The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

When Tim Gitzel takes over as chief executive officer at Cameco Corp.  next week he will become more than just head of the world’s largest publicly traded uranium company.

The 49-year-old Saskatoon-based executive will also be thrust into a leadership role in a global industry fighting to convince the world that nuclear energy is a clean, safe alternative despite the recent nuclear disaster in Japan.

He must also try to persuade investors that uranium – the price of which has fallen about 25 per cent since Japan’s earthquake and ensuing nuclear crisis struck in March – is heading for a recovery. Even more pressing for Mr. Gitzel will be trying to stage a rebound in Cameco’s stock, which has fallen nearly 40 per cent over the past three months.

Overall, Mr. Gitzel has his work cut out for him as countries such as Germany, Switzerland and most recently Italy have vowed to phase out their nuclear energy programs as a result of pressure from citizens nervous about the potential for a nuclear meltdown in their own country. Read the rest of this entry »

This article was orginally published in Saturday Night (a Canadian general interest magazine that ceased publication in 2005) in the June, 1976 issue.

“The conditions in Elliot Lake are not the best conditions to work in to survive a normal life span. If anybody does not like to go to the hospital with lung cancer, he should have a very close look at the Elliot Lake situation before he signs on as an employee of either one of the companies. We believe that the companies should not have the right to expose people to conditions that will cause bodily harm. There has to be a clean-up programme before we can definitely advise people to seek employment in Elliot Lake.” (Paul Falkowski, United Steel Workers of America, Environmental Representative – June 1976)

The uranium miners there are dying of cancer at three times the normal rate. But what can a single-industry town do about it? Close down? Or live with death?

His voice broke in mid sentence. His eyes were red-rimmed and he fought back tears.

“I could be healthy, still workin. Now I have dust plus cancer. And the family is all upside down.  Dad’s gonna die maybe today, maybe tomorrow, we don’t know.” His voice broke once again. “And that’s the way it looks like. It’s bad. It’s very bad for a family. Family’s more hurt than me. Cryin’, you know. Disaster.”

It was the type of interview that makes a documentary a success. It was also the type of interview that makes a journalist fell parasitic. One is pleased with having captured an extremely moving moment on tape. But one also feels exploitative for having the presumption to ask a dying man to spill his emotions into your microphone.

Here was a forty-four-year-old man who had spent fifteen years digging and blasting a living in the Elliot Lake uranium miners in northern Ontario. The work was back breaking, the kind of work that makes a man tough and hard. Miners a proud of the strong, vigorous image they project. They don’t cry in public. They don’t cry, that is, unless they are overwhelmed by events and their defences have been destroyed. Read the rest of this entry »

This article was orginally published in Saturday Night (a Canadian general interest magazine that ceased publication in 2005) on April 29, 1961.

Uranium: Political Baby’s Growing Pains

Who is hiding what?

Canada’s uranium industry was fathered by the military necessity and mothered by politics. Deserted by its father in childhood, it now faces adolescence with only a mother  – at least until mother can find a new husband among the world’s nuclear power stations, most of which are not yet built.

But until this happy union, estimated at perhaps a decade away, the future of this ailing child is tied by political apron strings. More than that, both the form and the fact of its very existence depend upon political decisions to be made soon in Ottawa: How to allocate among the various producing mines the recently publicized agreement to sell 24,000,000 pounds of uranium to Britain.

At current shipping rates, this represents 13 months additional production for the three Canadian mining areas of Elliot Lake, Bancroft and Beaverlodge. Upon wise allocation of this order depends not only the ability of some mines to stay in business, but also the ability of the industry as a whole to take quick advantage of developing civilian demand in the 1970s.

It was undoubtedly, in recognition of the critical importance of this order that the federal government decided that allocation would be a political decision and not a decision by its agent, the Eldorado Mining and Refining Co. In short, allocations of this order, and possibly some reshuffling of existing contacts, must be based upon the national interest, not on strictly economic factors. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a Graphic Picture of Ontario’s Elliot Lake

A billion-dollar order for uranium
A $300-million spending spree to fill it
A lawless horde of transients
A Communist struggle to control mine workers
A serious outbreak of disease

Just off the Trans-Canada Highway skirting Lake Huron’s north shore, a buried vein of ore snakes north through the Algoma Basin in the shape of an upside-down S. It curves for ninety miles beneath the pineclad granite knolls, a mother lode that is spawning eleven giant uranium mines in the greatest eruption of growth since gold gave birth to Dawson City.

The hub of these mines is a chaotic city-to-be called Elliot Lake. Twenty-two months ago it was just a stand of timber dividing two lakes, so wild that a bulldozer leveling brush ran over a large black bear. Today it’s a prime example of a boom town, familiar symbol of dynamic growth – and trouble.

For a couple of months this spring Elliot Lake made headlines that had nothing to do with uranium. An outbreak of jaundice packed ninety victims into nearby Blind River’s 59-bed hospital. About three hundred cases were reported before the disease began to wane early last month. Provincial health officials insisted that the outbreak did not rate as an epidemic while union officials were demanding the mines shut down until the sewage system was improved.

Infectious disease is an age-old bugbear of the boom town, which has its other ageless features. It is the nation in miniature with its time span speeded up as in a silent movie. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Stothart is vice president, economic affairs of the Mining Association of Canada. He is responsible for advancing the industry’s interests regarding federal tax, trade, investment, transport and energy issues.

Few energy sources attract the controversy that is associated with nuclear energy and the fuel it requires – uranium. The spectre of potential radioactive accidents and leakages has long been presented by environmental groups as a cause for opposition, as has the technical and social challenge of long-term waste management. A number of governments over the years, ranging from nations such as Germany to provinces such as British Columbia and Nova Scotia, have introduced policies specifically prohibiting uranium mining and/or nuclear reactor development.

Available evidence suggests that these opponents are generally engaging in exercises of political hypocrisy. No energy source is without environmental and social consequence. Fossil fuel combustion has links to smog, acid rain and attendant health concerns. Wind energy requires large land masses, creates noise pollution and poses a hazard to birds — all to generate minor amounts of unreliable power. Hydro-power requires large-scale flooding, ecosystem destruction and resultant mercury releases. Even supposedly clean ethanol is proving to be disruptive to world food prices while presenting a marginal (or by some studies, negative) benefit regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to gasoline. On the health and safety front, in terms of worker and population impacts, few if any major energy sources measure up to the record of nuclear energy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good morning.

Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. I am delighted to be here in Florida, one of the states leading the way in the drive for new nuclear generating capacity in the United States.

2008 marks Cameco’s 20th anniversary. And while history has delivered its ups and downs, the future of Cameco and the nuclear industry are exciting and robust. Today, I want to impress upon you the strength of Cameco and my enthusiasm for our ability to address current challenges, seize opportunities and pursue our vision to be a dominant nuclear energy company.

Cameco is built upon an unparalleled uranium asset base, vertically integrated operations, a long-term contracting strategy, and a team of the industry’s most talented and dedicated people. We are an industry leader, delivering increasing returns amidst the growing momentum in the nuclear industry.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gerald W. Grandey was appointed chief executive officer of Cameco Corporation on January 1, 2003.  He joined Cameco in 1993 as senior vice-president marketing and corporate development.

Prior appointments include vice-chair and chief executive officer of The Concord Mining Business Unit and president of Energy Fuels, an American coal and uranium mining company.

Grandey practiced law in the mid ’70s with a major Denver law firm specializing in mineral financing, natural resources and environmental law.  He graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1968 with a degree in geophysical engineering and, after serving two years in the US military, received his law degree from Northwestern University in 1973.

Grandey is a past-president of the Uranium Producers of America and currently serves on the boards of the Nuclear Energy Institute and Bruce Power and is past vice-chair of the World Nuclear Association.

Cameco Corporation is the world’s largest uranium producer accounting for 20% of world production from its mines in Canada and the US. The company’s leading position is backed by 500 million pounds of proven and probable reserves and extensive resources. Cameco holds premier land positions in the world’s most promising areas for new uranium discoveries in Canada and Australia as part of an intensive global exploration program.

Cameco is also a leading provider of processing services required to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, and generates 1,000 MW of clean electricity through a partnership in North America’s largest nuclear generating station located in Ontario, Canada.

The World Wants Yellowcake (Uranium)

Among some people uranium gets a bad rap due to its use as the explosive material for atomic weapons and yet these folks tend to forget that it has most beneficial uses for mankind, principally as the fuel for nuclear reactors which deliver about 15% of the country’s electricity. Canada is currently the largest producer of uranium in the world, although Australia has the larger proportion of the world’s known deposits. In 2006 of the seventeen countries that mined the element, Canada produced 28%, followed by Australia with 23%. The term ‘yellowcake’ was originally given to uranium concentrate, although the colour and texture today can range from anything through dull yellow to almost black.

Early interest in uranium in Canada took a back seat to the work of Gilbert and Charles LaBine who discovered radium at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories in 1930. Read the rest of this entry »