Uranium investment: knowing the value but not the cost

Comment: Nuke & Uranium Mining people are ruining People lives for Greed!

If you want to see an example of the smug misanthropy that lies behind much nuclear power propaganda and boosting, then take a look at this piece from ‘premier’ financial website Seeking Alpha.(listed below):

Making predictions of an impending bull market in uranium, it has this advice to give to potential investers…

[P]erhaps the most promising way to access uranium right now is to look to the source: producers.

Lately, uranium miners haven't been doing half bad, having regained some of the ground they lost in 2007's U3O8 price drop and last year's credit crunch.

The same RBC report noted that overall, uranium stocks have rebounded almost 225% from their lows, and that the market could reclaim its previous peaks within the next two years.

This recovery in miners has been driven in part by good discovery news out of Africa.

New drilling results from the Rössing South mine in Namibia suggest that the newly discovered source is not only the country's highest-grade uranium deposit, but could be one of the largest in the world. (Extract Resources, which owns the mine, and Kalahari Minerals, which owns a large stake in Extract, have both seen their share prices soar).

Meanwhile, in Niger, French nuclear power giant Areva has teamed up with local officials to lay foundations for a new mine in Imouraren, which when completed, will be Africa's largest uranium mine and the second largest in the world.

They simply can’t see the human cost of uranium mining for the dollar signs in their eyes.

We’ve already seen this week what Rössing Uranium have done in Namibia. We know what Areva have got up to in Niger.

This thinking from Alpha Seeker is linked to the similar line of thought that says nuclear power is safe or low carbon.

It consciously avoids discussion of the health dangers of uranium mining and the carbon costs of producing nuclear fuel. Alpha Seeker don’t say ‘nuclear power doesn't emit an ounce of greenhouse gases’, they say ‘nuclear reactors don't emit an ounce of greenhouse gases’. Notice the difference? This is a wilful, blinkered ignorance on any number of levels.

Posted by Justin on May 15, 2009 6:18 PM

http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2009/05/uranium_investment_knowing_the.html