re: ** uranium + the australian **
It's not an overly positive article in my opinion. In fact, it can be looked upon as quite negative and may give some holders of uranium shares the jitters:
For example:
"...Public opposition to uranium mining traditionally focused on the spent fuel from nuclear power stations that remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years and the potential for uranium to fall into malevolent hands. The anti-nuclear agenda has abated but global terrorism is stirring greater activism.
Gavin Mudd, a Monash University environmental engineering academic who studies the environmental impact of radioactive tailings, will address Prosser's parliamentary inquiry today. "Olympic Dam already has 70 million tonnes of radioactive tailings at the surface and if they go for full production, will leave another four billion tonnes," Mudd says.
All three of Australia's uranium mines -- Olympic Dam, SA's second uranium mine Beverley and the Ranger mine in the NT -- have been beset with leaks and spills in recent years. In 2003, a Senate inquiry into uranium reported a pattern of underperformance and non-compliance of Australian uranium mines.
Mudd also believes that selling uranium to China to fuel nuclear power has potential consequences for global security. Australia only sells to countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and who have entered a bilateral agreement restricting uranium use to non-military purposes.
Australia and China have begun negotiating such a bilateral. But Mudd says the agreement is worthless if Australian sales free China to use its own uranium reserves to build nuclear weapons. "They can buy uranium in for commercial power reactors and use their internal uranium for weapons programs," Mudd says. "If we sell uranium to China we directly facilitate the expansion of their weapons program." The US State Department is reportedly nervous about a potential deal, following comments by China's Major-General Zhu Chenghu who said China would destroy "hundreds" of US cities with nuclear weapons if war broke out over Taiwan."
