Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia tight-lipped about its Ranger mine’s gloomy financial situation
ERA keeps its Ranger delay very hush-hush BY CRAIG DUNLOP NT NEWS FEBRUARY 11, 2015 ENERGY Resources Australia has quietly delayed the expansion of the Ranger uranium mine, with work now set to commence at an unspecified date in 2016, rather than its original target date of late 2015.
The company, 68 per cent owned by mining giant Rio Tinto, made the announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange late on Friday.
“Dependent on the outcome of further work, and subject to board and regulatory approvals, first development ore for Ranger 3 Deeps is now expected to be in 2016,” the report said.
It also said that ERA was likely to require further investment for the expansion to go ahead.
The knock-on effects from the failure of a leach tank in 2013 continued to be felt until mid-2014, as the company was forced to purchase, and then onsell, uranium in order to meet its prearranged sales contracts.
The delay has pleased environmental groups, who have long objected to Ranger 3, with the Environment Centre NT and the Australian Conservation Foundation labelling the expansion plans “unviable”.
The Environment Centre NT’s Lauren Mellor said: “The delay on investment in the Ranger 3 Deeps project is a major setback for both Rio and ERA, with costs continuing to blow out and time running out for this short-term, high-risk venture.”………
- In light of the losses and the investment required in Ranger 3, the company’s directors have not issued a dividend.
On an earthquake fault line, financially unviable – but Prof Ian Plimer wants nuclear power at Port Adelaide
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SA-born professor Ian Plimer says Port Adelaide should be considered as a site for a nuclear power plant KURTIS EICHLER PORTSIDE MESSENGER FEBRUARY 12, 2015
AN ADELAIDE-born professor wants a nuclear-power plant built in Port Adelaide, saying it would create jobs and rejuvenate the area.
But a local conservationist has slammed Professor Ian Plimer’s idea, saying a nuclear-power plant in the western suburbs would be costly and hurt the environment.
Prof Plimer, an expert geologist and professor of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, has supported Premier Jay Weatherill’s Royal Commission into nuclear power……..
Prof Plimer prefers the use of uranium technology over thorium.
“(This is because) the technology for a thorium generated power station is not as mature as a uranium one,” he said.
But former Port Adelaide Environment Forum deputy chairman Kingsley Haskett doesn’t agree, saying nuclear power is not “financially viable”. Mr Haskett acknowledges it is safe but says the “old technology” is “bloody expensive”.
“It requires a very large client base because it’s not cheap unless you’re supplying hundreds of thousands of users as it has a base-load power source,” Mr Haskett said.
“It cannot ever be shut down and it can never be shut off.”
He strongly disagrees Port Adelaide is a suitable location for a nuclear power plant. “It couldn’t be done at the Port because there is a fault line along the river,” he said.
Mr Haskett said water used to cool down the plant would likely have to pumped back into the ocean.
He argues this would have environmental impacts because there would be “some level of radiation”. http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messenger/west-beaches/sa-born-professor-ian-plimer-says-port-adelaide-should-be-considered-as-a-site-for-a-nuclear-power-plant/story-fni9llx9-1227215716184
Rio’s investment delay adds difficulty to Ranger 3 Deeps uranium mine proposal
13 Feb 15 National and Territory Environment Groups have today welcomed the announcement that investment in Ranger 3 Deeps, a controversial new underground uranium mine proposal has been significantly delayed by Rio Tinto, majority owner of the embattled Ranger uranium mine within the boundaries of Kakadu National Park.
The decision came off the back of further record losses for Rio subsidiary and Ranger mine operator Energy Resources of Australia of $188 million in 2014 and $136 million in 2013. ERA have now suffered five consecutive yearly losses totalling $500 million.
“Ranger’s underground mine has become a money pit for Rio Tinto, with the company investing hundreds of millions in feasibility studies and an underground decline tunnel in recent years, and has faced unprecedented community opposition receiving over 4500 public submissions opposing the mine during the Environment Impact Assessment public comment phase in December last year,” Lauren Mellor, Nuclear-free Campaigner with the Environment Centre NT said.
“The delay on investment in the Ranger 3 Deeps project is a major setback for both Rio and ERA, with costs continuing to blow out and time running out for this short-term, high risk venture. Years of sustained uranium company and sector losses have shown even the industry’s biggest players are getting cold feet for new mines, with no commodity price recovery predicted within ten years – well past the legal operating timeframe for Ranger 3 Deeps.”
“This decision by the Rio board is a long overdue recognition that the project, like the wider uranium industry, is unviable. It has a very limited lease life, with all mining on the Ranger lease mandated to end in 2021, at a time when the commodity price has never been lower, making old mines like Ranger struggle, and new projects like Ranger 3 Deeps buckle.” said Dave Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
“Day by day, every delay and every lost dollar makes this project less viable and less likely. “The nuclear industry simply can’t compete, on cost, construction times and on community standards for environmental protection. Like Ranger mine its well past its use by date and the NT and Federal governments should be using this company delay to instead accelerate a rehabilitation plan for Kakadu that will see the region and its inhabitants protected for the long haul.”
South Australian government continues to promote uranium industry, despite its gloomy market situation
SA Govt to give Uranium One green light for exploring new sites in state’s north-east, ABC News By Gavin Coote 13 feb 15 The owner of Honeymoon mine in South Australia’s north-east is set to be granted three new uranium exploration licenses in the region.
Honeymoon has been mothballed for 15 months but Uranium One was successful in an application to explore in three sites near the existing mine, 75 kilometres north-west of Broken Hill.
It came as the State Government planned to hold an inquiry into the potential opportunities that could come from the state’s expanding nuclear energy industry.
The SA Department of State Development said Uranium One put forward a strong case to play a part in future discoveries.
The Department’s Mineral Resources executive director Ted Tyne said the exploration licences would be finalised in the next few weeks…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-12/sa-govt-expected-to-give-uranium-one-green-light-to-explore-new/6087340
Radioactive waste shipments would be targets for terrorism
Waste shipments would be targets for sabotage or blackmail by terrorists. TCEQ noted that the waste is more vulnerable to accidents or attacks while in transit than if left it where it is, because security is lighter then and fewer radiation shields would be available. Shipments from reactors around the country — passing through dozens of 
population centers — could last over 24 years. The Energy Dept. estimates that there would be about 10,700 shipments if done by rail; about 53,000 shipments (others say 100,000) if done by truck.
WCS [the nuclear waste company ] would have only limited liability, while the public would be put at risk from transport accidents, leaks and terrorism.
“The highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear reactors should be stored on-site, in hardened configurations while Washington sorts it out. Putting the deadliest nuclear waste on the roads needlessly increases risks.”
A high-level radioactive waste “parking lot” — proposed for West Texas — poses both terrible and unnecessary risks for people throughout the country — Texas in particular — and should not be built.
That’s the position of a coalition of public interest groups that declared its opposition to the plan February 9 Continue reading
Aboriginal Canadians fight the Uranium Industry
the National Academies of Sciences have found conclusively that any exposure to ionizing radiation will increase the risks of developing cancer.
Calls for baseline and epidemiological health studies on the impacts of uranium mining and milling on nearby communities have gone unanswered by both government and industry since the 1970s.
Indigenous Canadians Are Fighting the Uranium Mining Industry, VICE February 11, 2015 by Michael Toledano On November 22, 2014, a small group of Dene trappers called the Northern Trappers Alliance set up a checkpoint on Saskatchewan’s Highway 955, allowing locals to pass while blockading the industrial traffic of tar sands and uranium exploration companies. On December 1, officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police descended on the site with an injunction from the province and forcibly dismantled the blockade.
Eighty days later, the trappers remain camped on the side of the highway in weather that has routinely dipped below -40 C. They are constructing a permanent cabin on the site that will be a meeting place for Dene people and northern land defenders.
“We want industry to get the hell out of here and stop this killing,” said Don Montgrand, who has been at the encampment since day one and was named as one of its leaders on the police injunction. “We want this industry to get the hell out before we lose any more people here. We lose kids, adults, teenagers.”
“They’re willing to stay as long as it takes to get the point across that any of this kind of development is not going to be welcomed,” said Candyce Paul, the alliance’s spokesperson and a member of the anti-nuclear Committee for the Future Generations. “It’s indefinite.”
“We don’t want to become a sacrifice zone. That’s where we see ourselves heading.”
The trappers say an unprecedented rise in cancer is the legacy of contamination from nearby uranium mines. With significant tar sands and uranium deposits in their area, the trappers are developing a long-term strategy to halt the industrial growth threatening to deform their surroundings and scare away the wildlife they depend on for food, income, and culture.
About an hour north of the alliance’s location, a recent discovery by Fission Uranium Corp. could lead to the development of one of the world’s largest high-grade uranium mines.
Further north, abandoned and decommissioned uranium mines already host millions of tons of radioactive dust (also known as tailings) that must be isolated from the surrounding environment for millennia, while no cleanup plans exist for the legacy of severe and widespread watershed contamination that is synonymous with Uranium City, Saskatchewan. To the east, “an integrated uranium corridor spreading over 250 kilometers” hosts the largest high-grade uranium mines and mills in the world, with their own stockpiles of radioactive tailings and a decades-long history of radioactive spills…….
The province is looking to indigenous lands in the north for new bitumen and mineral mines, a high-level nuclear waste dump site, and the construction of nuclear reactors to encourage “environmentally responsible” tar sands extraction by exporting energy to Alberta.
“We know the government really doesn’t care about the northern people. They would rather see us move out of our region,” Paul said. “We’re in the way.” Continue reading
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