Inertial MEMS accelerometers That are 1000 Times more Sensitive will benefit applications such as bridge, infrastructure and seismic monitoring
A MEMS accelerometer is a sensor that can be used to measure vibration, shock or change in velocity. By deploying many of these detectors as part of a complete sensor network, HP will enable real-time data collection, management evaluation and analysis. This information empowers people to make better, faster decisions, and take subsequent action to improve safety, security and sustainability for a range of applications, such as bridge and infrastructure health monitoring, geophysical mapping, mine exploration and earthquake monitoring.
The HP sensing technology enables a new class of ultrasensitive, low-power MEMS accelerometers. Up to 1,000 times more sensitive than high-volume, commercial products, sensors based on this technology can achieve noise density performance in the sub 100 nano-g per square root Hz range to enable dramatic improvements in data quality. The MEMS device can be customized with single or multiple axes per chip to meet individual system requirements.
The sensing technology is a key enabler of HP’s vision for a new information ecosystem, the Central Nervous System for the Earth (CeNSE). Integrating the devices within a complete system that encompasses numerous sensor types, networks, storage, computation and software solutions enables a new level of awareness, revolutionizing communication between objects and people.
“With a trillion sensors embedded in the environment – all connected by computing systems, software and services – it will be possible to hear the heartbeat of the Earth, impacting human interaction with the globe as profoundly as the Internet has revolutionized communication,” said Peter Hartwell, senior researcher, HP Labs.
Agriculture and Science Hero Norman Borlaug has Died
More than 30 years ago, Borlaug wrote, “One of the greatest threats to mankind today is that the world may be choked by an explosively pervading but well camouflaged bureaucracy.” As REASON’s interview with him shows, he still believes that environmental activists and their allies in international agencies are a threat to progress on global food security. Barring such interference, he is confident that agricultural research, including biotechnology, will be able to boost crop production to meet the demand for food in a world of 8 billion or so, the projected population in 2025.
Borlaug was the Father of the Green Revolution, the dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity that swept the globe in the 1960s. For spearheading this achievement, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.
In the late 1960s, most experts were speaking of imminent global famines in which billions would perish. “The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” biologist Paul Ehrlich famously wrote in his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb. “In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Ehrlich also said, “I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971.” He insisted that “India couldn’t possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980.”
But Borlaug and his team were already engaged in the kind of crash program that Ehrlich declared wouldn’t work. Their dwarf wheat varieties resisted a wide spectrum of plant pests and diseases and produced two to three times more grain than the traditional varieties. In 1965, they had begun a massive campaign to ship the miracle wheat to Pakistan and India and teach local farmers how to cultivate it properly. By 1968, when Ehrlich’s book appeared, the U.S. Agency for International Development had already hailed Borlaug’s achievement as a “Green Revolution.”
In Pakistan, wheat yields rose from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 8.4 million in 1970. In India, they rose from 12.3 million tons to 20 million. And the yields continue to increase. Last year, India harvested a record 73.5 million tons of wheat, up 11.5 percent from 1998. Since Ehrlich’s dire predictions in 1968, India’s population has more than doubled, its wheat production has more than tripled, and its economy has grown nine-fold
The Atlantic also profiled Borlaug in 1997.
Borlaug has never received much public recognition in the United States, where it is often said that the young lack heroes to look up to. One reason is that Borlaug’s deeds are done in nations remote from the media spotlight: the Western press covers tragedy and strife in poor countries, but has little to say about progress there. Another reason is that Borlaug’s mission — to cause the environment to produce significantly more food — has come to be seen, at least by some securely affluent commentators, as perhaps better left undone. More food sustains human population growth, which they see as antithetical to the natural world
By the 1980s finding fault with high-yield agriculture had become fashionable. Environmentalists began to tell the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and Western governments that high-yield techniques would despoil the developing world.
Environmental lobbyists persuaded the Ford Foundation and the World Bank to back off from most African agriculture projects. The Rockefeller Foundation largely backed away too — though it might have in any case, because it was shifting toward an emphasis on biotechnological agricultural research. “World Bank fear of green political pressure in Washington became the single biggest obstacle to feeding Africa,” Borlaug says.
Borlaug’s reaction to the campaign was anger. He says, “Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They’ve never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they’d be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things.”
Borlaug, Carter, and Sasakawa traveled to Africa to pick sites, and the foundation Sasakawa-Global 2000 was born. “I assumed we’d do a few years of research first,” Borlaug says, “but after I saw the terrible circumstances there, I said, ‘Let’s just start growing.’” Soon Borlaug was running projects in Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, and Togo. Yields of corn quickly tripled; yields of wheat, cassava, sorghum, and cow peas also grew.
Borlaug made progress even in Sudan, near the dry Sahel, though that project ended with the onset of Sudan’s civil war, in 1992. Only Sasakawa’s foundation came forward with more funds, but although well endowed, it is no World Bank. Environmentalists continued to say that chemical fertilizers would cause an ecological calamity in Africa.
Opponents of high-yield agriculture “took the numbers for water pollution caused by fertilizer runoff in the United States and applied them to Africa, which is totally fallacious,” David Seckler says. “Chemical-fertilizer use in Africa is so tiny you could increase application for decades before causing the environmental side effects we see here. Meanwhile, Africa is ruining its wildlife habitat with slash-and-burn farming, which many commentators romanticize because it is indigenous.”
From the 1997 Atlantic article: rice yields 1.6 tons per acre in China
1997 Agriculture Yields
Privatization and dwarf rice have enabled China to raise rice yields rapidly to about 1.6 tons per acre — close to the world’s best figure of two tons.Lester Brown, the head of the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental organization, fears that China may soon turn from an agricultural success story into a nation of shortages
2008
Rice plants have been greatly improved over the last three decades. Plant breeders have created plants that mature in 110 days instead 160 which means that regions with warm climates can grow three crops instead of two. The height of the average plant has been reduced from five feet to a stocky three feet, which means that the plant nutrient go into producing grains of rice and are not “wasted” on the stalks that lean over when there is too much weight. In addition, rice plants have been bred and bio-engineered to be resistant to bacterial blight, plant hoppers and stem borders.Tall conventional rice plant used before 1968 grew in 140-180 days and yielded between 0.6 and 1.4 tons per acre. Modern rice grows in 110-140 days, produces 100 seeds per panicle, and yields between 2.4 and 4.0 tons per acre.
2020 Agriculture
By the year 2020 it is believed the world’s rice crop will increase by an additional 60 percent. Current dwarf varieties have 15 productive panicles, or seed clusters per stalk (out 25 or so total stalks) that produce about 100 grains (seeds) each. New strains will have fewer, but stronger and thicker, stalks that will yield 200 or more grains each. These new plants are expected to account for most of the increased productivity
There is a project to re-engineer photosynthesis in rice to increase yields
There is work to enable plants to survive on the moon and Mars. Success or anywhere close to success will also mean plants that can grow in deserts on earth.
Technology and economic growth has been occuring in Africa and looks promising.
IEC / Bussard Fusion has gotten $8 million in Funding
This is in a list of Department of Defence contracts listed at Global Security.
Energy Matter Conversion Corp., (EMC2)*, Santa Fe, N.M., is being awarded a $7,855,504 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for research, analysis, development, and testing in support of the Plan Plasma Fusion (Polywell) Project. Efforts under this Recovery Act award will validate the basic physics of the plasma fusion (polywell) concept, as well as provide the Navy with data for potential applications of polywell fusion. Work will be performed in Santa Fe, N.M., and is expected to be completed in April 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to FAR 6.302-1. The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake, Calif., is the contracting activity (N68936-09-C-0125).
This site has an interview of Dr Richard Nebel who is leading the IEC/Bussard Fusion project.
From the Interview: The project that we hope to have out within the next six years will probably be a demo, which won’t have the attendant secondary equipment necessary for electricity generation. Hopefully the demo will demonstrate everything that is needed to put a full-scale working plant into commercial production. So if the concept works we could have a commercial plant operating as early as 2020.
18-24 months : Verification if this approach is commercially viable [boom or bust for Polywell]
6 years: a full-scale demo of IEC fusion
By 2020: A first commercial IEC Fusion plant, with an estimated cost of 2-5 cents per kilowatt hour.
We’ve looked at the side reaction [ 11B-4He -> 14N + n, 11B + p -> 11C+n, etc) that will produce neutrons,] and it is down 8 orders of magnitude from the P-B11 reaction. The reason for this is that the alpha particles are not well confined and leave the system very rapidly. The alpha-B11 reaction is the dominant side reaction. Note: This was a computational analysis.
Older prototype
This work is very important because we could have commercial fusion in as little as 5 years if the work is successful. Success would also transform space travel. (40 to 1000 times cheaper to get into space)
WB-6 (the previous prototype) had 2.5 billion fusions per second
The initial analysis showed that Bussard’s data on energy yields were consistent with expectations, Nebel said.
He said he’s hoping to find out by this spring whether or not Bussard’s concept is worth pursuing with a larger demonstration project.
“We don’t know for sure whether all that’s right,” he said, “but it’d be horrible for Mother Nature to give you what you expect to see, and have it all be bogus.”
This is paraphrasing from the Tom Ligon description.
IEC fusion uses magnets to contain an electron cloud in the center. It is a variation on the electron gun and vacuum tube in television technology. Then they inject the fuel (deuterium or lithium, boron) as positive ions. The positive ions get attracted to the high negative charge at a speed sufficient for fusion. Speed and electron volt charge can be converted over to temperature. The electrons hitting the TV screen can be converted from electron volts to 200 million degrees.
The old problem was that if you had a physical grid in the center then you could not get higher than 98% efficiency because ions would collide with the grid.
UPDATE: The problem with grids is that the very best you can do is 2% electron losses (the 98% limit). With those kinds of losses net power is impossible. Losses have to get below 1 part in 100,000 or less to get net power. (99.999% efficiency) [thanks to M Simon for the clarification]
Bussard system uses magnets on the outside to contain the electrons and have the electrons go around and around 100,000 times before being lost outside the magnetic field.
The fuel either comes in as ions from an ion gun or it comes in without a charge and some of it is ionized by collisions with the madly spinning electrons. The fuel is affected by the same forces as the electrons but a little differently because it is going much slower. About 64 times slower in the case of Deuterium fuel (a hydrogen with one neutron). Now these positively charged Deuterium ions are attracted to the virtual electrode (the electron cloud) in the center of the machine. So they come rushing in. If they come rushing in fast enough and hit each other just about dead on they join together and make a He3 nucleus (two protons and a neutron) and give off a high energy neutron.
Ions that miss will go rushing through the center and then head for one of the grids. When the voltage field they traveled through equals the energy they had at the center of the machine the ions have given up their energy to the grids (which repel the ions), they then go heading back to the center of the machine where they have another chance at hitting another ion at high enough speed and close enough to
cause a fusion.
Easy low cost and very low radiation fusion
Previous bussard fusion update
UPDATE: A prediction on how this might play out if it is successful.
Oil prices can fluctuate for a lot of reasons. There is currently a $20-30 premium because of fear of more middle east conflict. The peak oil fears might also be adding $5-10 to the price per barrel. So any immediate hit to prices would be from changing the psychology around oil prices not from actual shifts in the economics of supply and demand. The supply and demand would get impacted over one to two decades. Once the full scale system is proved out then there would be a rush to build them.
I think if the prototypes pan out this spring, most people will not believe it. So I do not think the working prototypes should effect price more than $1-2 per barrel if anything. The working full scale system (in 3-8 years) $5-15 from a psychological shift. Maybe $20 with the optimism.
Just as the thermoelectrics have actual released products (car seat warmers) but most people do not believe that the better thermoelectrics in the labs are on the way starting within 5 years. However, it will take time for the thermoelectrics to be deployed.
The promise of highly successful first two prototypes WB7 and then WB8 should definitely green light the full scale positive power system. That would still take 5 years (maybe 2-3 if people got excited and accelerated development and effort with promising results and might take 8 years or more if there are unforeseen problems.)
From the descriptions it is clear that the IEC fusion devices are far simpler than the ITER tokomak fusion devices. It is also simpler than nuclear fission reactors. So success would mean faster transformation, but it would still take five to ten years for big infrastructure impact to the point that oil would start to be significantly displaced. Plus it would first hit coal for electricity. Unlike current fission reactors which take 4-6 years to build, these IEC fusion reactors might be buildable in 1-3 years. There is still the issue of licensing and regulatory approvals. It is not clear what that licensing/regulatory process would be but it should be shorter than nuclear fission licensing as the IEC fusion is easier to shutoff and does not have nuclear fuel or waste.
The full scale IEC fusion reactors would be about 4 meters in radius and weigh about 14 tons and generate 1GW and 8 meters for about 128GW. Power will be 5-20 times cheaper.
The power generator is about 10 to 12 ft across for an output between 100 MW and 1,000 MW. Power output scales as the 7th power of size. Double the size and you get 128X as much power.
Robust versus Vulnerable Roundup: Blast Resistant Glass, Electric Grid Vulnerability, Life Survives Big Asteroid
Conventional blast-resistant glass is made with laminated glass that has a plastic layer between two sheets of glass. MU researchers are now replacing the plastic layer with a transparent composite material made of glass fibers that are embedded in plastic. The glass fibers add strength because, unlike plastic, they are only about 25 microns thick, which is about half the thickness of a typical human hair, and leave little room for defects in the glass that could lead to cracking. The use of a transparent composite interlayer provides us the flexibility to change the strength of the layer by changing the glass fiber quantity and its orientation, Khanna said.
In tests, researchers are observing how the glass reacts to small-scale explosions caused by a grenade or hand-delivered bomb. They tested the glass by exploding a small bomb within close proximity of the window panel. After the blast, the glass panel was cracked but had no holes in the composite layer.
“The new multilayered transparent glass could have a wide range of potential uses if it can be made strong enough to resist small-scale explosions,” Khanna said. “The super-strong glass also may protect residential windows from hurricane winds and debris or earthquakes. Most hurricane damage occurs when windows are punctured, which allows for high-speed wind and water to enter the structure.”
2. The electric grid vulnerability study revealed: “An attack on the nodes with the lowest loads can be a more effective way to destroy the electrical power grid of the western US due to cascading failures,” Wang says. To minimise the risk, he says, the grid’s operators should defend the west coast sections by adjusting their power capacity to ensure these specific conditions do not arise.
The US Department of Homeland Security is reviewing the research, says John Verrico, the department’s technology spokesman, who adds that countermeasures are already in the works. “Our engineers are working on a self-limiting, high-temperature superconductor technology which would stop and prevent power surges generated anywhere in the system from spreading to other substations. Pilot tests in New York City may be ready as soon as 2010.”
Al Fin notes that simply removed the anchoring bolts for the line tower can cause a blackout
Foresight Institute also wrote about the many ways to take out transformers.
EMP isn’t the only way to fry a transformer. Natural solar Carrington events would have the same effect. They could be blown up the old-fashioned way by explosives — or even explosively shorted out by shooting giant steel arrows into them from catapults.
Rob Freitas and J Storrs Hall once did a back-of-the-envelope calculation that a fully-developed molecular manufacturing capability could rebuild the entire infrastructure of the US in somewhere between 1 and 2 weeks. If you have that kind of productive capacity available, you can stand lots of shocks with equanimity. If the twin towers had that kind of productive technology built in for active maintenance, repair, and expansion, they’d still be standing.
3. How life survives and asteroid impact
A dinosaur-killing asteroid may have wiped out much of life on Earth 65 million years ago, but now scientists have discovered how smaller organisms might have survived in the darkness following such a catastrophic impact.
They tested both freshwater and ocean mixotrophs under conditions ranging from low light to complete darkness for six months, and added food sources during short-term experiments to simulate decaying organic matter. Mixotrophs survived all the experiments, and some even grew under the low light conditions. Their ability to consume other organisms or organic matter helped them rebound quickly after low light returned, perhaps similar to the clouds of dust and debris finally beginning to clear.
But the real shock came from how well light-dependent organisms did when living with the mixotrophs. No photosynthesis could take place under the complete darkness, but the phototrophs mostly managed to survive based on nutrients cycled by the active mixotrophs.
“We were extremely surprised at how well phototrophs did during six months darkness, when they can’t eat at all,” Jones said. Such findings may cause researchers to rethink how well certain life forms survived the catastrophic impacts that dot Earth’s geological record.
Furthermore, the mixotroph activity allowed the phototroph populations to rebound quickly back to normal within a month. And in the end, both mixotrophs and phototrophs tended to fare better when living together.
“So long as mixotrophs are cycling nutrients, [phototroph] algae can take off quickly and get the life cycle going,” Jones explained.
Australian and U.S. researchers said Thursday that one dose of the new swine flu vaccine looks strong enough to protect adults – and can begin protection within 10 days of the shot.
Australian drug maker CSL Ltd. published results of a study that found 75 percent to 96 percent of vaccinated people should be protected with a single dose – the same degree of effectiveness as the regular winter flu shot. That’s remarkable considering scientists thought it would take two doses.
Conventional Uranium Supply and Demand
Niger Could Move Beyond Current Levels of Top Uranium Producing Nations
Niger to triple uranium production in the next few years Niger communication minister and government spokesman Mohamed Ben Omar has said his country plans to raise its annual uranium production from 3,500 to 10,500 tonnes a year in the next few years.
21 page presentation (from 2007) on Niger Uranium Limited.
100% of Niger’s Uranium Production kin 2006 came from Areva’s Somair and Cominack Mines near Arlit. A mere $10 million exploration program spread over 2 years just completed in 2009. The growth to 10,000 tons/year is coming from the meager spending on exploration.
At the beginning of 2009, Niger and the French state mining company agreed a deal to build near Arlit the Imouraren mine. Areva would hold a 66% stake to the Nigerien mining office’s 33%. At a projected output of five thousand tonnes of ore a year, it would be largest uranium mine in the world by 2012, as the SOMAIR and COMINAK mines are phased out. The deal would make Niger the second largest uranium producer in
the world, and included plans to construct a civil nuclear power station for Niger.
Niger has a substantial amount of political unrest but this unrest is not hindering exploitation or shipment of uranium.
The Imouraren mine will le launched with an initial investment of more than 1.2 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars) and create almost 1,400 jobs. Once up to full production capacity, it should be producing 5,000 tonnes of uranium a year for 35 years.
Despite the unrest France, China, India and others are in Niger and cutting deals and getting Uranium. France seems to know how to get what they want out of Africa. It is like they have many decades of experience and the willingness to do whatever it takes to supply the nuclear reactors that provide 80% of France’s electricity.
Niger to award 100 exploration permits to ramp up uranium industry . Niger Energy and Mines Minister Mamadou Abdulahi said that the country will award 100 mining exploration permits over the next two years. State-controlled French utility Areva has enjoyed a monopoly on production of uranium in Niger for some 40 years. In recent years, the
government has issued a slew of new exploration licences in an effort to diversify the uranium sector. (Resource Investor Jan 10, 2008)
Kazakhstan Situation
Kazakhstan is a dictatorship. It appears to be a stable dictatorship. Kazatomprom, a state-owned holding company produces the uranium.
Former Kazatomprom head Mukhtar Dzhakishev and other company officials illegally shifted ownership of uranium mines worth tens of billions of dollars through a network of offshore companies, the KNB security
service said.
Interpretation: An underboss over-reached and got put down by the Godfather and the Don’s security forces. Or the whatever the real story is… the top
guy decide to put down one of his underlings. The uranium is real and the reserves look real too. The Godfather in the movie had an olive oil business that was “real”.
Just like the developed countries deal with bastards who control oil, they will deal with bastards who control uranium. The bastards with oil and uranium still sell it. It is not a question of if they will sell, it is a question of price.
Wikipedia has some info on the Kazakhstan dictatorship. The years following independence have been marked by significant reforms to the Soviet-style economy and political monopoly on power. Under Nursultan Nazarbayev, who initially came to power in 1989 as the head of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and was eventually elected President in 1991, Kazakhstan has made significant progress toward
developing a market economy. The country has enjoyed significant economic growth since 2000, partly due to its large oil, gas, and mineral reserves. Democracy, however, has not gained much ground since 1991. “In June 2007, Kazakhstan’s parliament passed a law granting President Nursultan Nazarbayev lifetime powers and privileges, including access to future presidents, immunity from criminal prosecution, and influence over domestic and foreign policy. Critics say he has become a de facto “president for life.”Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB) was established on June 13, 1992. It includes the Service of Internal Security, Military Counterintelligence, Border Guard, several Commando units, and Foreign Intelligence (Barlau). The latter is considered by many as the most important part of KNB. Its director is Major General Omirtai Bitimov.
Energy is the leading economic sector. Production of crude oil and natural gas condensate in Kazakhstan amounted to 51.2 million tons in 2003, which was 8.6% more than in 2002.
Canada Uranium Situation
The delays in bringing the Canadian mines into production are not insurmountable. Especially if supply issues were idling hundreds of billions of dollars in nuclear plants. $2-3 billion more to overcome the flooding would be made available. Just like tens of billions go to solve oil sand recovery. Higher uranium prices also would also justify the investment needed to fix the problems. Canada also continues to find 4000-7000 ppm deposits.
World Nuclear Association report on Canada’s Uranium
Canada’s production is expected to increase significantly after 2011 as several new mines, now planned or under construction, go into operation.
Uranium production in Canada is likely to increase significantly as several new mines, now planned or under construction, go into operation sometime after 2011. The two largest projects are Cameco’s Cigar Lake mine and Areva’s Midwest mine, both in northern Saskatchewan. The mill at McClean Lake has been modified to process ore from both mines. The Rabbit Lake mill will also be modified to take ore from Cigar Lake. Total production is expected to be 8,200 t/y U3O8 from Cigar Lake and 2,600 t/y from Midwest.
The proven and probable ore reserves at Cigar Lake are extremely large and very high grade. A 450-metre-deep underground mine is being developed in very poor ground conditions. Hence it will use ground freezing and high pressure water jets to excavate the ore. High-grade ore slurry from remote mining will be trucked for toll treatment at Areva’s expanded McClean Lake mill, 70 km northeast, for the first two years. The average feed grade will be 20.7% U3O8. Then, as production approaches full capacity, all of the leaching will be done at McClean Lake but about half of the uranium solution will go on to Cameco’s Rabbit Lake mill 70 km east for final production of uranium oxide concentrate. From both mills total production is expected to be 8,200 t/y U3O8 (7,000 tU/y) ramping up to this over three years from production start in 2011. Known resources are 160,000 tonnes U3O8 at about 19% average grade, and with other resources the mine is expected to have a life of at least 30 years.
Construction on the project began in 2005 with production originally scheduled to start in 2011. However, underground floods in 2006 and 2008 set the start date back until after 2011 and increased the overall cost of the project from C$660 to more than C$1billion. There will be extra requirements for pumping capacity and ground refrigeration. Some 1.3 million cubic metres of waste rock from Cigar Lake is being emplaced under water in the Sue C pit at McClean Lake, to prevent acid generation from it. Tailings will remain at Mclean Lake and Rabbit Lake.
A Cigar Lake II deposit nearby is being investigated.
In addition to mining operations planned for the near future, active exploration involving more than 40 companies continues in many parts of Canada. While exploration has concentrated on northern Saskatchewan, new prospects extend to Labrador and Nova Scotia in the Atlantic provinces, Nunavut Territory in the far north, Quebec province and Ontario’s Elliott Lake area. Resource figures quoted are generally NI 43-101 compliant.
In uranium-rich northern Saskatchewan, exploration projects are now well-advanced at three locations. The Millennium deposit (42% owned by Cameco, 30% by JCU and 28% Areva Resources) has indicated resources of 21,000 tonnes of 4.5% grade U3O8 and 4,400 tonnes of 2.1% grade inferred. Ore would be milled at Key Lake. A feasibility study on the project is under way. The Tamarack deposit associated with Dawn Lake is also a focus of interest.
The Shea Creek project (51% owned by Areva, 49% UEX Corp.) in the western Athabasca Basin has reported very high grade ore and a 900 metre shaft is being sunk to provide better access. UEX (21.3% owned by Cameco) has invested about C$30 million in exploration. UEX is also exploring the Horseshoe and Raven deposits at Hidden Bay in the eastern Athabasca basin (close to Rabbit Lake and McClean Lake). The Horseshoe deposit has indicated resources of 11,100 tonnes of U3O8 at a grade of 0.237%, and Raven has indicated resources of 7,060 tonnes at 0.02% cut-off.
Denison is actively exploring the Wheeler River deposit half way between Key Lake and McArthur River. It is a long strike from the latter and geologically very similar, with some high-grade uranium mineralisation.
The main Labrador prospect centres on the Michelin deposit, which is being drilled in a C$21million program by Aurora Energy Resources (46.8% Fronteer Development). Michelin and the adjacent Jacques Lake deposit have identified resources of 46,000 tonnes of U3O8. Michelin was originally scheduled for development starting in 2010, but a provincial government moratorium until 2011 will delay the project. In Nova Scotia, exploration has been proposed at Millet Brook, but it awaits a review of a 1985 moratorium on uranium mining in the province.
Far north in the Nunavut Territory, a joint venture headed by Areva is conducting a feasibility study on the Kiggavik uranium deposit in the Thelon Basin, with an estimated 67,000 tonnes U3O8 at 0.24% grade. The indigenous Inuit organization, Nunavut Tunngavic, reversed its previous ban on uranium exploration and mining in 2006, but the project has faced opposition from other groups. The project involves the development of three open pit mines at Kiggavik and both an open pit mine and an underground mine at Sissons. Areva and its partners, JCU (Canada) Exploration and Daewoo, hope for a start-up of the mine and mill complex in 2015.e
Also in Nunavut, at Amer Lake, Uranium North Resources has reported resources of 8,770 t U3O8.
In Quebec, exploration is underway at several locations with a total of more than 40,000 tonnes of indicated or inferred deposits. Strateco Resources has reported indicated resources of 1,700 t U3O8 grading 0.68% and inferred resources of 6,000 tonnes grading 0.44% at its Matoush deposit in the Otish Basin of central Quebec. The company completed a scoping study in 2008 and will begin underground development in mid-2009, with a view to mine production in 2012. Azimut Exploration has committed C$42 million to uranium exploration, mainly for the Katavic project in Quebec’s northern Nunavik region and other prospects in the Ungava Bay region further north. Uracan Resources reports 18,400 tonnes of U3O8 of inferred resources at its North Shore prospect in eastern Quebec.
The Elliot Lake area of Ontario, which was the centre of Canada’s early uranium mining, is again attracting exploration. In September 2008, Pele Mountain Resources commenced the permitting process for its Eco Ridge underground uranium mine and processing facility in the region. Eco Ridge contains indicated resources of 5,700 tonnes U3O8 and inferred resources of 37,300 tonnes U3O8.
In British Columbia, the Blizzard prospect south of Kelowna, which was first explored in the 1980s, has been revived by Boss Power. The company has challenged a provincial government moratorium on exploration and mining imposed in April 2008, and the British Columbia government has indicated the Blizzard project may be able to go forward.
Uranium exploration appears to be on the upswing throughout Canada. Cameco spent C$57 million on exploration in 2008 (plus a further $32 million in three strategic partnerships with junior explorers) and plans C$50-55 million for 2009, mainly in Saskatchewan, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. In late 2007, Cameco announced an agreement with the Russian company Uranium Holding ARMZ (JSC Atomredmetzoloto)
to create a joint venture to explore and mine uranium in northwest Russia, Saskatchewan and Nanavut.
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- "El río Uruguay va a ser un modelo de control medioambiental"
- Más de 500 alumnos participarán de las Olimpíadas Culturales
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- Consejos de Bill Gates a la Generación Y
- Ventas de Software y Hardware en Japón del 26 de julio al 1o. de agosto del 2010