Fundamentally, the Uranium Sector Still Looks Good

TORONTO - 

The Energy Report: The Fukushima disaster, protests in Australia over lifting a ban on uranium exploration, and a fire aboard a Russian nuclear submarine in December indicate negative sentiment toward nuclear power. Why would investors risk exposure to a commodity that is so price sensitive to events like these?

Mark Lackey: The fundamentals of the uranium sector still look good. Worldwide, 1.3 billion (B) people lack electricity. In China, load growth for electricity is 10% annually; in India, 8%. That growth is unlikely to diminish any time soon. Nuclear power has to be considered as an option to meet demand.

I would remind you the nuclear industry did not end after the accident in Fukushima, Japan. Yes, there was a reaction; plants were shutdown in Japan and Germany. Subsequently, some startup of those same plants is planned. Furthermore, construction on 65 plants around the world did not stop.

There have been more inspections in China, India and France and that reassures people that everything has been built to specifications.

Dr. Copper In The House: Thom @ Large

By Thom Calandra

www.babybulls.com

VANCOUVER, Canada — Vancouver’s two January resources get-ups, Cambridge House for investors and B.C. Round Up for geos & technicians, gave us flogging five-day rains, one superb NHL hockey match … and plenty of hard-asset bravado:

• “I don’t own stocks any more; I own colored diamonds,” diamond seller Colin Ferguson told me at a private party I hosted with Cambridge House‘s Joe Martin. (I invite the guests and Joe entertains ‘em.)  Mr. Ferguson, a 51-year-old Vancouver Island resident, says we’ll see reports of diamond warehousing by aggressive hedge funds. Worldwide demand for diamonds is on track to exceed supply by 7 million carats. The “coloreds,” champagnes (cognac hues), pinks, blues and greens, are beginning to flash in fashion-minded markets. Colin will be at Mr. Martin’s Palm Springs investment conference at Indian Wells, California, in two weeks. I want to see more of these stones. (See: www. cambridgehouse.com)
  

  Dr. Clarke At PMI Gold Booth

• “Poly-metallic mines and properties are always in demand,” Tom Macneill says. I came across Mr. Macneill, a lifelong  Saskatchewan resident and longtime chief of 49 North Resources (FNR in Canada), across the street from Waterfront at lunchtime. Tom, sitting at a lunch counter, is sitting on his merchant bank’s 10-percent-plus ownership of surging DNI Metals (DNI). DNI is a northern Canada smorgasbord of elements in an expansive property portfolio. I am fortunate to own FNR and DNI after a fishing trip a couple years back with Tom, Bob Bishop, Doug Casey and others, way up there in Saskatchewan. (By the way, Mr. Macneill is hot on uranium prospectors right now — especially one big one whose first letter is C and its last O.)
• I tested my latest think on the exhibit floor at the Joe show; copper-gold porphyrys will outpace market gains of all metals equities in coming weeks. “When Dr. Copper is in the house, it’s a very, very, very good house,” says Don Mosher. Don represents Riverstone Resources (RVS), a Burkina Faso prospector whose shares look ready to bust out after a largely ignored resource report. A geologist I rely on for analysis, Dr. Peter Megaw of Minaurum (Gold (MGG), Candente Gold and others, told me, “Copper is a big-company business. A billion tonnes of half-percent copper with the gold credit blended in, that takes care of a lot of the risk of taking on a development.”

Uracan Discovers Additional Significant Uranium Mineralization

Uracan Resources (OTC Other: URCFF; TSX-V: URC) has discovered new areas of significant uranium mineralization on the Pontbriand and Costebelle claim groups of its 100% owned North Shore Property in Quebec.  This work was part of the summer 2011 exploration program, in the assessment of the airborne radiometric anomalies and lake sediment anomalies that had not previously been explored.  Highlights from the exploration program include:

• New mineralized zone (Joel zone) 2 kilometres southeast of A4 zone with up to 21 metres of 0.032% U3O8 (316ppm or 0.63 lbs/t) in surface channeling
• Extensive areas of uranium mineralization encountered on Pontbriand claims

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Uracan Upgrades Double S Resource Filed on Sedar

Uracan Resources (OTC Other: URCFF; TSX-V: URC) has filed an updated NI 43-101 compliant resource estimation report on the Double S Zone, located within Uracan’s 100% owned 1,000 Km² North Shore Uranium Property in Quebec on SEDAR, www.SEDAR.com.

The combined overall resource at the Double S, TJ and Middle Zones contains a total indicated resource of 21.5 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.014% U₃O₈ containing 3.11 million kilograms (6.86 million pounds) of U₃O₈ using a 0.010% cutoff, and a total inferred resource estimate of 140.65 million tonnes at a weighted average grade of 0.012% U₃O₈ containing 16.826 million kilograms (37.095 million pounds) of uranium using a 0.010% cut-off.

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Uracan Upgrades Double S Resource in Quebec

Uracan Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: URC and OTC Other: URCFF) announced an updated National Instrument (NI) 43-101 compliant indicated and inferred resource estimation for the Company’s Double S Zone, located within Uracan’s 100% owned 1,000 Km²North Shore Uranium Property in Quebec .

The previous resource estimation at the Double S Zone was entirely in the inferred category.  The updated Double S mineralized Zone hosts an indicated resource of 21.5 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.014% U₃O₈ containing 3.11 million kilograms (6.86 million pounds) of U₃O₈ and an inferred resource of 59.96 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.012% U₃O₈ containing 7.41 million kilograms (16.33 million pounds) of U₃O₈ using a 0.010% cutoff.

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Uracan’s Winter 2011 Exploration Outlined Significant Uranium Mineralization

Uracan Resources (OTC Other: URCFF; TSX-V: URC) focused its 2011 winter drill program on two areas of its 100% owned North Shore property in Quebec, the Costebelle A4 and the CC11 zones.  The 18 hole, 3,156 meter drill program was designed to expand upon the previous year’s success, highlights of which include:

• 10.5 meters of 0.048% U3O8 (483 ppm or 0.96 lbs/t) and 43.5 meters of 0.019% U3O8 (193 ppm or 0.38 lbs/t) in CA4-11-42;
• 17.6 meters of 0.025% U3O8 (252 ppm or 0.5 lbs/t) in CA4-11-38, 15 meters of 0.034% U3O8 (337 ppm or 0.68 lbs/t) in CA4-11-46; and
• 12.5 meters of 0.032% U3O8 (322 ppm or 0.64 lbs/t) in CC11-11-05.

The area with drill results received to date occurs along an approximately 600 meter length within an overall anomaly with a potential strike length of approximately 1,500 meters.  Mineralization is open along strike, with significant portions of the radiometric anomaly remaining to be tested by drilling.  Mineralization has been extended to approximately 200 meters down dip from the surface outcrop mineralization and remains open in most areas of the A4 zone.

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Geoff Candy: Nuclear’s Renaissance Still On Track

GRONINGEN - The full cost of the Fukushima nuclear disaster is yet to be established but its impact on the nuclear sector as a whole may not be as bad as was first thought – even with the loss of Germany as an active participant.

Speaking on the Mineweb.com Metals Weekly podcast, Steve Kidd, deputy director general at the World Nuclear Association, said that while the impact of Fukushima has got to be negative “there’s still substantial growth expected because some countries are very determined to have more nuclear at the moment, particularly the large developing countries like China and India and I don’t think that Fukushima is going to cause a significant change to their plans.”

He added. “The world still needs large quantities of clean energy and nuclear is one of the possible answers to that.  Fukushima doesn’t change that overall assessment…. I guess for many countries around the world the image of nuclear might have been tarnished slightly, but eventually the industry will get over that because the reality is that it’s a very good and very safe way of generating clean electricity in large quantities.”

Nuclear Energy Renaissance – Has it Stalled or Must it Go On

COQUITLAM, BC (Aheadoftheherd.com) - Concerns about climate change, carbon footprints, energy security and the rising cost of fossil fuels spurred a revival of interest in nuclear power generation. In early 2010 we saw the start of a global civil nuclear renaissance. It was derailed when the unfortunate Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant accident paused the renaissance for reactor safety inspections.

Why was there a bull market in uranium developing, can it survive and overcome the negative fallout from Fukushima-Daiichi? A quick review of nuclear power’s fundamentals are in order:  

• Coal and natural gas plants emit carbon dioxide emissions and natural gas needs an incredible amount of investment in pipelines and supporting infrastructure
• Operating a 1,000-MW coal plant, for one year, produces 30,000 truckloads of ash that contains large amounts of carcinogens and toxins. Every second, up the smokestack, goes 600 pounds of carbon dioxide and ten pounds of sulfur dioxide
• Extensive use of hydrogen is not practical due to its volatile nature and lack of infrastructure
• Solar, wind and geothermal are all niche suppliers and are untried on a large scale. Geothermal seems to be limited to a few parts of any country and all three alternative means of generating electricity need massive investment in power transmission lines to get the power to where it’s needed. All three of these technologies are extremely important and each will successfully contribute, in a small way, to energy independence. But none are, today, capable of supplying base load power
• A 1,000-MW solar plant would cover 129 to 259 square kilometers and use a thousand times the material needed to construct a nuclear plant of the same capacity.
• To equal the output of South Korea’s Yongwangs six one-thousand-megawatt nuclear reactors, wind generators would require an area 245 kilometers wide extending from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Solar would require roughly 52 square kilometers of collector area.
• High emissions, a negative energy return and severe environmental costs are associated with ethanol and make its use impractical
• Hydro – going to clean eco-friendly energy isn’t accomplished by damming what free-flowing rivers are left

Pressure Rises on Europe’s Nuclear Reactors

BERLIN (Reuters) - Some of Europe’s 143 nuclear reactors are likely to fail a test simulating terrorist attacks, an EU Commissioner said, and others will likely see insurance bills soar as politicians try to tighten regulations.

Following the nuclear crisis in Japan, caused by an earthquake and tsunami last month, the European Union is planning to carry out tests by the year end to assess whether its reactors could survive severe conditions.

The tests would simulate terrorist attacks either via cyberspace or an airplane crash and would focus on the reliability of reactor cooling systems, European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told German magazine Der Spiegel.

Japan’s Nuclear Disaster Will Delay, Not End the “Nuclear Renaissance”

RENO, NV - Broad-based strength in base metals, a precious metals rebound-linked to political upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East-and strength in fertilizers propelled Scotiabank’s Metal and Mineral Index to its highest level since 2008.

In her analysis Scotiabank economist Patricia Mohr suggested “the Fukushima-Daiichi event will likely delay rather than derail the ‘nuclear renaissance.’”

“While the tragic March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, took a toll on some commodity prices in mid-March, the negative fallout is likely to prove temporary, with Japan quickly gearing up its economy again,” Mohr advised. “Re-construction in Japan will boost demand and prices for lumber, OSB [Oriented Strand Board] and plywood (especially from Canada’s West Coast), steel and base metals over the next six-to-twelve months.”