Coles Hill as it appears today
Future Coles Hill?
Does it matter how much uranium sells for today — or what its future price may be? Sure it does, if Virginia eventually lifts its 1982 moratorium on uranium mining.
Virginia Uranium Inc. wants to mine what’s believed to be 119 million pounds of uranium from a deposit located beneath Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County.
On Tuesday, the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission approved a study of uranium mining, a critical first step that could eventually overturn the state’s moratorium and allow the company to move forward with its plans.
The study’s approval was a foregone conclusion, but the economic issues are important. “I think we have to ensure there is a market for it (uranium),” said Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach.
Virginia Uranium Inc. estimates that its mining and milling operation could create 300-500 new jobs here in the Dan River Region.
But what if those jobs are caught in a boom-bust cycle as uranium prices fluctuate on the world market?(at this time, according to the Mining Reports, uranium miners are being laid off because the uranium prices are down, price goes down, mines are shut down, not a stable job!)
During the 1980s, falling uranium prices did as much as anything to kill the first proposed uranium mining operation in Pittsylvania County.
Today, though, the world may be on the cusp of a “nuclear renaissance” that would increase worldwide demand for nuclear power — and with it, demand for uranium. The big reason for that is nuclear power plants don’t emit greenhouse gases, a critical concern in this time of global warming.
But nuclear power has many unresolved issues. The plants are complex, expensive to build and plagued with cost overruns. Waste disposal remains a long-term problem.
The pollution problems that local opponents of the Coles Hill project have voiced are part of the total cost of nuclear power.
It’s also not clear if the fuel demands of new nuclear power plants will be offset by retiring nuclear reactors, cutting demand for uranium in the United States. But even if that happened, there could be more demand for uranium on the world market, and we’re not aware of any requirement that uranium from Coles Hill has to be used exclusively in American nuclear power plants.
Finally, Americans are more interested than ever in solar, wind and geothermal power and may not want to make new investments in nuclear power until they learn more about whether those renewable energy sources would be better choices.
Add it all up, and it’s clear that the safety of a uranium mine and mill are only part of the equation — albeit the most important part.
The Coal and Energy Commission is right to put every possible issue on the table for this study that so many people and politicians are looking at to decide the future of this project.
But the Dan River Region doesn’t need to have another dying industry. (SouthSide wants high Tech jobs, just like Northern & Tidewater, VA, we do not want to grow up to be Uranium Miners!!!!!
That’s why the economics of uranium mining must be studied by the state.
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