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john Tucker's avatar

I dont have access to the kinds of details that you do, but I have a few generalized comments picked up from having been investing in the sector for 20 years or longer......

There is no shortage of available uranium in the earth's crust, estimates are that we have enough known ore resources to last humanity for about 10,000 years......

For several decades Russia became the number one source for enriched uranium primarily because most of what they were providing was being salvaged from nuclear weapons that were being retired.

Uranium mining in Kazakhstan is a recent phenomenon ...only the past 12 years or so.......I've got this lovely chart from Youtube not too long ago....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6zL9N81NzI .... the rest of the world has not declined so much as total world production has been increasing rapidly......

The USA does have good but not great known reserves. In most places in the USA, uranium mining is banned.....for example I know of three locations in Virginia which have very rich ore right at the surface but uranium recovery is completely banned in the state ....

The Cigar Lake mine, owned and operated by Cameco Corp, in northern Saskatchewan, has huge quantities of ore that is ten times more concentrated than any other mine on earth....however the mine has always been plagued with severe water intrusion problems .... and Cameco has found it is more profitable to participate in joint mining efforts in Kazakhstan, so they have a hand in that, its not just Russian as you imply.....

The process of purifying ore to pure uranium is pretty straightforward and low tech.

But the process of separating out U235 from U238 is the tricky one. The tech and the equipment and the time involved are the hard parts. People in the USA just dont want to do it, but they also dont really want Iran or Pakistan or Kazakhstan doing it, so thats where politics come in.

For the past few months, Cameco has been trading as if it were an Artificial Intelligence stock, I have never seen anything like the jumps its been taking. So at least some people are starting to wake up to the importance and the need.......

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Dick Storm's avatar

Robert, This is an outstanding article with good research! It is ironic that Admiral Rickover invented nuclear power generation for the Nautilus which was then adapted for commercial applications starting at Shippingport and the U.S. manufacturers Combustion-Engineering, Babcock & Wilcox, Westinghouse, Allis-Chalmers and a few others for the crucial Supply-Chain provided this gift to the world. Then along comes the MSM with their attacks on nuclear after Three Mile Island (no one was killed at TMI) and certain politicians sell off Uranium One to the Russians not too many years ago. Your article is informative. Wish it would make the MSM News! Thank you!

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