FEATURES

 

      

 
 

Travis Paterson, OP Features Editor

For reasons as backwards as the producers of Fox
News, the booming demand for uranium as a world-
wide phenomenon is only now beginning to receive
media attention. Though the ‘N’ word continues to be
a controversial topic in North American media, the
potential of nuclear power as an energy resource has
created an international stir on many fronts.

While activist groups continue to fight against the
construction of nuclear plants, support for nuclear
power has been documented from many surprising
sources, mainly citing its value as a temporary solution
to the energy crisis. Oil and coal are the greater con-
tributers to greenhouse gas emissions, and though oil
‘is will run out, theories suggest the switch from oil to
alternatives will take 25-50 years in the westernized
countries alone. The search for alternative energies is
slow, and wind and solar options yield little potential
in the grand scale of world energy consumption.

Former Greenpeace president Patrick Moore is a
cofivert, and is campaigning to support the use of
nuclear powered electricity plants. “Nuclear energy is
the only non-greenhouse gas emitting energy source
that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy glob-
al energy demands.” Simply stated, there are two divid-
ed camps, those who recognize global warming as a
catastrophe already in motion, and those who refuse
to accept the evidence that global warming exists.

Granted, many oppose the untidy problem of
what to do with the radioactive waste, as the solutions
are sparse. However, the arguments against nuclear
energy are losing ground, including the popularized
“snorkel to work theory.” To put it in perspective,
nuclear powered plants use about 10-15 Ibs of urani-
um to generate 60,000 kw of electricity, while millions

8 THE OTHER PRESS OCTOBER 26 2006

of pounds of coal are needed to generate the same
amount of electricity.

The argument being considered is that the prob-
lem-waste of radioactive matetial can be stored and
dealt with later, while if true, the effects of global
warming are irreversible, and the switch from coal-
burning plants needs to happen immediately.

There are claims of clean-coal technologies said to
highly reduce emissions, and there is even a movement
in Canada and the U.S, to continue the use of ‘coal-
burning plants to produce electricity. Unfortunately,
the potentially clean-burning plants are years away
from happening, and the reliance on coal is much larg-
er in the rest of the world.

China and India, who burn the majority of the
world’s coal each year, separately announced plans to
build a series of nuclear reactors in a not-so-surprising
attempt to move away from greenhouse gas emissions.
While India expects to open four new reactors by
2008, China is streamlining the production of ten
reactors by the year 2020 in hopes to double their
energy reliance on nuclear power. Critics or not, the
result is a coming shortage of enriched uranium (U-
235), as last year 170 million Ibs. of uranium were
used to produce electricity, while only 109 million lbs
were mined.

After the meltdown disasters of Chernobyl and
Three Mile Island, many nations were teluctant to
build new reactors, and when the Soviet Bloc crum-
bled, thousands of nuclear warheads were deactivated
creating a surplus in uranium. But the surplus is com-
ing to an end, and the mining industry is now re-
investing itself in the search for uranium, mostly in
Canada, and Australia.

rming in Real-Time

  

In fact, on October 9th, the Wall Street Journal
featured a story on the price of uranium, charting the
jump in price from $8/Ib to $56/Ib since the year
2000. The largest uranium mining company in the
world is the Canadian based Cameco Corporation,
who’s stock has followed the dramatic increase and
theit price of shares have moved from sub $10, to as
high as $48. Rarely does a commodity rise so sharply
without any media attention, especially in 2006, often
referred to as the information age. In the wake of
North Korea’s nuclear warhead test, and Iran’s nuclear
enriched stare-down with the UN, the Chinese and
Indian demands for uranium could conceivably duck
the western media radar.

China boasts what some consider a revolutionary
techhology, and will feature it in their newest reactor
in the Shandong province, which should be running
by 2010. The technology, is a modular high-tempera-
ture, gas-cooled reactor, and according to the CEO of
CHinergy, Frank Wu, “The generator will be the safest
nuclear power plant ever designed and built.”

Here at home, BC Hydro has been accepting bids
for the last three years to construct a new electricity
plant in the province. The plan is to put 2,500
gigawatt hours of energy into the northeastern sector,
and the likely candidates to win the bid are coal-burn-
ing plants. This comes despite evidence that power
producéd from coal releases 9 billion tonnes of car-
bon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, directly
contributing to global warming. Meanwhile in Ontario,
Dalton McGuinty has committed 40 billion dollars to*
the building and maintenance of nuclear reactors.

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