Nice Try but No Cigar

A major flood at ‘Cigar Lake’ a Canadian uranium mine has further restricted future supplies of the radioactive poison, believed by some to be out energy saviour. Prices have increased again, after having already gone up 54% this year.

From the Bloomberg story:

"Losing Cigar Lake in the uranium world is like the oil market having to deal with the loss of Saudi Arabia,'' Kevin Bambrough, market strategist at Sprott Asset Management Inc. in Toronto, said in an e-mail. Projected full production of 18 million pounds annually at the mine "equates to just over 10 percent of current annual consumption,'' Bambrough said.

As I’ve mentioned before, Canada is the number 1 source of the world’s uranium (30% of world supply), number 2 (or 5 according to this report) is Kazakhstan. The EU is currently courting Kazakhstan to get its hands on more of its supplies of radioactive poison. Let’s hope that human rights were discussed too. How exactly is going nuclear going to increase our "energy security"?

I’m kind of hoping that all the political embarrassment around Borat will be a major factor in derailing a nuclear future.

Just to keep you up to date with the UK nuclear industry (and derailings), here's some of the last weeks goodies: Sunderland train station was evacuated on Wednesday when a train carrying nuclear waste to Sellafield broke down; Hinkley Point B Nuclear power station's two reactor may never re-open after being closed due to problems including "cracks in a reactor's graphite core, and cracks in boiler pipes"; the UK nations are getting into a bitchfest about who has to look after nuclear waste; while Environment Secretary David Milliband is trying to bribe local councils to bury the radioactive poison in their backyards.

Click here for the Europe wide million signature campaign against nuclear power.