NYT: Uranium Ignites 'Gold Rush' in the West

[skids]

LA SAL, Utah -- Given its connotations, Pandora is an oddly appropriate name for an uranium mine.

...

The revival of uranium mining in the West, though, has less to do with the renewed interest in nuclear power as an alternative to greenhouse-gas-belching coal plants than to the convoluted economics and intense speculation surrounding the metal that has pushed up the price of uranium to levels not seen since the heyday of the industry in the mid-1970s.

...

A string of natural disasters, notably flooding of large mines in Canada and Australia, has triggered the most recent spike. Hedge funds and other institutional investors, who began buying up uranium in late 2004 to exploit the volatility in this relatively small market, have accelerated the price rally.

But the more fundamental causes of the uninterrupted ascendance of prices since 2003 can be traced to inventory constraints among power companies and a drying up of the excess supply of uranium from old Soviet-era nuclear weapons that was converted to use in power plants, coupled with the expected surge in demand from China, India, Russia and a few other countries for new nuclear power plants to fuel their growing economies.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28uranium.html?ref=business

[jaksavage]

1. DOE wants to restart Hanford

I testified in Hood River last night, against.
The big plan is to build a waste eating super reactor.
Import waste from around the world.
No mention that the waste gets turned into Depleted Uranium weapons too.
That is why all the Russian fuel rods are gone
We have been spraying Nukes around Afghanistan and Iraq

It is an obsenity that Hanford is still leaking in 60 tanks.
On the banks of our Columbia River.
I recommended the audience stall the DOE and work for impeachment of the SOB


What if the DOE Announced a usage reduction campaign?
And we installed solar PV cells across the western cities
Try to get 30% of buildings involved.
Stop giving tax breaks for Hummers.
Encourage people to conserve
Flood the airwaves with public service bits of positive nature

Get the worst auto polluters off the street
Assist families in aquireing reliable affordable transport
Develop more mass transit

[fed-up]

2. thanks for testifying- nt