the ferrets view
Dont know if this has been posted:
Ferret's stock to watch 28/03/2006 09:21:25 AM
Uranium has made a resurgence in the market place over the last few years as the world looks more kindly on an energy source that in the wrong hands can cause a cataclysmic disaster.
There is the non-proliferation treaty which nations now sign that promises uranium will only be used for peaceful means and its use is strictly supervised.
The greens are coming around to admit that fossil fuel can be more destructive to the ecology than using clean uranium for energy. Advertisement:
The Australian government and the Labor Party appear to be relaxing some controls at this stage over the mining of the metal and allowing the development of mines except in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
All this is adding up to a sharemarket boom for uranium explorers, miners and producers, mostly in South Australia where a Labor government supports the industry.
Probably the best speculative stock since the nickel bonanza has been Toro Energy (TOE), a uranium explorer which saw the 25-centers hit the trading floor running on Friday.
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In the last ten years, there have been important positive changes to Commonwealth government policies relating to the mining and export of uranium, headed by the abolishment of the "Three Mines Policy" in 1996.
Proponents of new uranium mines in Australia are required by legislation to complete a comprehensive environmental impact assessment process, which calls for public comments on the proposal.
The projects are assessed jointly by Commonwealth and State/Territory government agencies.
For approval, the projects must meet strict requirements for environmental, heritage and nuclear safeguards.
The South Australian government currently permits uranium mining at Olympic Dam and Beverley, and supports the planned expansion of Olympic Dam.
In addition, the State government is actively promoting and partially funding exploration for uranium-bearing deposits.
While it currently maintains the "no new mines" policy of the Federal Labor party, the South Australian government is in favour of reviewing this policy at the next Federal Labor Party conference in 2007.
The uranium market is small relative to other commodities, yet it is a very important market as the most significant commercial use for uranium is as fuel for nuclear power generators.
Nuclear power accounts for around 16 per cent of the world's electricity supply and is a major component of power generation in many countries - USA (20 per cent of domestic electricity production), Japan (29 per cent), Germany (32 per cent), Hungary (34 per cent), South Korea (38 per cent), Sweden (52 per cent), Lithuania (72 per cent) and France (78 per cent).
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