Patterson Lake South – High grades, successful drill program, exciting property

When it comes to our properties in the Athabasca Basin, Waterbury Lake tends to get most of the media attention. It’s not surprising considering Waterbury has a high-grade 43:101 of close to 9 million lbs and is literally right next door to Rio’s Roughrider deposit. However, Waterbury is by no means our only high-class property.

Patterson Lake South (PLS) is a  >5 km high grade boulder field discovery with grades up to 39.6% U3O8.  We’ve conducted a very successful 16 hole Winter drill program on the property which has intersected significant basement mineralization. The Winter drilling has enabled us to refine the boundaries of the uranium boulder field source target area and it has provided a meaningful indicator for identifying the potential high-grade mineralized source of the boulder field. Planning is underway for follow-up drilling of this anomalous area located along a significant east-west trending EM conductor, which, to date, has only been partially tested.

Our drilling program has been overseen by our technical team leader and COO, Ross McElroy. If you’re not familiar with Mr McElroy - he has been instrumental in three of the last eight major uranium discoveries in the Athabasca Basin and I encourage you to check out his background.

In other words, PLS is rapidly growing in significance and, with great transport links and proximity to mills, it’s a property we will continue to develop aggressively.

If you want more info, be sure to check out the project overview for a blow by blow timeline and detailed description of PLS.

That’s it for now. Come back later when I cover other key elements of Fission and as always, please get in touch if you have any questions.

Nuclear energy to supply 50% of Czech electricity demand by 2030 says Hospodářské

Nuclear power 50, renewable power 15. That’s the percentage of Czech electricity demand that each power source will meet according to Hospodářské, the Czech Republic’s largest daily newspaper. The article has been covered by Business Week here.

In my opinion this reflects the general realities of future power generation for most nations whether or not they have announced it yet (and plenty have). The fact is when it comes to meeting the growth in world demand for electricity – as much as 76% growth by 2030 according to the World Nuclear Association – the energy source needs to be clean, low cost and be capable of a high base load. Only nuclear energy meets all three of those requirements  

Waterbury lake – high grades, key location, strong JV and aggressive drill program

There’s always a lot going on in the nuclear industry and I like to use this blog to help people keep up to speed with issues and events that have some sort of relevance to the uranium market. For the next few posts, however, I want to cover Fission itself.

Even without the Pitchstone properties which we’ve agreed to acquire, I believe it’s fair to say that Fission is the leading junior in the Athabasca Basin. The Basin, as you know, is the most important uranium district in the world – with the highest grades (ten times the world average) and responsible for nearly 20% of the world’s uranium production in 2011.

Now if you’re only just researching Fission your first question will be ‘what makes you think Fission is the most attractive junior in the Basin?’ My full answer will be apparent over the next posts but for now, let’s take a look at our flagship property – Waterbury Lake. The quick stats are as follows:

• 43-101 resource: 7.4 million lbs @1.99% (indicated), 1.5 million lbs @0.45% (inferred)

• Grades X10 world average

• Strong, established JV
• Highly strategic location
• Aggressive drill program
• Close to high-capacity mills

Those stats speak for themselves but it’s worth expanding on a few of them. For example, our JV is with a Korean consortium led by Kepco. Now Kepco is a major force in the nuclear industry. It’s the largest provider of electricity is South Korea (responsible for 93% of power generation), it manufactures nuclear power stations and it processes nuclear fuel.

Having such a strong JV is important as it is helping us to run a very aggressive drill program – one that has been delivering promising results. You can get the latest drilling details from our most recent presentation.

The property is in a highly strategic location. If you’ve not looked at any of our presentations I strongly recommend you do so. We are surrounded by over 100 million lbs of uranium and are immediately adjacent to the Roughrider deposit that Rio paid $654 million for last year. What’s also interesting is that our discovery and exploration timeline is proving to be very similar to Hathor before they were taken over.

We enjoy superb infrastructure, are close to advanced, high capacity mills and have access to a professional workforce that includes 3rd generation miners. Best of all, our COO and technical team leader, Ross McElroy, has been instrumental in three of the last eight major uranium discoveries in the Athabasca Basin. If you’re not familiar with Mr McElroy, you should check out his background.

You can also read a blow by blow timeline and detailed overview of Waterbury Lake.

That’s it for now. Come back later in the week when I cover other key elements of Fission and as always, please get in touch if you have any questions.

Nuclear Energy: Facts and Figures

You probably already know that the world’s energy requirements are rising quickly. Electricity demand alone is expected to rise by a colossal 76% in the next 18 years. If you read my blog regularly you’ll know why nuclear energy is a critical part of meeting this growing demand – it’s the only form of clean energy that can deliver the low-cost/high base load power that national grids require.

The news this year has been full of pro-nuclear statements from governments around the world – the US, UK, France, China, India, S. Korea – the list goes on. Now government statements are all very well but if, like me, you’re someone who always wants to know the hard facts involved, just what figures indicate where nuclear energy is headed?

There are currently 433 reactors worldwide. Just taking the number of reactors that are either under construction, have passed the planning stage or have been ordered (+223) will increase this number by more than 50%. That’s right, 50% - a huge growth figure by anyone’s standards. If we are to add in the number of proposed reactors (+329), that growth figure hits 127%.

If you are interested in a more detailed breakdown of those figures (which have been sourced from the World Nuclear Association), you can find a country by country list here.

As always, if you have any questions don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Cost of nuclear reactors falling dramatically

Earlier this month India’s secretary for the department of atomic energy (DAE) announced that India can now manufacture nuclear reactors at $1700/KW (for a 700 MW reactor). The average international cost is between $2500/KW and $3000/KW (for a 1000MW reactor).

The relevance here goes beyond one country enjoying a manufacturing cost advantage over its competitors. The inexorable demand for more electricity and the vital need to meet it with clean power is an unbeatable catalyst for the growth in nuclear power. Reducing the costs of constructing new reactors will make it easier for the industry to deliver on the world’s demand.

US government makes huge investment in nuclear energy research

This year has already seen the US leave behind the last three decades by giving permission for construction of four new nuclear reactors. Yesterday, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a $47 million government investment package for nuclear energy research. Why?

Some commentators would have you believe that industry lobbyists are behind this and the many other recent examples of nuclear energy growth.

In my opinion, the reality is actually very, very simple. The governments in the US and elsewhere understand that without nuclear energy the world cannot possibly meet the rapidly growing demand for electricity (estimated 76% increase by 2030) while also reducing emissions.

In a speech to the Asian Development Bank, US Economist and Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs said that when it comes to nuclear power, the world had no choice because the threat of climate change had grown so grave. According to the Guardian newspaper in the UK, Sachs warned that "nice projects" around the world involving renewable power or energy efficiency would not be enough to stave off the catastrophic effects of global warming….

Denison and Energy Fuels – it’s not all about the US assets….

The recent announcement that Denison is merging its US assets with Energy Fuels created a huge wave of interest in both companies and was the catalyst for media headlines proclaiming the creation of the largest pure-play uranium producer in the US. For those interested in US-based uranium sources it is indeed of interest. After all, the deal means that Energy Fuels will account for more than 25% of estimated U.S. uranium production, hold 49.8 M lbs of Measured and Indicated U3O8 resources in addition to 17.9 M lbs of Inferred U3O8.

However, if you’re serious about uranium you’ll know that the Athabasca Basin in Canada, which contains the highest uranium grades on the planet, is responsible for nearly 20% of the world’s uranium supply. Having offloaded it’s US assets, Denison becomes a 100% Athabasca-based company. Why is this relevant? In one of my earliest blog posts I commented on Rio Tinto’s hostile takeover of Hathor – an aggressive move designed to give Rio a solid foothold in the Basin. It paid $654 million in order to get that foothold, beating off Cameco’s bid during the process.

Denison’s move essentially turns it into a clean and potentially inviting target for a takeover. How likely is this takeover? Well I’m not about to speculate on the plans of other companies in this blog, however, I will point out that consolidation in the Athabasca Basin is something that many industry watchers have been predicting for some time.

$multi-billion Trade deficit, increased emissions and nearly zero economic growth – the outlook for Japan without nuclear power this year

The Washington Post published an article this week about a report released by Japan’s Institute for Energy Economics. In my opinion the article, and the 36 page report it’s based on, makes for some pretty scary reading from an economic and environment perspective:

With and without nuclear power
•        1.9% economic growth becomes 0.1%
•        Projected trade surplus becomes projected $57 Billion trade deficit (the country imports 90% of its oil from the Middle East)
•        5.3% decrease in emissions becomes 5.5% increase in emissions
In addition, Japan is importing so much oil that, according to the Washington Post, it has helped drive global prices upwards yet even with the massive scale of oil imports, Japan could still face energy shortages.

If anyone wants to know what a developed or developing country looks like without nuclear power then look no further….