nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Denison uranium miner loses, with falling uranium sales

UPDATE 1-Denison Mines falls to loss on soft uranium sales, TORONTO Aug 4 (Reuters) – Denison Mines  reported a second-quarter loss on Thursday as uranium sales fell sharply in the aftermath of the nuclear crisis in Japan.

The uranium producer said it had a net loss of $13.7 million, ….

It sold 116,000 pounds of uranium at an average price of $65.94 a pound, compared with 417,000 pounds at an average price of $45.56 in the second quarter of 2010.

Denison said that uranium demand has decreased in the aftermath of the nuclear accident in Japan and that it has deferred sales to the second half of the year, with some 570,000 pounds available in inventory…http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNews/idAFN1E7731YV20110804

August 6, 2011 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, Uranium | Leave a comment

Uranium market’s poor prospects as Cameco sinks

Cameco is the largest player in the highly volatile uranium space……Apart from causing a massive impact in Japan’s economy, as well as disrupting global supply chains, the Fukushima Daiichi incident has put the uranium industry in an existential moment.

Cameco Sinks As Sales Drop Post-Fukushima – – Forbes, 4 Aug 11, As the nuclear energy and uranium businesses recover from the crisis that was the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, Cameco posted second-quarter earnings that reveal big drops in revenue and profit. Despite hitting expectations, Cameco’s earnings sparked a sell-off given a more bearish look on their industry, ….. Continue reading →

August 5, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Uranium | Leave a comment

Uranium miller wants to cease monitoring toxic waste area

Cotter asks to stop testing impoundment pond due to dangerous conditions – The Denver Post, by Bruce Finley, 4 Aug 11 Cotter Corp. managers of a uranium mill have asked state regulators to let them stop testing the acidity of a leaking toxic- and radioactive- waste impoundment pond — saying conditions have become too dangerous for workers…..

The Cotter efforts to reduce monitoring affect Colorado’s oversight of the cleanup because state regulators rely on company data instead of conducting independent tests.

Cotter is in the process of dismantling its shuttered uranium mill, located south of the Arkansas River near Cañon City.

With state permission, the company has been moving 90,000 gallons of radioactive sludge and solvents into the impoundment, although regulators know the impoundment is leaking. Liquid waste is mixed with a material resembling cat litter that renders it more solid….

Workers at the mill, built in 1958 with federal support, processed uranium for weapons and power plants. Cotter dumped waste in 11 unlined ponds, leading to contamination of groundwater, which spread to Cañon City.

Federal Environmental Protection Agency officials in 1984 declared the mill and surrounding area a Superfund environmental disaster — then entrusted state authorities with supervising the cleanup...Cotter asks to stop testing impoundment pond due to dangerous conditions – The Denver Post

August 5, 2011 Posted by | environment, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Uranium company abandons acid leach plan mining in Australian National Park

Bad news for uranium sector, good news for Kakadu National Park, Scott Ludlam,   August 4th, 2011. The Australian Greens today welcomed the news Energy Resources Australia have abandoned plans to introduce acid heap leaching at the Ranger Uranium Mine within Kakadu National Park.

 Senator Scott Ludlam said the decision by ERA – majority owned by Rio Tinto – to ditch the plan at their board meeting yesterday was welcome news, and casts a long shadow over the viability of the controversial mine.

 “The plan to build a heap leach plant on the Ranger lease was opposed by\Traditional Owners, shareholders, business analysts, environmental advocates and mining experts. This is a win for good sense. “Ranger Uranium Mine has been an ongoing debacle with water seepage ana history of accidents. The Mirarr people – Traditional Owners of the site – and the broader Australian community want Kakadu protected. Ultimately the best way to do that will be the orderly shut-down of the uranium industry,” said Senator Ludlam.

 Last year the Office of the Supervising Scientist told a Senate estimates hearing that contaminated water seeping from the Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu National Park had a uranium concentration about 5,400 times the normal level. The environmental regulator told the hearing that about 100,000 litres of water was seeping from the tailings dam every day.

August 4, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, business and costs, Uranium | Leave a comment

EPA study into uranium contamination of Navajo land

The Mariano Lake Mine is one of a handful of sites that the EPA and its Navajo Nation counterpart have targeted for investigation or cleanup so far. They’ve been assessing hundreds of abandoned uranium mines to address what has become a legacy of death and disease across the reservation.

EPA announces deal for uranium contamination probe, Canadian Business,  August 01, 2011 FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing an effort to determine the extent of contamination at a former uranium mining site on the Navajo Nation that marked a high priority for assessment. Continue reading →

August 2, 2011 Posted by | indigenous issues, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Complexities of radiation in medical nuclear technology

How Nuclear Recoil Damages DNA  – Technology Review, 1 August 11, The recoil of a nucleus during radioactive decay can do more damage than the alpha particle it emits, according to a new study. Thorium-232 is a silvery, radioactive metal that is particularly good at absorbing X-rays. In the early days of X-ray imaging, doctors routinely injected patients with thorium dioxide because it produced high contrast images. Between the 1930s to the 1950s, some 10 million people received these doses…..

What doctors didn’t appreciate at the time were the long term effects on the body. Once injected, Thorotrast settles in various organs where it tends to stay. The biological half life of the stuff is 22 years. Continue reading →

August 1, 2011 Posted by | health, Uranium | Leave a comment

Thorium nuclear reactors not effective, not a viable technology

‘Even if thorium technology does progress to the point where it might be commercially viable, it will face the same problems as conventional nuclear: it is not renewable or sustainable and cannot effectively connect to smart grids. The technology is not tried and tested, and none of the main players is interested. Thorium reactors are no more than a distraction.’

Don’t believe the spin on thorium being a ‘greener’ nuclear option, The Ecologist, Eifion Rees,  23rd June, 2011 “………China, Russia, France and the US are also pursuing the technology, while India’s department of atomic energy and the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council are jointly funding five UK research programmes into it.

There is a significant sticking point to the promotion of thorium as the ‘great green hope’ of clean energy production: it remains unproven on a commercial scale. While it has been around since the 1950s (and an experimental 10MW LFTR did run for five years during the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, though using uranium and plutonium as fuel) it is still a next generation nuclear technology – theoretical. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, spinbuster, technology, Uranium | 5 Comments

USA Republicans use budget Bill to promote Grand Canyon uranium mining

The Interior spending bill now goes to the full House for approval. If it passes — as expected, on a largely party-line vote — the Senate should make certain that none of the anti-environmental provisions survive in the final appropriations bill. And President Obama should veto any legislation that includes them.

EDITORIAL: Protect the Grand Canyon, House Republicans target a mining moratorium, Register Guard,  July 14, Congressional Republicans are continuing their assault on the nation’s environmental safeguards with a proposal to reverse a recently imposed 20-year ban on mining 1 million acres bordering the Grand Canyon.

Democrats were unable to strip this rapacious proposal from an Interior spending bill that was approved Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee. Never mind that 3,500 mining claims have been filed in the Grand Canyon area alone. Never mind that uranium mining would generate toxic wastes that would pollute the Colorado River, on which millions of Americans rely for drinking water. Continue reading →

July 15, 2011 Posted by | politics, Uranium, USA | 2 Comments

Rossing uranium mine workers on strike for fairer pay

“It is the second largest employer after Namdeb. Rössing already made a loss last year, so this is big stuff.”

Rössing workers defy court order, Namibian 15 July 11, By: DENVER KISTING, YESTERDAY afternoon, Rössing Uranium employees ignored an order by Judge President Petrus Damaseb, who had ruled that their three-day strike was illegal and they must return to work immediately.

This means that by this morning, the accumulated loss for the uranium giant as a result of the strike amounted to approximately N$22,5 million. In court papers filed at the High Court in Windhoek yesterday, the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Mpho Mothoa, said Rössing has lost approximately N$2,5 million per shift. It has three shifts per day. Continue reading →

July 15, 2011 Posted by | employment, Namibia, Uranium | Leave a comment

Uranium mining in Virginia opposed by Halifax Council

Halifax Council to step up opposition to uranium mining  The Gazette Virginian  8 July 11, Halifax Town Council is set to take a firm stand opposing uranium mining in nearby Pittsylvania County.

At its monthly work session Wednesday night at Halifax Town Hall, council discussed possible strategies to get out the word on the hazards uranium mining presents to the county’s water sources.

Council had requested the county to include the Virginia Beach study, “A Preliminary Assessment of Potential Impacts of Uranium Mining in Virginia on Drinking Water Sources,” in the regional water supply plan. The county board of supervisors approved the regional supply plan at its June 20 meeting with the Virginia Beach study included.

A number of councilmen attended the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors’ meeting Tuesday night that featured Tom Leahy, Virginia Beach director of public works, speaking on how the water system downstream from the uranium mining operation would be affected in the event of a disaster resulting in a spill at the mining site.
Councilman Jack Dunavant, chairman of the Current Affairs Committee, said Leahy has agreed to come to Halifax County to speak to citizens on the impact of uranium mining. ……http://www.gazettevirginian.com/index.php/news/34-news/3486-halifax-council-to-step-up-opposition-to-uranium-mining

July 9, 2011 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

IAEA likely to rubber stamp Australian company’s plan for dumping radioactive waste in Malaysia

“How can we monitor daily? The risks of human error are too high,” she said, pointing out that the half-life of thorium was 14 billion years…..Fuziah promised that if the report from the panel, which includes members of the IAEA, was as she anticipated, she will continue to bring the issue to a higher level and exert pressure on authorities.

No confidence in Lynas safety review’, Free Malaysia Today Tashny Sukumaran,  June 20, 2011, The IAEA report on the Lynas Corp is bound to be slanted and the human factor will not be taken into account, says Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh. KUALA LUMPUR: Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh is already second guessing the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) report on the Lynas Corp’s rare earth refinery in Gebeng, Pahang.

She said she has no confidence in the independent panel’s safety review of the RM300 million Lynas Corp rare earth refinery . “I can imagine the outcome will contain acknowledgement of safety concerns, but also on how this refinery can be made safe,” said Fuziah. Continue reading →

June 21, 2011 Posted by | ASIA, Uranium, wastes | Leave a comment

At last, Grand Canyon to be protected from uranium mining

The moratorium will “reverse a century-long history of damage to the Grand Canyon from uranium mining,” 

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO BAN URANIUM MINING AT GRAND CANYON, FORBES, OSHA GRAY DAVIDSON Standing at the south rim of the Grand Canyon this morning, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that the Obama administration will enact a 20-year ban on new uranium mining in the last remaining unprotected lands surrounding the place President Theodore Roosevelt called “the one great sight which every American should see.”

Mining companies had filed thousands of claims in recent years, but it is unlikely that any of the 3,500 mining claims in the area will receive federal permits when the 20-year ban goes into effect. In March, Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) issued permits to three uranium mines on the land – provoking an outcry by native peoples, hunters, hikers, tourism groups and environmental organizations. Continue reading →

June 21, 2011 Posted by | environment, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

New uranium mining on Grand Canyon stopped for 20 years

20-year ban planned on new Grand Canyon uranium mining, LA Times 20 June 11By Neela Banerjee, The Obama administration announces the proposed ban for 1 million acres of land bordering the Grand Canyon, an area where uranium mining claims have spiked 2,000% in the last seven years.

Mining claims around the Grand Canyon are among the thousands filed by companies along the borders of numerous national parks and wilderness areas.Critics say an outmoded 1872 law is driving the increase in claims in such sensitive places. The law allows corporations to stake out rights to federal lands for mining without a competitive bid and to extract resources without paying royalties.

The ban would strengthen a moratorium on new mining claims and activity, which the administration placed on Grand Canyon border lands two years ago in response to the jump in uranium stakes.Interior Department officials said the agency initially would extend the current moratorium another six months, until December, in order to complete the steps necessary to establish the 20-year ban. Mines currently in operation would not be affected.

Environmentalists, some lawmakers and water utilities serving metropolitan areas in the southwest, including Los Angeles, said the decision would protect the critical Colorado River watershed from possible contamination from uranium mining and would prevent the Grand Canyon panorama from being gradually industrialized…….http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sc-dc-0621-grand-canyon-20110620,0,1196854.story

June 21, 2011 Posted by | environment, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

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. Continue reading →

June 19, 2011 Posted by | business and costs, Kazakhstan, Uranium | Leave a comment

$10,000 ‘gifts’ for each lawmaker’s Paris jaunt, from Virginia Uranium

The trips, which are permissible under state law, are reported as gifts…..

Virginia Uranium Inc. picking up tab for trip to France for state lawmakers, Washington Post By Associated Press,  : June 17 RICHMOND, Va. — A company that wants to mine a uranium deposit in Southside Virginia is picking up the tab for a trip to France by more than a dozen state legislators who will have a say in whether the state ends a ban on uranium mining. Continue reading →

June 19, 2011 Posted by | politics, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »