Uranium Mine: Tribe and Environmentalists Sue Forest Service

The Havasupai Tribe and environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service for allowing a uranium mining business to activate six miles outside of Grand Canyon National Park. 

Havasupai Chairman Don Watahomigie supposed the mine is on a sacred site and designated conventional enlightening property. He’s also anxious about caring the tribe’s drinking water.

Environmentalists say the Forest Service needs to modernize a 1986 environmental review.

The mine falls in the 1-million-acre ban on removal approved by the Obama Administration over a year ago. The Forest Service determined the Canyon Mine had “valid existing rights” predating the ban, which would allow the extract to operate. 

A presenter for the U.S. Forest Service says he cannot comment on pending litigation.

Locals, NGOs take aim at Toro Energy over Wiluna uranium mine

Toro Energy has rejected claims it did not consult generally enough about its designed uranium mine in WA, but concedes it has sponsored a scientist who argues low level radiation is valuable to health.

The state's Environmental Protection Authority last week backed Toro's proposal to extend WA's initial uranium mine, the Wiluna project.All that remains for the mine to go ahead is a optimistic decision to proceed by the company's board, and maintain by state Environment Minister Bill Marmion and his federal counterpart Tony Burke.

On Monday, Wiluna local and indigenous elder Glen Cooke said he was dangerous of the community consultation procedure undertaken by Toro and now required consultation from the environment ministers.Mr Cooke said he was supported by other locals.

Construction begins on tunnel at Ranger uranium mine

The operator of the Northern Territory's Ranger uranium mine has begun construction on a two-kilometre underground investigation tunnel.Energy Resources of Australia is spending $120 million on the project, which it hopes resolve unlock 34,000 tonnes of uranium oxide.

General Manager of main projects David Stark says ERA will use the exploration reuslts to decide whether an underground mine is viable. "There is a condition for 35,000 metres of exploration drilling into that ore body to firm up accurately what is there," he said."That can actually only be achieved by close proximity.

"The only way we can do that is by putting in an investigation decline down there and do the drilling from that point."The tunnel is predictable to be completed by mid-2013 and the company will then spend a further $50 million on a feasibility study. At this stage, the local Mirarr people at Jabiru contain not agreed to the development of an underground mine by ERA.

Andhra uranium mine set to fuel nuclear power output to 7-year high

At a time when coal and gas shortages have crippled operations at nearly everyone of India’s thermal stations, a boost in nuclear fuel is set to take atomic power generation to a seven-year record next fiscal. With supplies from a new uranium mine and dispensation facility at Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh set to commence later this year, the capacity factor of the 20 operational nuclear reactors, adding together up to an installed capacity of 4,780 MWe, is now projected to top 80 per cent in 2012-13, according to latest estimates drawn by the Department of Atomic Energy. Uranium imports from Russia, France and Kazakhstan have previously helped half the nuclear fleet achieve near-optimal operations.

In 2006-07, the capacity factor was 64 per cent, but plummet to 50 per cent in 2008-09. (The ability factor is the ratio of the actual output to its output if operated at full potential.) It bounced back to 61 per cent in 2009-10 and increased further to 71 per cent in 2010-11. In the first nine months of this economic it has reached 78 per cent.

This marks a whole turnaround from the uranium shortage that stymied nuclear power generation for much of the second half of the last decade. Fuel imports from the three countries that supply uranium to India are now additional than what is required by the ten reactors under international safeguards. “Currently, ten reactors are fuelled by indigenous fuel, which is not accessible in the required quantity. So these are organism operated at lower power levels,” said an official.

Pittsylvania County farmer takes uranium mining debate to heart

Uranium mining is likely to be the hot button concern when Virginia lawmakers begin work in a couple of weeks up in Richmond.A suggestion to lift a statewide ban on the mining of the radioactive mineral is polarizing and individually impactful.

Consider the case of a 200-year-old farm near a planned uranium mine site in Pittsylvania County.The 104 acre farm has be in farmer Byron Motley's family for seven generations."It was a tobacco farm for many years and then when they bought the tobacco allotment out I turned it into a hay farm and I'm just raising hay," Motley said.

But keeping his possessions up to par isn't what's waking him up in the middle of the night, it's worrying whether he'll get to keep it. Assorted and his family live about two miles from the proposed uranium mine site at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County.Part of his property falls under, what current studies have called, a contamination or condemned zone.

Namibia clears Extract to build Husab uranium mine

Extract Resources has won a licence to enlarge its Husab uranium mine in Namibia, which could help push up he price a Chinese suitor can offer for the $2 billion Australia-based company in a widely likely buyout bid.State-owned China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp (CGNPC) is in talks to take over Extract's 43 percent shareholder, Kalahari Minerals, through Husab, the world's fourth-largest uranium deposit, seen as the key target.

Extract said on Wednesday it had established the terms that Namibia's Ministry of Mines and Energy had set for granting a licence for Husab, and the ministry would through the mining commissioner to issue a licence for the project."This marks the final step to achieve all of the permits that we need in order to initiate the development of the Husab Uranium Project," Extract Chief Executive Jonathan Leslie said in a statement.

Extract has been in talks with global miner Rio Tinto to link expansion of Husab with Rio's neighbouring Rossing uranium mine. Rio Tinto owns an 11 percent stake in Kalahari and a 14 percent stake in Extract.CGNPC, which first approach Kalahari in March just previous to 
Japan's Fukushima disaster, has until Dec. 8 to decide whether to go ahead with a for Kalahari or be forced to wait a additional six months before it can come back with another.

Senator says uranium mine plans flawed

In his public submission, as part of the EPA approval progression Senator Ludlam says there are a series of unanswered questions regarding the company's planned mine in WA's northern Goldfields.

Toro Energy is seeking environmental support for what could become WA's first uranium mine Senator Ludlam says there are serious flaws in the company's plans,"The company is proposing to leave at the rear in the landscape tens of million of tonnes of very thinly powered carcinogenic radioactive waste and they are asking the taxpayer to take on that charge 10 years after the mine closes," he said.

"For them to do that, they then need to put up a credible proposal for how that substance is going to be isolated from people and the surroundings for tens of thousands of years and they haven't even made an attempt to do that."

BHP Billiton approves $1.2 bn to start work on giant copper and uranium mine

BHP Billiton on Wednesday approved $1.2 billion in pre-commitment capital to start development work on its Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine, which analysts estimate could almost cost 30 times that much to develop fully.

The funds will be used to buy trucks, build worker housing and for additional items requiring lengthy lead times, it said BHP said it will not make a final decision to go ahead until mid-2012, after it weighs up the 150 environmental conditions compulsory on the project by the national and South Australia state governments this week.

Once fully developed, Olympic Dam would approximately be on par with the massive copper mines of South America, although it would take years before the mine came close to identical the output of BHP's giant Escondida lode in Chile.

Hathor urges shareholders to reject Cameco bid

Hathor Exploration (HAT.TO) urged shareholders on Wednesday to reject a conquest offer from Cameco Corp (CCO.TO), saying the C$520 million ($526 million) bid undervalues the excellence of its Roughrider uranium deposit.

Cameco launched its aggressive bid for the uranium exploration company in late August, after talks meant at a friendly deal failed [ID:nNL4E7JQ27] at stake is Hathor's Roughrider deposit, a uranium project situated near Cameco's Rabbit Lake mill in the Athabasca Basin of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

Hathor said Cameco's C$3.75 a share offer was financially insufficient and failed to ascribe value to Roughrider and to its other assets, as well as its Russell Lake property in the southeastern Athabasca Basin, Cameco, which is Canada's top uranium producer, argue that Hathor is underestimating the costs, timeline and risks related with building a uranium mine and mill, and as such, has overstated the worth of its projects.

Kalahari Minerals: bid for uranium firm back on?

The takeover bid for Namibia-focused uranium firm Kalahari Minerals (LON:KAH) will quickly be back on, according to Ambrian Partners analyst Duncan Hughes, now with the purpose of three months have elapsed since the UK Takeover Panel forbade Chinese firm CGNPC-URC from falling its 290 pence per share offer for Kalahari to 270 pence per share.

On May 10 the Takeover Panel ruled so as to China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group – Uranium Resources Co , would not be permitted to announce an present for Kalahari for a price of less than 290 pence per share for three months at the time, Proactive Investors reported so as to Rio Tinto, which owns the neighbouring Rossing uranium mine, might also be a rival suitor for Kalahari.

Ambrian’s Hughes now believes that an offer of 270 pence per share might be imminent, “I think that something will contain to happen here,” he told Proactive Investors, “If not CGNPC, then it will be Rio” An important signal for a renewed takeover attempt might be CGNPC’s announcement this week that it is issuing approximately £283 million in short-term bonds, with a maturity of 366 days, on the interbank market, although it said that the proceeds will be worn to “replenish the firm’s working capital and repay loans”.

Energy resources woes rise as uranium reserves tumble

The Darwin-based ERA has also reported a first-half net loss of $121.75 million, losing from a $22.7m profit a year earlier the loss integrated a $99.4m inventory writedown because of the shelved project, which would include processed stockpiles through acid-leaching, and a surprise reduction in grades of extra stockpiles that ERA had planned to process.

The woes add to ERA's dismal first-half construction from its Ranger uranium mine after heavy rains stopped its plant, as well as to an ailing viewpoint for uranium markets in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, In response in the direction of yesterday's result, ERA's shares slumped 42c, or 10 per cent, to a seven-year low of $3.92, despite the original loss of $22.3m beating analysts' forecasts and the support of the $120m underground Ranger Deeps exploration decline.

The stock is now down 70 per cent in the long-ago year, representing a $1.3 billion loss for Rio, which has a 68.4 per cent stake in ERA.ERA chief executive Rob Atkinson said he thinking yesterday's excellent news outweighed the bad,"The good news for ERA is the looking at decline being approved and the very great exploration program we are going to embark on," he said,"Even on the downside issues, those are significant business elements, and as we increase our knowledge we do get superior levels of comfort."

Uranium outlook goes bush with the Premier

The South Australia uranium explorer is still in shock behind the state government's decision last Friday to protect the Arkaroola area in the Flinders Ranges, home to the purple-spotted gudgeon, spidery wattle and yellow-footed rock wallaby.Can we adjoin endangered Premier? Mike Rann, visiting the area very last August, was spellbound by the "compelling beauty" and ordered the ground to be specified "unprecedented" protection.

Emerging from a trading halt yesterday, Marathon shares be smashed by 38 per cent. Chairman Peter Williams meets Resources Minister Tom Koutsantonis tomorrow intended for a robust exchange of views.

Arkaroola covers Marathon's flagship Mt Gee project, the country's fifth-biggest immature uranium mine. Marathon has spent $20 million on Mt Gee in capitalised expenses and $10m in written-off direct costs and is on the books at $15.7m. Williams may be concerned to ask the good minister why Marathon was invited to renew the lease in January (which it did) when moves to defend the area were in train

Hathor tout Roughrider uranium deposit

The Roughrider uranium deposit is currently the third richest in the Athabasca Basin according to a new resource approximation, project owner Hathor Exploration Ltd. says. The East Zone of the deposit, situated within the Midwest Northeast project, has been estimated to contain 30 million pounds of uranium grading 11.58 per cent U3O8, Hathor declare Tuesday. This nearly doubles the size of Roughrider to 54 million pounds, manufacture it one of the richest deposits in northern Saskatchewan. Hathor says only Cameco Corporation and Areva Resources Canada Inc.'s McArthur River and Cigar Lake mines have larger deposit.

"Canada and Saskatchewan should be arrogant of this district," company president and CEO Michael Gunning said about the Athabasca Basin. With a worldwide average grade of 0.5 per cent U3O8 per uranium deposit, Hathor said Roughrider's grade is obviously above and beyond most of the world's uranium deposits. The size and the grade of the site help its chances of being brought into manufacture. "Grade is king," Gunning said. "Grade is what builds gainful mines." In April, Hathor expected the first uranium mineral lease in Saskatchewan since 1985 for its project. The improve from a mineral claim to a mineral lease gives the company the exclusive right to explore for and finally mine the area.

The leasehold for the 543-hectare site is renewable each 10 years. Hathor exhausted between $4 million and $5 million this past winter at Roughrider, where it tested the Roughrider East Zone. "The discovery is rare, it's above average rank and it really has those attributes that look like it could be a viable project for northern Saskatchewan and that, for me, is a win-win for everyone," Gunning said of the plan in a February interview. Despite the resource approximation from the East Zone, a production decision remains years away. Saskatchewan makes roughly 20 per cent of the world's uranium, which is used in nuclear fuel.

Powertech break uranium mine

Powertech Uranium Corp. has indefinitely put on hold its future Centennial Project uranium mine northeast of Fort Collins, partially due to the Japanese nuclear disaster's impacts on the uranium industry, Powertech's president said Wednesday. The company plans to focus all its efforts on receiving its Dewey-Burdock uranium mine allowed and producing uranium in South Dakota before moving ahead with the Centennial Project, Powertech USA President Richard Clement said. The Centennial Project is planned to be construct in Weld County about 15 miles northeast of Fort Collins between Wellington and Nunn.

Powertech plans to mine uranium there and at Dewey-Burdock using a process called in situ leaching, need the company to inject a baking soda-like resolution into the ground, suspend the uranium ore and pump it out as a liquid. "Dewey-Burdock is the most superior project the company has, therefore, we are concentrating our efforts on Dewey-Burdock to get allowed," Clement said. "Especially in the post-tsunami financial environment, we require to concentrate our efforts as much as any other company." The March 11 Tohoku earthquake in Japan and nuclear reduce at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant that follow sent uranium prices plummeting.

Just before the earthquake, uranium prices had top out around $75. By Tuesday, the price had drop to $55.25, according to TradeTech, a Denver-based uranium market study firm. “This is about as bad a story as you can visualize for the U.S. nuclear power industry,” said Charles Mason, True Chair of energy economics in the finance department at the University of Wyoming, who is script a book about uranium exploration and its impacts. “It definitely is bad news.” Once it became clear the quake would guide to prolonged nuclear disaster, nuclear industry forecasters started to expect unhappy consequences for uranium prices.

Federal government all aglow over UAE uranium deal

The federal government expect to finalize a uranium sales deal with the United Arab Emirates by mid-2012, Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson says. Australia is the world's third leading uranium exporter and has three mines in process, but does not use nuclear power. Australia's existing uranium customers contain the United Kingdom, United States and China. "I was in Sydney last week to continue discussions with United Arab Emirates, to conclude negotiations as soon as possible through respect to our chance to actively sell uranium to the UAE," Mr Ferguson said at a business function in Perth on Wednesday.

The UAE would require entering into a bilateral agreement with Australia, Mr Ferguson said. "We will pursue those discussions over the next 12 to 15 months or so." The talks showed the government's stance on the uranium sector had not been affected by Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis, he said. "Events in Japan have not changed the Australian government's position with reverence to our uranium mining, export and nuclear power policies."

Mr Ferguson said he was working with the uranium sector to set up a national record for radiation dose levels among the industry's workers. "It's something we assured in the lead-up to the 2007 election. ”It's been an subject I must say I first raised through my union in the 1970s when I was involved in recruit uranium workers as members, so for me it's been a extended standing interest. "In my opinion, previous governments should have put a dose register in place and we will complete that duty this year."

ERA says no infectivity risk at Uranium Mine

Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. (ERA.AU) has given its assurance that there's no risk of impure water spill from a uranium mine into Australia's pristine Kakadu National Park next months of heavy rainfall. The miner said Monday that although it may have to pump water from the tailing dam at its Ranger uranium mine into the main pit to avoid overflow, there's no risk of contamination to the surrounding environment. Ranger borders Kakadu and its world tradition listed wetlands. "We're confident that our ultimate contingency plan to pump water out of the tailing dam and into Pit Three is a sound plan and there is no risk of overflow," an ERA spokeswoman said. There is no require enacting the contingency plant at present, she added.

Water levels in the tailing dam are about 10-20 centimeters under their 53 meter height limit. The spokeswoman said that Pit Three, although filled with about 90 meters of water, is around 200 meters profound and there's no concern at all of contaminated water leaking out. ERA, which is majority owned by Rio Tinto (RIO), said last Tuesday that a suspension of dispensation plant operations at Ranger would be extended until late July to permit water levels to fall. Since then, Bureau of Meteorology records show that there hasn't been much rainfall at the near town of Jabiru, with only 8.0 millimeters falling last Thursday and close to nothing on other days.

There was about three weeks left of the official wet season, ERA said final Tuesday. Ranger has this year recorded its third-highest wet season on record. Its three worst wet seasons have all happen within the last five years. ERA is among Australian miners with operations that have been harshly hampered by heavy rainfall caused by a La Nina weather pattern, which can reason more rain in Australia and drought in South America.

Iran, Zimbabwe to cooperate on uranium mining

“Zimbabwe has rich uranium reserves, but is faced with lack of funds and does not possess the technical knowledge and equipment wanted for extracting rich uranium ores,” Mumbengegwi told ISNA in an interview published on Wednesday. “If we can work together on uranium mining, it will get better the economic situation of both countries,” he said. The Zimbabwean official also said that the two countries can have collaboration in the energy sector, particularly in construction of oil refineries. He went on to say that Zimbabwe is willing to buy fuel from Iran.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Zimbabwean foreign minister said it is the best time for the Iranian companies to spend in Zimbabwe, adding when a country’s economy is in a bad condition, it is the best time for making investment in that country because investors will receive many incentives. Commenting on the structure of the United Nations, Mumbengegwi said that the power is intense in the UN Security Council and the members of the council are empowered to make each decision they wish. It is not fair and more power should be move to the General Assembly which has 194 members, he said, proposing that the number of the UN Security Council should be enlarged to 26 countries. He added that the imposition of sanctions on countries should also be accepted by the General Assembly.

On the UN sanctions on Iran and Zimbabwe, he said impressive sanctions on these countries are not accidental. “The Western governments treat the governments that do not allow their dominance in this way and impose sanctions on them,” he said. “The Western governments are skilled at fabricate cause to justify their actions,” he stated, adding each unbiased observer can testify that Zimbabwe is one of the mainly democratic countries in Africa and the human rights are never violated in the country. On Iran’s nuclear program, the Zimbabwean envoy said the Western countries have formed a brouhaha over Iran’s nuclear issue, but according to the international rules all countries have the right to utilize the nuclear energy for peaceful applications.

Demand for uranium intimidate Grand Canyon biodiversity

The natural beauty and unique type of the Grand Canyon are "in the crosshairs" because of renewed interest in the region uranium reserves. That is the warning from detractor of the mines, ahead of the release of a government report on Friday on the potential crash of fresh mining. Mining has been banned within the Grand Canyon national park since President Roosevelt confirmed it a national monument in 1908. But since 2003, foreign companies have submitted 2,215 claims to view on the edge of the canyon. Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, temporarily withdrew 1m acres of ground from exploration in 2009 to allow time for an environmental assessment. Salazar must choose by July whether to ban "mineral entry" for two-thirds of the claims for the next 20 years.

Uranium deposits mineralise in 2,000-feet deep "breccia" pipes, a geological feature ordinary to the world-famous golden brown sedimentary rock in the canyon. When absent alone, the uranium is not harmful. But once dissolved in water, it can leach into spring and aquifers that then supply into the Colorado river, which finally supplies 18 million people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The water can remain impure for decades after a mine shuts. Taylor McKinnon, campaigns director of public lands at the Centre for Biological Diversity, said the expansion of mining would intimidate the park's delicate ecosystem that multiplicity from desert scrub in the parched canyon to the Californian condors that wheel above the craggy outcrops.

He said: "The Grand Canyon is an international treasure and recognized for its breathtaking expanses. Its isolated seeps, springs and caves harbour a notable diversity of life, including species found nowhere else on earth. Uranium mining puts those kind in the crosshairs." Mining companies have been drawn to the Grand Canyon area since the 1940s, because of huge quantities of high rank uranium that fuelled the nuclear weapons and nuclear power industry in the US. But fast-pace nuclear power programmes in countries such as China and Korea are fuelling a fresh rush for "hard rock", and have send uranium prices soaring from $7.10 a pound in 2001, to $63.88 a pound in 2011.

Wyo Uranium Industry Bullish Amid increasing Prices

The uranium industry is arresting a bullish tone amid resurgent prices and a welcome atmosphere in the top state for uranium treasury. Companies tout plans to mine more uranium in Wyoming through a Wyoming Mining Association news meeting Thursday."I feel uranium will be here to stay," said the association's assistant director, Lynn Welker. Titan Uranium USA Inc. said it intended to open a mixture surface underground uranium mine in Wyoming. Meanwhile, the top U.S. miner of uranium, Cameco Resources, said it planned to double uranium manufacture in Wyoming by 2018.

Wyoming, followed by New Mexico, jointly have anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of the nation's predictable uranium reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The industry got its found in Wyoming during the early days of the Cold War and fell on hard times in the 1980s. Uranium prices soared in current years, reaching $130 per pound in 2007. Prices plummet during the depression but are up 50 percent since previous summer, reaching $62.50 per pound as of Thursday.

Not far from Jeffrey City, a central Wyoming community that has been a spirit town since the local uranium industry go bust in the 1980s, Titan Uranium USA Inc. plans to reopen an region uranium mine once own by U.S. Energy. "People ask us if we are going to bring Jeffrey City back from the dead," said Gregory Adams, vice president of Titan Uranium USA Inc. The mine will bring 200 jobs, which will help the region even though the company has no plans to restore the town itself, Adams said. "I think the uranium industry is on a roll here once more in Wyoming and they are leaving to bring a lot to the state," he said.

leak confirm poor African uranium security

Diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks disclose abysmal safety and security values in the African uranium mining industry, analysts say. Cables expose U.S. diplomats in a number of African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Niger, Burundi and others, report the worst safety and security standards in those countries' uranium and nuclear facilities, Inter Press Service report Sunday. The cables also reveal the alleged participation of European, Chinese, Indian and South Korean companies in the unlawful taking out and smuggling of uranium from Africa.

Uranium import from African countries is used by most European reactors. At CREN-K, a nuclear research center in the DRC, "outside and internal security is poor, leaving the ability vulnerable to theft," Roger A. Meece, U.S. ambassador to DRC, report in a 2006 cable. "Once inside the facility, no one controls the entry to the nuclear reactor, although a key is necessary to enter the room," Meece wrote. "The fuel rod storage room, where the nine idle fuel rods are stored, was not locked, and the fuel rods are not kept in a divide locked container," he reported. The cable said that large levels of radioactivity have been calculated in numerous regions of the DRC.