Cameco, Areva, nuclear and nuclear waste politics , home-grown in Saskatchewan THE SASKATCHEWAN CONNECTION We can’t approach the nuclear fuel system in tidy ethical, cost-benefit compartments. While the industry tells us that the expansion of uranium mining is good for the provincial economy and northern employment, the Fukushima nuclear disaster continues to unfold. Uranium mining here is directly connected to the ongoing global contamination. The radioactive particles spreading into the Pacific Ocean come from the splitting of uranium atoms that came out of northern Saskatchewan. Japan’s fleet of 55 nuclear plants is the third largest in the world, after the U.S and then France, and Japan has to import all of its uranium fuel. It has been a significant part of the lucrative, global uranium market. Prior to the shutdown of Japan’s nuclear plants after the Fukushima disaster, Japan imported 20 million pounds of uranium annually. Saskatchewan corporations have been the main suppliers. Saskatoon-based Cameco is the world’s third largest uranium producer, after Kazatomprom and Areva. The March 20, 2011 Globe and Mail reported that Tepco which operates the Fukushima plant is “one of (Cameco’s) largest customers for uranium”. Tepco has also been a partner of Cameco’s since the 1990s owning 5% of the massive Cigar Lake venture. Another Japanese company, JCU Explorations, is also Cameco’s partner, owning 30% of the proposed Millennium mine. Saskatchewan was clearly to be Japan’s uranium hinterland as it pursued the planned expansion of its fleet from producing 30% to 50% of the country’s electricity. After Fukushima it’s not going to happen. Japan’s massive nuclear plant shutdown after Fukushima had an immediate impact on the demand and price of uranium. In 2007 uranium spiked at $138 a pound; it is now $40. And Cameco’s share prices also dropped, especially after Japan’s previous government announced a full phase out of nuclear power by 2040. While Cameco hopes that the new pro-nuclear government will phase-in some nuclear plants, Japan will never return to its nuclear past. Always following its bottom line, which is not environmental health, Cameco shifted its exports to the nuclear market in China. It’s business-as-usual; out of sight out of mind. CAMECO’S CAPER? Corporate profits and economic benefits will surely recede as uranium mined in Saskatchewan is no longer used to fuel Japan’s shrinking nuclear energy sector. In the meantime, with any hope for a nuclear renaissance quelled by the Fukushima disaster, Cameco had already found other ways to protect its profit line. Create a Swiss holding company which sells at a far higher price than it buys from you, and perhaps you can save $800 million in Canadian taxes. (The May 1, 2013 Globe and Mail reported Revenue Canada is investigating Cameco.) It’s then easy to give tax-deductible gifts to Saskatoon groups or northern communities and still look like a good corporate citizen. But it’s not possible to phase-out the radioactive waste and contamination left from Japan’s nuclear era. The ecological and health burdens from the use of uranium mined here will carry on, ultimately affecting the food web that our children, as well as Japanese children, will depend upon. It’s time that Saskatchewan fully woke up and recognized the destructive outcomes that the toxic uranium industry creates. Are we going to put our heads and hearts back in the sand and go to sleep again until there is yet another, inevitable nuclear catastrophe, perhaps in China?
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 16:34:20 +0000
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