Canada

Nuclear Power: 2012 And Beyond

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“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future,” quipped Niels Bohr. And so it is with the uranium industry. Some uranium companies and several nations with an interest in the sector are bullish, while some analysts strike a more cautious note. Despite lacking a crystal ball, it is possible to offer a reasonably confident analysis of how the industry will fare going forward.

All such predictions are guided by one fact: The effects on the nuclear industry of the Fukushima accident in Japan-whose one-year anniversary is March 11-is less than some pundits had feared, and in turn this will have less of a negative impact on the uranium market overall. According to a report in the Washington Post last October, for example, the Czech Republic is planning to sharply increase its nuclear power production. That nation currently relies on six nuclear reactors for 33% of its total electricity, and the government hopes to at least double that output by the year 2050. In its decision to pursue nuclear power, the Czechs are not alone: Slovakia is currently building more nuclear facilities, and Poland has engaged in talks with companies in France, Japan and the U.S. about technology for its first nuclear plant to be completed by 2030. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 1, 2012 at 9:00 AM

Keystone Denial Locks Canadian Crude Into Midwest

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The looming bottleneck for Canadian oil sands crude isn’t getting into the US, it’s getting out of the Midwest.

A panel of energy experts told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee January 31 in Washington, DC that Canadian oil producers won’t run out of pipeline capacity to ship additional crude across the US border until about 2019. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 6, 2012 at 9:15 AM

Narrow Interest Blocks Big Pipeline

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The Obama Administration, encouraged by environmental groups, has blocked yet another affordable energy project-the Keystone XL Pipeline. Add this to the unconscionable slowdown of leasing and production in the Gulf of Mexico, foot-dragging on production in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, blocks on offshore production in the Atlantic and Pacific, and continued prohibitions and impediments to production in non-park, non-wilderness areas of the Western U.S. and ANWR. For each one, the claim is that the production wouldn’t make much difference.

Well, the XL Pipeline would bring 750,000 barrels per day to our energy markets. Just this one pipeline would add nearly as much as the 800,000 to 900,000 barrels per day we import from Venezuela-our fourth-largest foreign supplier. One of the most fundamental and least controversial concepts in economics is that increasing supply reduces price. The impact on petroleum price is compounded by the host of petroleum-producing projects that have been blocked, delayed, and impeded by the Administration. These projects could add millions of barrels per day to the petroleum markets. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 23, 2012 at 6:00 AM
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