Any Uranium in the RoF?
Uranium stocks are glowing on news of a Japanese court decision to remove one of the last major hurdles in the way of switching on Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai nuclear power plant.
A Kagoshima District Court rejected a petition filed by a group of residents near the Sendai plant in the city of Satsumasendai to halt the restart of two reactors following a go-ahead from safety regulators.
All of Japan’s 48 nuclear reactors were taken offline following the disaster at the Fukushima plant in 2011 caused by a massive earthquake and tsunami. Roughly 30 percent of Japan’s energy mix was nuclear-generated before the disaster.
Wednesday’s court decision follows a similar case where a community-based petition led to an injunction blocking the restart of the Takahama reactors last week. Cantor Fitzgerald’s Rob Chang says a second negative ruling would have cast doubt on Japan’s intention to resume nuclear energy production.
https://www.bnn.ca/News/2015/4/22/Japans-reactor-restarts-to-cause-violent-surge-in-uranium-prices-Cantor-Fitzgerald.aspx
The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”
The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.
But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president but also a former U.S. president and a woman who would like to be the next one.
At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.
Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of U.S. government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-canadian-uranium-company/article24071985/