Antinuclear

Spinowski, Angwins, Atkinson, Borschoff desperately spinning uranium industry

There is a lot of money riding on the optimists winning the argument over the pessimists.

BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine, the world’s biggest uranium mine, is scheduled for an expansion that could cost 30-50 billion Australian dollars. With the spot price of uranium back where it was in 2009, BHP would be taking a big gamble that nuclear power is here to stay.

ANALYSIS: Australia’s battered uranium miners talk up their prospects – Monsters and Critics, 19 March 11, “……….Ziggy Switkowski, Australia’s foremost nuclear physicist, admits these are trying times for industry lobbyists…….He has not lost faith in the science and believes the industry will bounce back within the year.

Equally sanguine is Australian Uranium Association executive director Michael Angwins, who insists that ‘the factors which were driving the demand for Australian uranium and for nuclear power last Friday are still there today.’…..

Uranium miners, who together ship product worth 1 billion Australian dollars (980 million US dollars) a year, were hoping receipts would grow to 17 billion Australian dollars by 2030.

Rob Atkinson, head of Energy Resources of Australia, has seen shares in his company fall by a third. He too predicts the industry will come storming back by the end of the year. ‘Renewables are out of the question…….

Paladin chief executive John Borshoff said nuclear power is essential on environmental, technological, safety and economic grounds.

‘The energy strategists of Japan many years ago made the decision that nuclear is essential and will remain so,’ he said.

There is a lot of money riding on the optimists winning the argument over the pessimists.

BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine, the world’s biggest uranium mine, is scheduled for an expansion that could cost 30-50 billion Australian dollars. With the spot price of uranium back where it was in 2009, BHP would be taking a big gamble that nuclear power is here to stay.

A sign of the times: Australian uranium miner Mantra Resources Ltd learned this week that Russia’s JSC Atomredmetsoloto (ARMZ) had withdrawn its 1.1-billion-Australian-dollar takeover offer in the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis……

ANALYSIS: Australia’s battered uranium miners talk up their prospects – Monsters and Critics

March 19, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, marketing for nuclear