RE: Australia coming around on UraniumChris Hart: Senior economist, Absa
By: Alec Hogg
Posted: '05-DEC-06 11:37' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2006
MINEWEB: Absa economist Chris Hart has popped into the studio to help us through an analysis through the play of the decade – remember you said it, uranium. But today there was some bad news for uranium, because the Australians have finally come to their senses and decided they have the biggest uranium deposits in the world, and they’re now going to allow people to actually mine them. They had a three-mine policy up to this point. That has to surely have an impact in time.
CHRIS HART: It will definitely, but I think the advantage is that it frees up a resource to give people the confidence to invest in uranium as a power source over a longer period of time. One of the concerns that one would have had is – is there enough uranium to replace our oil-fired power stations? The one thing that is developing is that oil is no longer, when I say suitable, it’s too valuable in a sense just to be burnt on what are called static power sources for electricity – in other words one needs to shift to solid sources, whether it’s coal or uranium, etc, because the depletion factor’s too rapid just to continue burning it for electricity purposes.
MINEWEB: Chris, it’s really interesting, because it’s a bipartisan parliamentary committee in the Australian government that got together, had a look at uranium. Their report ran to 732 pages – it’s called Australia’s uranium – greenhouse friendly fuel for an energy-hungry world. I think that title says it all, doesn’t it?
CHRIS HART: That says it all. You see, I think the problem is that you had an irrational rejection by the so-called Greens in the 70s and eighties. The Chernobyl didn’t help, the Three-Mile Island didn’t help, but I think the technology in uranium, or the use of uranium has moved on quite a bit, where South Africa is, in a sense, leading some of that technology with the pebble-bed reactor thing. It’s moving to the state where you’re no longer looking at major calamities if there’s a fault at these stations. It’s not that nothing can go wrong. But technology in a sense has moved the world along, whether it’s a jet aircraft falling out of the skies or whatever, for just plain simple mechanical reasons. That just isn’t happening any more. It’s not that it can’t, but the point is the same is happening as far as nuclear power facilities [are concerned].
MINEWEB: So when they do the next Homer Simpson, they’ll make sure that they don’t put him into a uranium plant, but perhaps something a little more hazardous than that. Chris, your take on this is that the Aussies have taken their time, but have finally come to their senses. And in fact, it’s not a bad thing for the uranium price.
CHRIS HART: It will be bad for the uranium price maybe in the, let’s call it, medium term. But over the longer term one gets greater commitment and more power stations come on stream, and you will get it in China, Japan – even the French, even the US are starting to think of putting in new power stations; the UK were thinking of just winding their power stations down, they’re now thinking of renewal; the Germans I think are doing the same, because uranium is starting to look a very, very attractive non-carbon, non-greenhouse gas-emitting thing. The technology obviously can still advance as far as the waste is concerned, but I think the waste can be contained in much smaller pockets than the huge degradation of the environment that we’re seeing with the greenhouse gas effect.