white canyon exploration, page-12

Here's one snippet about the Shumways from
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28uranium.html?ei=5088&en=2ee40a7e7c5a9144&ex=1332734400&pagewanted=all

The revival of uranium mining in the West, though, has less to do with the renewed interest in nuclear power as an alternative to greenhouse-gas-belching coal plants than to the convoluted economics and intense speculation surrounding the metal that has pushed up the price of uranium to levels not seen since the heyday of the industry in the mid-1970s.

“There’s a lot of staking going on,” said Mike Shumway, a 53-year-old Vietnam veteran who owns the contracting business that is working the Pandora mine. “It’s like the gold rush.”

Mr. Shumway has personally amassed some 100 uranium claims, including four dormant but potentially rich mines. Some of the claims he bought quietly after less tenacious prospectors could not afford to hold theirs during the long drought while uranium was out of favor. Mr. Shumway’s eyes light up and he cracks a grin as he ponders the fortune he now hopes to gain.

“There’s big money in it,” he said as he probed piles of waste ore at Pandora with a Geiger counter. “What other work do you know of where you can make millions in 30 days?”

Not many. Prices for processed uranium ore, also called U308, or yellowcake, are rising rapidly. Yellowcake is trading at $90 a pound, nearing the record high, adjusted for inflation, of about $120 in the mid-1970s. The price has more than doubled in the last six months alone. As recently as late 2002, it was below $10.