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Uranium and Nuclear Power Industry

Canada’s nuclear industry rolled with the COVID-19 pandemic punch, documents show – by David Akin (Global News – September 5, 2020)

https://globalnews.ca/

As the COVID-19 pandemic rolled across the country early this spring, shutting down airlines, retailers and legislatures, Canada’s nuclear industry rapidly put in place business contingency plans developed nearly 20 years ago after the SARS epidemic. And, by all accounts, they worked.

Indeed, key industry players had long ago socked away tons of personal protective equipment (PPE) and developed “what-if” disaster plans that helped the country’s nuclear power plants, uranium mines, research reactors, and nuclear waste disposal sites roll with the pandemic punch.

And yet, as the pandemic shut down one industry after another this spring, senior staff at the country’s nuclear industry regulator worried that their ability and the ability of those they regulate to guarantee the safety of Canadians might have been put at risk.

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Are Radioactive Diamond Batteries a Cure for Nuclear Waste? – by Daniel Oberhaus (Wired Magazine – August 31, 2020)

https://www.wired.com/

Researchers are developing a new battery powered by lab-grown gems made from reformed nuclear waste. If it works, it will last thousands of years.

IN THE SUMMER of 2018, a hobby drone dropped a small package near the lip of Stromboli, a volcano off the coast of Sicily that has been erupting almost constantly for the past century.

As one of the most active volcanoes on the planet, Stromboli is a source of fascination for geologists, but collecting data near the roiling vent is fraught with peril.

So a team of researchers from the University of Bristol built a robot volcanologist and used a drone to ferry it to the top of the volcano, where it could passively monitor its every quake and quiver until it was inevitably destroyed by an eruption.

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China poised to overtake US in nuclear power by 2030 – by Kotaro Fukuoka (Nikkei Asian Review – August 31, 2020)

https://asia.nikkei.com/

TOKYO — China is on track to surpass the U.S. as the world’s top producer of nuclear energy as early as 2030, reflecting hesitance to build new capacity in Japan and Western nations even as emerging economies move ahead.

China’s total nuclear power generation capacity, including reactors under construction and in planning, came to 108,700 megawatts as of April, more than America’s 105,120 MW, according to the World Nuclear Association, an industry group.

The trend reflects diverging approaches to nuclear power after the March 2011 Fukushima meltdowns in Japan. While the U.S., Europe and Japan grew risk averse in response to public fears, emerging nations have been keener.

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State environmental agency requires stricter monitoring of uranium mine near Grand Canyon – by Scott Buffon (Arizona Daily Sun – August 26, 2020)

https://azdailysun.com/

Public outcry pushed an Arizona environmental agency to require Canyon Mine, a uranium mine near the Grand Canyon, to apply for a more strict aquifer protection permit.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) denied a general permit for Canyon Mine, owned by Canadian-based Energy Fuels Resources, after reviewing feedback from the public and reviewing the years of documents available on the mine.

Public comment cited allegations of cultural and environmental damage to water stores, wildlife and land to demand the department issue the stricter permit for the purpose of closing down the mine in September 2019.

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Do any Liberals still support Canadian resources? – by Brad Wall (National Post – August 25, 2020)

https://nationalpost.com/

If properly supported, Canada’s resource sector and Canadian agriculture will be leaders in the recovery

Were there an official committee of the federal cabinet constituted of those members who were fiscally conservative, economy-focused and supported the Canadian resource sector, they might only need an e-bike built for two to accommodate in-person meetings.

Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino may be one of them and, hope against hope, the new finance minister may take the other seat.

Only after watching her approach to trade and, more recently, Western alienation, did I come to this view.

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Grand Canyon will not be mined, says Uranium Producers of America (MiningWeekly.com – August 21, 2020)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The Uranium Producers of America has denied news reports that imply that the Grand Canyon National Park will be opened up for uranium mining, labelling such articles as disinformation.

The Obama administration in 2012 banned new uranium mining claims around the Grand Canyon National Park for 20 years.

Reports continue to do the rounds that the Trump administration, which has been active in promoting domestic uranium mining, is open to projects near the Grand Canyon.

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The uranium giant stirs – by Leon Louw (Why Africa – August 12, 2020)

https://www.whyafrica.co.za/

With the price of uranium on the up, and demand expected to increase substantially in the next few years, Namibia’s spectacular uranium deposits are back in the news.

Several large uranium projects that were put on ice after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, are being revived and looks as attractive as they did ten years ago.

Australian mining company Bannerman Resources recently completed the Scoping Study for their Etango Uranium project, which is said to be the world’s largest undeveloped uranium deposit in the world. Etango will be a conventional open pit and heap leach processing operation with an initial throughput of eight million tonnes per annum (8Mtpa).

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‘Hell To Pay’ Sheds New Light On A-Bomb Decision (NPR.org – January 16, 2020)

https://www.npr.org/

The atomic bombs that ended World War II killed — by some estimates — more than 200,000 people. In the decades since 1945, there has been a revisionist debate over the decision to drop the bombs.

Did the U.S. decide to bomb in order to avoid a land invasion that might have killed millions of Americans and Japanese? Or did it drop the bomb to avoid the Soviet army coming in and sharing the spoils of conquering Japan? Were the prospects of a land invasion even more destructive than the opening of the nuclear age?

D.M. Giangreco, formerly an editor for Military Review, has taken advantage of declassified materials in both the U.S. and Japan to try to answer those questions. He talks with NPR’s Scott Simon about his new book, Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947.

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Why the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima – by Ryan Browne and Scottie Andrew (CNN.com – August 6, 2019)

https://www.cnn.com/

(CNN)On this date 74 years ago, the US dropped the first of two atomic bombs on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing more than 70,000 people instantly. A second bomb followed three days later over Nagasaki and killed 40,000 more.

The US remains the only country to ever use an atomic bomb in war.
The nuclear warfare ushered in the end of World War II and a devastating chapter in world history. Here’s what you need to know about the attacks and how Hiroshima honors those who died.

Where is Hiroshima?

The city is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture located in southwestern Japan on the island of Honshu.

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NUCLEAR: The forgotten mine that built the atomic bomb – by Frank Swain (BBC.com – August 3, 2020)

https://www.bbc.com/

The Congo’s role in creating the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was kept secret for decades, but the legacy of its involvement is still being felt today.

“The word Shinkolobwe fills me with grief and sorrow,” says Susan Williams, a historian at the UK Institute of Commonwealth Studies. “It’s not a happy word, it’s one I associate with terrible grief and suffering.”

Few people know what, or even where, Shinkolobwe is. But this small mine in the southern province of Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), played a part in one of the most violent and devastating events in history.

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Legacy of Canada’s role in atomic bomb is felt by northern Indigenous community – by Geoffrey Bird (The Conversation – August 9, 2020)

https://theconversation.com/

Geoffrey Bird is Professor of heritage, culture, and tourism at Royal Roads University.

As the world marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a little known part of the legacy is the impact on the Délı̨nę First Nation of the Northwest Territories. I explore their stories in the film A Moral Awakening, which is available online.

This heritage connects Indigenous people, Canadians and people all over the world who are concerned with peace, reconciliation and social justice. The film contributes to understanding of the global impact of nuclear weapons and its contested history.

But the main goal of A Moral Awakening is to acknowledge the service and sacrifice of the people of Délı̨nę, a story long silenced.

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Life in Kyrgyzstan’s once-booming uranium mining town, where the past poisons the future – by Liza Premiyak (The Calvert Journal – August 10, 2020)

https://www.calvertjournal.com/

Mailuu-Suu is a small town in southern Kyrgyzstan, secretly built by the Soviets in the 1950s. The uranium extracted there from the surrounding mountains between 1946 and 1968 was reportedly used to create the first atomic bomb for the Soviet nuclear programme.

But improperly managed, the mines also heralded environmental catastrophe. In 1958, a dam failure caused nuclear waste to collapse into the area’s water system.

Even when operations were running smoothly, nuclear waste was often hastily disposed of close to the town. Much of it remains. Today, earthquakes and landslides pose an ever present threat to the town’s uranium dumps.

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Opinion: Canada needs to go nuclear to reach our emissions targets – by Kim Rudd and Sean Willy (Financial Post – August 7, 2020)

https://financialpost.com/

Kim Rudd, an entrepreneur, was parliamentary secretary to the minister of natural resources from 2015-2018. Sean Willy is CEO of Des Nedhe Development in Saskatchewan.

To fight climate change, Canada needs clean energy from a source that delivers carbon-free, reliable power 24/7. If we are to reach our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets, nuclear power simply must be in the energy mix.

Nuclear power already displaces over 80 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually in Canada. That’s equivalent to taking 15 million cars off the road each and every year.

Though Canada has a world-class nuclear industry, we’ve only scratched the surface of its potential.

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Spectre of atomic bomb still looms over N.W.T. community 75 years after Hiroshima – by Katie Toth (CBC News North – August 5, 2020)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Please note that the Germans and Japanese were also working to develop an Atomic bomb. https://lat.ms/39XwV1P and https://bit.ly/3fv8Oc6 – RepublicOfMining.com

Délı̨nę is haunted by its connection to the Manhattan Project and creation of the nuclear bomb

Seventy-five years after two nuclear bombs were dropped in Japan — killing hundreds of thousands of people in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — one small community in the Northwest Territories is still haunted by its connection to the blasts.

Across Great Bear Lake from the 533-person hamlet of Délı̨nę sits the historic mining site of Port Radium.

Workers originally mined radium for medical use. But at the height of the Second World War, the Canadian government quietly called for uranium production as part of the country’s involvement in the Manhattan Project.

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OPINION: Canada must acknowledge our key role in developing the deadly atomic bomb – by Setsuko Thurlow (Globe and Mail – August 1, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Please note that the Germans and Japanese were also working to develop an Atomic bomb. https://lat.ms/39XwV1P and https://bit.ly/3fv8Oc6 – RepublicOfMining.com

Setsuko Thurlow is a Canadian nuclear disarmament campaigner who survived the bombing of Hiroshima.

On Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, the largest bell in the Peace Tower at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa will ring 75 times to mark the dropping of the two atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The arrangement was made by the Green Party’s Elizabeth May and Canada’s Speaker of the House, Liberal MP Anthony Rota. The bell ringing by the Dominion carillonneur Andrea McCrady will be livestreamed by the Peace Tower Carillon website so that it may be heard across Canada and around the world.

As someone who witnessed and experienced the consequences of nuclear war, I very often have brutal images in my mind of the atomic bombing.

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