter production report.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Old dog, nuke tricks | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Environment America says McCain’s nuclear expansion would be ‘an economic disaster’
BVGrist by Kate Sheppard 14 Oct 2008Environment America today released a new report looking at the environmental implications of John McCain’s plan to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030, and 100 over time. Their report concludes that McCain’s plan would be “an economic and environmental disaster.”
Environment America, which has endorsed Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential election, found that the 45 reactors would cost taxpayers $315 billion, because most of the funding would have to come from taxpayer-backed federal loans. They also found that expanding the nuclear industry would create less than a quarter of the 700,000 that McCain promised in the first presidential debate. And since the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association, estimates that it takes about 10 years to bring a new nuclear power plant online, it would do little for short-term energy concerns. Nuclear power is also resource-intensive — 45 nuclear power plants would use between 200 billion to 350 billion gallons of water per year. And, of course, there are the outstanding concerns about safety, storage, and disposal…………………………..
Their report concludes that McCain’s nuclear plan “fails to take advantage of cleaner, cheaper alternatives” like wind and solar, which “can deliver more energy much sooner than building new nuclear power plants, and create more jobs at a lower cost to taxpayers — without the risks.”
Old dog, nuke tricks | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Tags: nuclear
Rio looks to rebuild confidence | smh.com.au
Rio looks to rebuild confidence
Sydney Morning HeraldJamie Freed October 15, 2008 RIO Tinto’s chief executive, Tom Albanese, will today attempt to shore up market confidence in the miner’s decision to reject a hostile bid from BHP Billiton amid a worsening outlook for key commodities.
After the release of Rio’s quarterly report this afternoon, he will also be required to address concerns his company will not meet its target of $US7 billion ($10.4 billion) of additional asset sales by the end of the year because of poor market conditions…………………………Rio’s uranium subsidiary, Energy Resources of Australia, yesterday lowered its annual production guidance from a previous range of 5400 to 5900 tonnes to a level “expected to approach” 5400 tonnes.
Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand
Paladin Says Crunch May Scupper Some Uranium Projects By Jesse RiseboroughOct. 15 (Bloomberg) — Paladin Energy Ltd., the Australian company producing uranium in Namibia, said the global credit crisis will delay or scupper planned industry projects, cutting supplies of the nuclear fuel.“The impact of the credit tightness on the supply side of the uranium business will probably cause the deferral or cancellation of some planned uranium projects,” Perth-based Paladin said today in a statement.The worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression has made banks more reluctant to lend money, raising global borrowing costs. JPMorgan Chase & Co. last week cut its uranium price forecast through to 2010, citing the potential for the freeze to slow nuclear power project development.The credit crunch will also “reduce the money available for exploration companies, which will only exacerbate the supply- demand imbalance in the future,” Paladin said.
Paladin dropped 3 cents, or 13 percent to A$2.27 at 10:23 a.m. Sydney time on the Australian stock exchange. It’s dropped 67 percent this year.
newsobserver.com | Nuclear power: the negatives
Nuclear power: the negatives
Oct 14, 2008CARY – Proponents of nuclear power speak of a “nuclear renaissance.” The facts show that rather than a renaissance, we face a nuclear apocalypse, heralded by, instead of the traditional four horsemen, five horsemen: cost, proliferation, risk, waste, and water consumption. Consider them individually: Consider them individually:
COST. In spite of early claims that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter,” nuclear power started out expensive, requiring large subsidies and loan guarantees from the government, and it has stayed that way. A preliminary estimate for two new 1,000 megawatt nuclear plants proposed by Progress Energy in Florida is $17 billion, and that cost is likely to grow as required revisions to Westinghouse’s AP-1000 advanced reactor design add years to the time before those reactors will be ready for use.
An industry estimate puts the cost of new nuclear power at 14c per kilowatt-hour, and rising — higher than all other sources of energy except solar, whose cost is falling.
Potential financiers of nuclear power remain leery — cost and potential safety problems make the risks of new nuclear power too high.
newsobserver.com | Nuclear power: the negatives
Tags: nuclear
Procedural problems may force cancellation of nuclear tender
Procedural problems may force cancellation of nuclear tender
TODAY’S ZAMAN 14 Oct 08 A tender for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Turkey, held on Sept. 25, may be cancelled due to its failure to meet technical criteria.
The fact that there was only one bidder in the tender, analysts say, may lead to its cancellation because it fell short of creating a competitive environment.The only bidder for the tender was the Park Teknik consortium, set up by the Russian AtomStroyExport and Inter RAO UES and the Turkish Ciner Group.
At a time when the construction of a nuclear power plant has been strongly protested by some groups, only receiving one bid for the tender has complicated things for the government……………..If the Russian company is awarded the contract, Russian interests in the generation of Turkey’s electricity will rise from 35 percent to 55 percent. Turkey fulfills 60 percent of its natural gas needs from Russia, and it does not want to get into a similar situation with power generation………………………….Russia already controls about 25 percent of the world market for nuclear energy,
Procedural problems may force cancellation of nuclear tender
Tags: nuclear
North Korea to resume disabling atom sites – International Herald Tribune
North Korea to resume disabling atom sites
:International Herald Tribune October 12, 2008 North Korea welcomed its removal Sunday from Washington’s terrorism blacklist and said it would resume disabling its nuclear weapons facilities, allowing U.S. and United Nations monitors back into its main nuclear complex.
The United States announced Saturday that it had removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism. In return, North Korea said Sunday that it would resume disabling a plutonium plant and other key facilities at its nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, and allow some inspections to verify the process.
North Korea to resume disabling atom sites – International Herald Tribune
Environmental Capital – WSJ.com : Financial Fallout: Market Tumbles Shake Nuclear Clean-Up Funds
October 10, 2008, Financial Fallout: Market Tumbles Shake Nuclear Clean-Up Funds
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL by Keith Johnson 10 Oct 08 The Wall Street meltdown is making it tougher to build new nuclear power plants, but it’s doing more than that. It could also make it tougher to tear down the existing ones.
The stock market’s tumble is cracking the piggy bank designed to safely mothball Vermont’s Yankee nuclear power plant when the plant is evenutally shut down, notes the Boston Globe. Since the spring, the so-called “decommissioning fund” for the Entergy plant, which will pay to dismantle and safely entomb nuclear reactors when they are shut down, has lost about $40 million, or 10% of its value……………………..ll nuclear plants are required to have a fund set aside to pay for their eventual clean-up. Since nuclear plants have such a long operating life, and clean-up takes even longer, most rely on long-term investments to meet funding requirements. How much does decomissioning cost? No one really knows. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission figures it should cost between $280 million and $612 million per reactor—or a maximum pricetag of about $63 billion for America’s 104 nuclear reactors. Then again, Britain estimates the total clean-up bill for its 19 nuclear reactors at $165 billion,………………ll nuclear plants are required to have a fund set aside to pay for their eventual clean-up. Since nuclear plants have such a long operating life, and clean-up takes even longer, most rely on long-term investments to meet funding requirements. How much does decomissioning cost? No one really knows. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission figures it should cost between $280 million and $612 million per reactor—or a maximum pricetag of about $63 billion for America’s 104 nuclear reactors. Then again, Britain estimates the total clean-up bill for its 19 nuclear reactors at $165 billion,
Environmental Capital – WSJ.com : Financial Fallout: Market Tumbles Shake Nuclear Clean-Up Funds
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
The Standard | Online Edition :: More studies needed on nuclear power
More studies needed on nuclear power
THE STANDARD By John Njiraini 10 Oct 08
Kenya must undertake a comprehensive assessment of her long-terma energy needs and exploit local resources before contemplating the construction of a nuclear plant, a nuclear expert has said.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) senior energy economist Dr Ferenc Toth, said the country might encounter enormous problems in financing a nuclear plant due to stringent conditions from international financers.
This is because unless Kenya puts in place a clear legal framework on nuclear energy that includes security and safety measures and an independent regulatory body, financers would keep their distance.
“Nuclear energy is not the panacea to solve Kenya’s energy problems………………….Toth advised that instead of contemplating a nuclear plant, which will take at least 15 years to put up, the country should invest in renewable resources that are cheaper and faster to implement.
The Standard | Online Edition :: More studies needed on nuclear power
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Department of Energy faces huge cost increases – Mid-Columbia News | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news
Department of Energy faces huge cost increases
TriCity Herald By Annette Cary, Herald staff writerOct. 07, 2008
Cost increases and project delays continue to mount at the Department of Energy’s 10 largest projects at nuclear weapons sites, five of them at Hanford, according to a Government Accountability Office report to Congress………………………Estimated costs for DOE’s 10 largest cleanup projects have increased by a combined $25 billion over the past few years, with the largest increase in the cost to clean up and close Hanford’s tank farms, where 53 million gallons of radioactive waste are held in underground tanks………………………………
The estimated completion date has moved from 2032 to sometime between 2042 and 2050.
Schedule delays for the 10 projects GAO studied were as long as 15 years, with the longest delays projected at Hanford.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand
JPMorgan Cuts Uranium Price Forecasts, Citing Financial Crisis
By Angela Macdonald-Smith Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut its forecast for uranium prices through 2010 because of increased spot-market sales of the radioactive metal in September and the potential for the credit freeze to slow nuclear power project development…………………………….Uranium-oxide spot prices, which reached a record $138 a pound in June last year, dropped $4 to $49 in the week ended Oct. 6, The Ux Consulting Co. LLC said on its Web site.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,High up-front capital costs for nuclear power projects may slow the so-called nuclear renaissance, the securities firm said. Nuclear power stations can cost between $1,400 and $3,500 per kilowatt-hour of installed capacity, it said.
Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
It’s about time to kill off nuclear energy
A short-lived tyranny It’s about time to kill off nuclear energy
OCOLLY.COM By Brandon McVeyOpinion Columnist : October 06, 2008 Pop Quiz: what source of energy has received the most government subsidies since World War II, has a by-product that has remained dangerous for thousands of years, and is a major component of McCain’s energy proposal?What I’m talking about is nuclear energy — 1950’s energy of the future. Back then, it was thought that nuclear energy would be the radioactive wave that would carry the world into the atomic age, supplying nearly all of the world’s electricity and a significant portion of its commercial energy. Obviously, nuclear energy has failed to live up to this expectation.
In the United States, no nuclear power plants have been built since the late 1970s. For private investors, the costs of building, maintaining and decommissioning a nuclear power plant overrun each other. Simply put, nuclear energy is a value destroyer that has only been proliferated by billing the American taxpayer. The modern initiatives for nuclear power still fail to recognize many of the flaws of the energy source.
Although electricity produced through nuclear power has been competitive, this price is not representative of all the costs along the nuclear energy value chain. …………………………..we shouldn’t delude ourselves about nuclear.
Maintaining nuclear reactors can be expensive, yet necessary for the reactor to be stable and safe.
Unfortunately, when the companies that manage such nuclear reactors already work with thin profit margins, safety problems can be ignored until the plant has to shut down to address them.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has recorded on its Web site that an outage at a nuclear power plant which lasted more than a year has occurred 51 times at 41 different reactors. While in the 1960s and 1970s the plants were closed primarily for damage recovery, since 1996 all the year-long outages were for safety restoration…………………………There is no agreed-upon method for storing the wastes for 10,000 years, much less 240,000. Currently, many nuclear power plants in the U.S. store these wastes in deep water pools or dry concrete casks. Sabotage, terrorist attacks or earthquakes at one of these sites could release significant amounts of radioactive materials into the troposphere, contaminating large areas for decades……………………………..
America seems to be entering an era of socialistic corporatism. The measures for supporting nuclear energy are much akin to the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector. The government has visibly become an instrument for insuring private profit at public cost.
In reality, nuclear energy in this country is just a zombie kept alive by massive government subsidies.
It’s about time to kill off nuclear energy
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Power cuts feared in UK nuclear plants crisis – Home News, UK – The Independent
Power cuts feared in UK nuclear plants crisis
THE INDEPENDENT 5 Oct 08 Six out of 10 of the nation’s atomic stations are operating below capacity, throwing their future into doubt. By Geoffrey Lean and Jonathan Owen…………………..The majority of the power stations are in dire trouble, and their failure is leading to the most acute concern in years that the country may run short of electricity this winter.Two of the 10 have been idle for almost a year, with both reactors out of action due to corrosion. Another two have had one of their reactors closed down for months. And yet another two are having to run both their reactors at less than three-quarters of their normal power for safety reasons.
And even that is not the end of it. Of the four that are still in good working condition, one is due to shut down permanently in two years’ time, a second is partially closed for routine maintenance, and a third is facing safety questions following the discovery of flaws in similar reactors in Japan………………………..it proves the inherent unreliability of the technology, and point to construction problems, delays and cost overruns in the only two nuclear power stations at present being built in Europe, in Finland and France.
Power cuts feared in UK nuclear plants crisis – Home News, UK – The Independent
Tags: Nuclear, antinuclear, radiation, uranium
Mineweb – ENERGY – Uranium`s crystal ball is price sobering
RCR QUARTERLY REVIEW Uranium’s crystal ball is price sobering
Mineweb Ross Louthean 05 Oct 2008 The industry average long-term uranium price has been downgraded $US15/lb by RCR’s just-released quarterly Equity Research Report from its third quarter report to $US80/lb and saying that in the current quarter it will trade between $US50-65/lb.At the time the report was released the spot uranium price was $US55/lb.
RCR’s principal, John Wilson, said global equity markets remain volatile and investor sentiment cautious and this has seen the junior end of the resource sector “disproportionately negatively impacted.”
“A number of companies are trading below their cash backing and we expect smaller cap public companies to continue to face funding challenges,” he said…………………..
The market valuation of Australian companies with one or more uranium projects is down 11% over the past month and down 44% over the past 12 months.
This compares with a selection of Canadian companies with one or more uranium projects, down 25% over the past month and down 57% over the past 12 months………………………….”Producers, however, could face significant challenges in financing and developing new projects, including spiralling cost pressures and potential delays variously relating to permitting, infrastructure development and commissioning.”
Mineweb – ENERGY – Uranium`s crystal ball is price sobering
Tags: Nuclear, antinuclear, radiation, uranium
Financial meltdown to end “nuclear renaissance”?
U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, speaking to reporters during an international energy conference in Paris this week, said that long-term energy projects like building new nuclear plants could be at significant risk and “the most difficult to finance” because of the growing global financial crisis. With the global financial domino effect continuing to fall out of the subprime mortgage collapse, Bodman said a “nuclear renaissance” has the most to lose. In an Associated Press report, Bodman forecasted that a failure of the U.S. to resolve the ongoing financial crisis would have “a significant impact” on energy demand and said “that’s what leads to the need to come up with a solution.”
Our View: What that “solution” might be is an open question and raises the concern that the Bush financial “rescue effort” could hide federal backing for the high stakes rollers of new atomic power plant projects. A lot of pork can be stampeded through Congress in this $700 billion financial bailout of bad loans of historic proportions. This would be particularly true for a notoriously risky nuclear power industry that cannot attract financing other than unlimited federal taxpayer dollars.
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Report Launch Online: We are seeing an increasing exploitation of space for military and commercial purposes. This must change.
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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