Uranium marketers flogging a dead horse
the developed world will eventually turn very sharply away from nuclear energy
Is Uranium A Buy Again? Beware of These Radioactive Stocks ETF DAILY NEWS, by George Wolff, 27 March 11, “………The industry’s future is “red hot” according to CBS Business News writer David Phillips. Cameco and other uranium miners are already spending heavily on the construction of new mines and processing facilities. They’re still scrambling in anticipation of the global nuclear boom which seemed so inevitable before the Japanese disaster..
….But, in the wake of the Japanese crisis, I believe that the optimists touting a rebound in the nuclear industry are premature at best. At worst, they may be flogging a dead horse.
It is difficult to overstate the gravity of the situation in Japan. As I write, food supplies in Japan have been found to be contaminated with radioactivity. Zirconium shells in the Japanese nuclear storage pools may turn out to be flammable. In the U.S., iodine pills are selling out.
If you think this is just the tail end of the story, think again.
The Wall Street Journal chirps that the Japanese reactor problem can’t become another Chernobyl because of design differences. But, in fact it could be every bit as bad. If the rods in the storage pool catch fire, much more radioactivity could be released. That’s just one potential disaster scenario that still looms.
As the cleanup begins we will certainly hear more alarm over the spread of radioactive contamination. It seems most unlikely that Japan will ever build another reactor.
Japanese fear of the nuclear industry will certainly spread to the U.S. Approvals for future reactor construction will be difficult if not impossible to obtain here because of renewed public opposition. New “safer” reactor designs won’t calm fears about an energy source that will continue to reel from Japanese fallout for years to come.
Even more ominous in this new environment is the fact that storage pools for spent uranium rods are now recognized as a threat. Every reactor has one of these glowing pools, specifically because the world has not found a way to dispose of nuclear waste.
The political bickering which has derailed the Yucca mountain nuclear waste project in Nevada will come no closer to a solution in the current environment…….I believe the developed world will eventually turn very sharply away from nuclear energy and towards cheap and abundant natural gas.
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