Uranium: Safely and Efficiently Powering the Future

Uranium equities have continued their downturn after a period where it appeared we may have been flat-lining. Unfortunately for those still holding, many of these stocks dipped further in recent trading days resulting in a new all-time low for theinvestar's Canadian Uranium Average [TICUA]. We noticed during those down days that volume spiked on many of the smaller uranium stocks included in the average as well as those which we follow on the side. Some of these stocks reversed course during high volume days and finished up after being down 5-10% which brought to mind the word capitulation. Even if the uranium mining stocks have reached a bottom, it will take some time to achieve the highs set in previous years as many stocks would need to triple just to get back in the neighborhood of their old highs.

For all the good "spin" and taxpayer dollars funneled to ethanol and biofuel production over the past decade, it is time to seriously consider the ramifications of this policy on futures markets, the environment, and most of all our food supply. We here at theinvestar.com, LLC have continually argued against burning food rather than drilling for further oil supplies and are convinced that this is an issue which must be confronted sooner rather than later.

At some point in the future American politicians are going to have to stop delaying until tomorrow problems faced by the country and take serious and responsible stands on real issues. We see a future where "renewables" and "fossils" can coexist and complement each other. Goals will have to be set, and they must be realistic (solar power is not going to power the whole United States- let alone a large state such as California, New York or Texas) or these policies will fail. Most importantly though, is the fact that nuclear power will have to be the "keystone" to any successfully planned policy. You cannot have energy 'independence' yet be dependent upon such variables as sunlight in the day- I for one would like to be reassured that my refrigerator is not going to shut off each night when the sun sets upon America and have to dispose of all my melted frozen foods.

Nuclear power is a safe, efficient, and non-carbon dioxide producing form of power. Today it produces around 20% of the United States' electricity needs, and if we as a nation are serious about switching our vehicles to electricity from oil then we will most surely need to not only replace but also add more nuclear power stations to our aging fleet in the not too distant future. Plans are on the board for between 20 to 45 new nuclear power stations in this country over the next 30 years, but if these stations are being built to replace coal fired plants as well as a small number of oil burning stations, then many more nuclear stations will be needed. Today it appears that nuclear power falls under that 'blue state' v. 'red state' game of politics, but in the past nuclear has been an option which has transcended political lines, ties, and biases for the advancement of the country.

If you are having trouble believing this, look no further than Illinois. This is a state which bleeds dark blue due to in large part to Chicago, America's third largest city. With its huge electricity demands, Illinois allowed 21 nuclear power stations to be constructed within its borders over the past 50 years or so. If you have ever driven through the state you can relate to the spectacle of seeing clear blue skies over farms for miles and as you drive down the interstates you notice large swaths of white "clouds" coming from a spec on the horizon. As a child it amazed me, and I even imagined a volcano or something ahead. Each time it turned out to be but a nuclear power station emitting harmless water vapors into the air while powering one of America's greatest cities in the process.

New York City even gets 20% of its electricity needs from nuclear power generation. Although such notable political figures such as Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Chuck Schumer have called for nuclear power stations to be closed, including the one powering much of New York City, they have not found a way to replace that kind of generating capacity with renewables or even coal or natural gas.

One should take note that utilities such as Exelon (EXC) are reporting strong earnings in the face of higher coal, oil and natural gas costs. These utilities are giving full credit to their nuclear units as they are able to export cheaply generated power across the country to sell to other utilities at higher prices. This proves that nuclear facilities are profit centers, and after the new plants now under construction come online the point shall be reiterated for those still not convinced.

All of this shall contribute to greater need for uranium to power not only America, but China as well. The world needs a 'denser' fuel source, and despite any argument one can come up with, NOTHING is denser than uranium. As our societies around the world have evolved and required further power needs, man has always reached an inflection point where the only logical move was to a source of power which was more efficient than the previous. Over the course of history the evolution of power sources has looked something like this:

1. Wood
2. Coal
3. Oil

Now each of these has had subcategories such as the switch from whale oil to petrol oil, but that is a basic outline. The only logical step to take next is uranium based power which blows away all the before-mentioned substances. What is ironic is the fact that this nuclear waste that so many complain about is in fact a gold mine for future generations. Today we can recycle some of this by taking out the metals which appear after one cycle use such as plutonium and then up-blending what is left to form a substance which can then go through the cycle again. This can only be repeated so much until it becomes uneconomical. In France however, scientists are trying to develop ways to harness this unspent fuel in order to make the entire process more environmentally friendly and economically profitable. Scientists estimate that somewhere between 90-95% of the power available from uranium fuel is not used today because we neither posses the technology or the know-how to harness this power.

Now if we only consumed say 5% of the oil we drilled for and put the rest in storage, how many people would complain? Probably none, as today no one complains about the large storage facilities located around the country. They pose a serious environmental concern if an earthquake or flood hit to wildlife, the environment, water sources, and humans. If you doubt these facts simply look at New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina where crews had to go in and clean up large oil slicks from the high winds and flooding.

For some reason there seems to be a bias to nuclear power which is probably due to the fact that the deadliest weapons on earth use this same fuel source to implement unbelievable destruction. Despite how backwards France appears to many Americans, it would behoove many of them to take notice that America is behind the times in the Nuclear field and play catch up, for it is they who are behind and backwards. It is most likely the outspoken minority (those niche environmental and special interest groups) who influence those policy makers capable of creating change in this area, but our guess is that Americans, and we mean the silent majority, simply want their electricity demands met by any means necessary. Americans care for neither where the oil came from nor how much it pollutes so long as they can get to where they need to be, and one can assume they will take this same nonchalant approach to future electricity needs.

This is why we believe that uranium is still a necessary fuel source and one that will power the world for many years to come. In a world as complex as ours, there are necessary evils and environmentalists will have to choose the lessor of evils to achieve their dreams. On one hand they can continue to allow pollutants to be 'dumped' or as we like to say 'pumped' into the atmosphere and then distributed all over the earth, or they can allow for clean emission nuclear power stations to dot the landscape and preserve thousands of acres of wildlife habitat in the process while the pollutants are collected and kept in controlled environments. This is not much different from the process involved at plants which use 'scrubbers' on their smokestacks to lessen emissions as those pollutants are eventually collected and disposed of by firms which provide services solely devoted to cleaning and disposing of these toxins.

Disclosure: None

Comments

[fxtrader07:]

"safely" and "efficient"??? Give me a break! Before there is not really a safe and lasting (for about 10.000 years!!) storage solution found for all the nuclear radiating highly toxic waste, there can be no talk of "effcient" or "cheap" or "safe". very likely, energy companies will make billions while the societies in future (our grandchildren) will have to bear many times these amounts in costs to somehow manage the nuclear waste.
the nuclear lobby is one of the most dangerous ones for the life on this planet.
nuclear power neither has the potential (too little uranium available on a global scale) nor is it safe or cheap enough to serve as a reliable source of energy

2008 May 09 08:04 AM

[fxtrader07:]

nuclear being a "clean" energy is one of the boldest and biggest LIES that are currently circulating - repeated ad nauseum either by people with vested interests or by people who are simply ignorant and/or plain dumb

2008 May 09 08:06 AM

[Trader T:]

You overestimate the wisdom of politicians. They will continue to spin their lies and spend billions of dollars on fraud solar and wind power scams. Nuclear power is the cheapest and cleanest power source available, but don't expect politicians or an uneducated public to understand the engineering and physics involved.

2008 May 09 08:46 AM

[stillafewleft:]

I've heard that thorium is: (a) a safer source of radiation energy due to safer plants due to the spontaneous reaction tendency to slow down rather than escalate; (b) much shorter half life of degradation products which markedly reduces long-term safe storage requirements; (c) and inability to be converted into weapons-grade material. It is apparently widely found and easily mined. Are you familiar with it?

2008 May 09 08:48 AM

[LoveShorting:]

I am a chemist by day. Nuclear makes perfect sense to me as a better trade-off, not as a perfect solution. At $120+ per barrel, oil is draining wealth from successful, creative, hard-working countries and sending it to corrupt states with little else to offer the world (Saudi Arabia, a kingdom no less, Russia, essentially a monarchy under King Putin, Venezuela under our buddy Hugo, etc.). Ethanol is a horrible trade-off as those starving to death today would attest if they were still alive. Sure, drill in Alaska, that works for me. But if we did not have nuclear today I can't imagine how much worse life would be. Go big U !

2008 May 09 08:56 AM

[bluesmoke:]

Excellent article. (It's too bad the underinformed are so adept at showing their ignorance). What many don't realize is the "storage" of fossil fuels is actually the end result - millions of tons of CO2 and particulates emitted into our atmosphere - just as deadly. Since the burning of U308 is a chemical process, the chances of discovering another process to extrapolate and reuse what is left is very high. Or, making the initial process more efficient. It just takes time.

There is no question in my mind nuclear is the way to go, at least while we continue to develop new technologies as well.

2008 May 09 09:49 AM

[fxtrader07:]

the only ignorants i see here are the dumb promoters and pumpers of nuclear technology. they have yet to come up with a convincing solution to store the radiactive waste. and no "some technology, some process may be found somewhen" is NOT a solution. it's wish.
regarding Co2: there are very credible scientists (much more credible people than businessmen like al gore who just makes millions trading co2 emission rights and promoting himself) who convincingly argue that the global warming thesis is nonsense as far as making CO2 emissions responsible for it.
a much much much higher variable are sun-activity, vulcanism and other factors while human activities account for no more than about 5% of co2 emissions. so reducing them by 20% will make a dent, huh?
there is no need to store away Co2 somwhere. It#s total nonsense and just another hype to tax people and shuffle the money into pockets of banks, politicians and clever businessmen

2008 May 09 10:03 AM

[fxtrader07:]

to put in perspective: any outbreak of a larger mud vulcano somewhere in the ocean will kill ALL CO2 reduction effects achieved with hundreds of billions of wasted money.
think about it, before calling people ignorant and promoting nuclear nonsense that has the very real potential to kill the entire life on the planet even without any majopr accident or without any major terrorist attack - just by being slowly released into the atmosphere and the oceans by leakages and waste from uranium companies.

2008 May 09 10:35 AM

[Iscaethebear:]

Fstrader07 clearly does not deal in facts as many people do when fighting a losing battle. I suggest that you look at the actual data and use your higher brain. For one I choose to have power. Second there is plenty of uranium in the world. Have you looked at the way France recycles their spent metal? For the record, my weekend home that I built in 1997 is off grid. I am well versed in alternative energy. Only nuclear power can supply our great energy demands at this time.
Regards,
Scarethebear

2008 May 09 10:56 AM

[User 170687:]

CCJ is up 10% in the past 5 days

2008 May 09 10:59 AM

[bluesmoke:]

If fxtrader07 used proper grammar, spelled words correctly, and learned how to construct a coherent sentence, then there's a chance others would at least consider his comments with some measure of objectivity.

2008 May 09 11:29 AM

[fxtrader07:]

@iscarethebear: you are long claims and short facts. you need not to tell me that france recycles part of the uranium. i live over here. It does NOT solve the storage problem. there are huge facilities built in germany inold mines but the problem is: nobody knows how the area will look like, from a geotectonic point of view even 200 years from now, not to speak of 5000!. then we have NO material that will last even for a mere 200 years to contain the radiating waste! so at best you have to "repack" the stuff every 200 years. pretty expensive over aperiod of 5000-10000 years i might say.
I have my facts straight, don't worry. I was once a die-hard adherent to the theory of global warming by human CO2 emissions and used to harop at people who questioned it, i urged everyone to do something against these emissions ( i am still for doing something against them, btw). Hoiwever, I started educating myself listening to the arguments of exceptional scientists who are getting silenced these days by the mob very much like the ecologists got silenced in the 80s (what an irony). Human action has a negligiböe effect on global warming and in fact, we are just coming off a cool period in Earth's history. a few million years back ethere were similiar periods of global warming and cooling. I guess, responsible for these were the cavemen breathing too much, no?

2008 May 09 11:34 AM

[fxtrader07:]

@bluesmoke: sorry for the typos. and then, not everyone in the world is a native english speaker. you got my points very well. if you prefer to focus on form rather than substance - it's your choice.

2008 May 09 11:35 AM

[arawak:]

So fxtrader is willing to gamble that a tiny minority of scientists might be right and we should therefore burn fossil fuels with abandon. We will keep our fingers crossed that the increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere (not seen on earth in the last million years) will have no effect.

While I won't get into an argue with you and your "credible" scientists, you overlook a very simple issue - we must have nuclear power. The price of oil is skyrocketing, ditto for coal and all other dirty sources of energy. Oil production has effectively plateaued and will start to decline in the next 5-10 years.

We need ever more terawatts of power and we're not going to get it from coal/oil/gas. Only U has the energy density and supply to power us for another 50-100 years while we diligently work on new energy sources and conservation.

Yes, I wish I could plug my house into a tree but I can't. Nobody particularly wants nuclear power but it is a reality that must be embraced.

"any outbreak of a larger mud vulcano somewhere in the ocean will kill ALL CO2 reduction effects achieved with hundreds of billions of wasted money"

Facile and erroneous.

2008 May 09 11:54 AM

[Paul Killinger:]

The D's in Washington are so removed from reality that our only hope for our immediate energy future is a resurgence of "red state" sanity. How and when that will come is uncertain but, just like the economic rules governing supply and demand, it will happen eventually.

Speaking of which, here's a WONDEREFUL irony for you... the D senator from N. Dakota, who routinely votes against ANWR and every other practical measure to increase our nation's energy supplies, is waxing ecstatic that the oil in the Bakken fields in his home state is finally economic.

(Of course, the downside to this is we must be even bigger idiots than he is to have put these clowns in power...sigh!)

2008 May 09 11:55 AM

[arawak:]

paulk8756: "The D's in Washington are so removed from reality that our only hope for our immediate energy future is a resurgence of "red state" sanity."

Please take your partisan rhetoric off of seekingAlpha and to the Yahoo message boards where it belongs. Lemming.

2008 May 09 12:18 PM

[Paul Killinger:]

You all should consider giving fxtrader a break... he's coversant in at least one more language than I am. If he's living in France, though, he should think about the source of the electricity that's powering his laptop... odds are it's nuclear!

2008 May 09 12:29 PM

[GyZmOjO:]

hey fxtrader07, this makes the case for thorium so much stronger, right? thorium, as stillafewleft says, is much safer, abundantly available, cheap as hell. i wonder why all discussion of nuclear power begins and ends with uranium.

2008 May 09 12:40 PM

[GyZmOjO:]

hey fxtrader07, this makes the case for thorium so much stronger, right? thorium, as stillafewleft says, is much safer, abundantly available, cheap as hell. i wonder why all discussion of nuclear power begins and ends with uranium.

2008 May 09 12:40 PM

[GyZmOjO:]

india, where i live, has an abundance of thorium. the commies here are fighting tooth and nail the nuclear deal we have on the table with the US... which could be our magical key to unlock the power my country oh so desperately needs!!!

2008 May 09 12:44 PM

[Paul Killinger:]

Must've hit a liberal nerve there. Getting a little touchy as gas is approaching $4.00 a gallon, are we...? Well, just wait! If all the hot air coming out of Washington could power our energy needs, none of this would be an issue.

Seriously, though, since solar and wind currently account for about 1% of our electricity production, more oil, natural gas, and nuclear power appear to be the only practical alternatives to our immediate economic survival. Unless someone has a better idea...?

2008 May 09 12:55 PM

[arawak:]

paulk: "Must've hit a liberal nerve there."

No, you hit a "partisan lemming posting useless rhetoric on an investment board" nerve.

And now the best you can do is ask "what about solar"? Please leave and don't come back until you have something substantive to offer. The fading hope for SeekingAlpha was that it would be a place for intelligent discourse on investments.

2008 May 09 01:04 PM

[Paul Killinger:]

Sorry if I hurt your feelings, nothing personal. But politics and energy production are inexorably intertwined. I wasn't the one who vetoed ANWR ten years ago and cost our economy a million gallons of new gasoline per day. And I didn't produce the movie that negatively sensationalized the use of nuclear energy. Nor did I adopt legislation that mandated burning food in automobiles. But that doesn't mean I have to blindly support such foolhardy ideas, either. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work so that I can afford the resulting inflated prices of gas and groceries.

2008 May 09 01:19 PM

[LiquidSoapD...:]

I cringe when I hear the words "safe" and "clean" always put before the words "nuclear energy" (as is often the case lately). I cringe that people are mixing marketing-speak with their intellectual arguments, which immediately minimizes my trust of a pro-nuke argument. I have a unique perspective as I used to be friends with someone who worked as a safety inspector at a nuclear power plant in California. He scared the crap out of me, telling me how many near-disasters at this plant that were never were publicized (perhaps there are a lot more minor accidents than we hear of). One of the biggest problems, according to my inspector friend, was that the maintenance and replacement of old parts were not always done to spec, often because different suppliers offered kickbacks to the plant buyers use their sub-standard replacement parts. Yes, as long as humans are involved, there are ways that perfectly designed plants can become dangerous -- you never know who might take a short cut to line their own pockets. The other scary thing for my inspector friend was seeing spent rods pile up in the cooling pool that was never designed to store so much radioactive material. These rods need to be actively cooled in the pool, or there will be a meltdown -- so you can't just stop the reactor and walk away. I'm not sure what the answer is to our energy needs, but I want to punch everyone who always adds the marketing buzzwords "safe" and "clean" as a prefix to the words "nuclear energy" as if it were a fact. BTW, on my fairly small roof I have 24 solar panels that produce more energy than my family and home-based business consume (on a year-over-year basis). I'm not saying solar is going to solve the world's energy problems tomorrow, but it most certainly can be a bigger part of our energy plan.

2008 May 09 02:39 PM

[Global Warm...:]

I don't understand nuclear and it is so scary. How can we make that type of decision, especially since some people know that it will kill us all. Electric cars don't make since without nuclear so I plan on a more sensible solution. I plan on buying a horse and keeping it in the spare bedroom of my condo.

2008 May 09 02:59 PM

[c300man:]

It is such a joke to have our elected politians planning our future energy supplies/systems. They are like a herd of cattle, stepping all over each other to support whatever they think buys them the most votes. Corn ethanol is just the latest example.

Nuclear energy should become the major source of our nations electrical supply. We have been using it for 50 years with no serious problems. There is no problem with storage/monitoring/ret... of nuclear waste. The only problem is with politians who think they are buying votes by opposing waste storage. Yet other places don't mind having nuclear bombs (Amarillo, TX) in their area.

With further study waste processing (as France does) will further improve the nuclear fuel/waste cycle.

They are vast quantities of Uranium around the world and many mining companies able to provide a reliable cheap supply of the fuel.

2008 May 09 04:30 PM

[WiseGuy:]

Has anyone read "Power to Save the World, The Truth About Nuclear Energy" ? Well, you should if you want to say something intelligent about the subject rather than the nonsense that I've been reading.

The deep ocean sea beds can store our nuclear wastes safely for millions of years. This solution has been thoroughly evaluated and you can read about in the cited book...you all should.

2008 May 09 05:45 PM

[devassocx:]

Nuclear power must be very bad...don't you all remember that fictional movie about a power plant that melted down????

Nuclear power must be very bad...don't you remember how a grossly
horrible Russian designed plant melted down????

So lets base our opinon on one stupid experience and one fictional
experience...in effect that is what all the anti-nuke people have done.

I can't point to a reference source but the amount of waste generated by a nuke installation is really quite small and we have vast waste land areas in the U.S. where these materials can be safely stored indefinitely.

Of course zero-point energy or some such similar energy source is
what everyone is looking for but in the meantime a combo of fossil
fuels, other alternatives and nukes is alll thats available to us. If
we want to continue to live in an advanced society we had better embrace all of them....the alternative to this is just too dismal to contemplate.

2008 May 09 10:22 PM

[daffy:]

What amazes me is that the same people who complain about the source of the energy are the same people who are least willing to do anything about it, except for complain.

The fact remains, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Also the natural tendency is for energy to be dispersed (increase in entropy).

No matter what you do, there is going to be a trade off. Every energy source has it's impacts. The environmentalists hate the dams, they hate the oil rigs, they hate the manufacturing plants and corporations that create solar, they hate that the wind turbines kill birds, they hate nuclear waste. Ignoring these people is what needs to be done, and for the people who are in charge to develop a plan where all sources of energy that we know of today are used to effecitively and efficiently. You are not going to decrease the demand for energy, and if there were better alternatives on the market, they would be out there.

I always laugh at people people who jump up and down about clean energy and say that there are alternatives. This is a global economy, and if you think there is a way to really keep the new energy technology under wraps you are seriously deluded. The market is constrained by energy right now. There a millions of scientists trying to find new and more efficient ways to use the energy we do have (take a look at the cell phone/.PDA market if you need help).

Nuclera energy is a viable alternative. I studied as much as is available to the general public about chernobyl. Someone effed up, big time. Hmmm, and some people say that socialism and communism are good things. Nuclear energy is being used today, it will continue to be used and it will continue to be researched and developed.

This society needs energy to run. Plain and simple. You take that away and you will have some serious problems which make a global food crisis seem like a nice, cute little walk in Central Park.

2008 May 10 12:29 PM

[daffy:]

and my shameless plug:

CXZ was up 24% yesterday and is about to begin trading on the Toronto Exchange Monday morning.

2008 May 10 12:30 PM

[G23ROCKS:]

What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium. I've posted a few links with my research below.

Long THPW, CCJ, USU.

bluedogonwallstreet.bl...

bluedogonwallstreet.bl...

2008 May 10 09:35 PM

[Andrew Ling:]

fxtrader07 you need to learn something about the issue before you start ranting. Nuclear power produces less radioactive waste than coal. Is it better to have the radioactivity released into the atmosphere in the case of coal? Nuclear does have serious problems, but all of them are political ones.

2008 May 11 08:26 AM

[ridahoan:]

Go tell the people of Oregon that nuclear power is great. They are burdened with a billion dollar bailout of the failed Trojan nuclear power plant, and the nuclear dump Hanford that spills radioactivity into the Columbia River from Washington State. Trojan costs taxpayers every year to sit idle, and nobody seems to know what to do about Hanford despite huge amounts of dollars being thrown at it. These are simple facts. Are we so much smarter now that this won't happen again? Of course we are....

2008 May 12 11:27 PM

[BorisinCincy:]

If its clean and safe you want and you believe solar power is the answer, think silicon tetrachloride. Its a bi-product produced when they make the poly-silicon used in the solor panels, and is just a big of a mess as any other energy source produces.

There are no easy answers. Nothing is completely clean and safe.

I don't believe anyone is saying nuclear is completely "clean and safe", it is simply the best answer we have as of today of our energy needs over the next couple of hundred years.

2008 May 13 11:11 AM

[NUCLEAR4WIN:]

Here you go tree hugger! A molecule that solves the storage issues for Liberals. Now go hug a tree and save a Polar Bear!

physics.about.com/b/20...


On May 09 10:03 AM fxtrader07 wrote:

> the only ignorants i see here are the dumb promoters and pumpers
> of nuclear technology. they have yet to come up with a convincing
> solution to store the radiactive waste. and no "some technology,
> some process may be found somewhen" is NOT a solution. it's wish.
>
> regarding Co2: there are very credible scientists (much more credible
> people than businessmen like al gore who just makes millions trading
> co2 emission rights and promoting himself) who convincingly argue
> that the global warming thesis is nonsense as far as making CO2 emissions
> responsible for it.
> a much much much higher variable are sun-activity, vulcanism and
> other factors while human activities account for no more than about
> 5% of co2 emissions. so reducing them by 20% will make a dent, huh?
>
> there is no need to store away Co2 somwhere. It#s total nonsense
> and just another hype to tax people and shuffle the money into pockets
> of banks, politicians and clever businessmen

2008 Jul 09 12:52 PM