United Press International
April 30 2008

Outside View: Nuke power future — Part 1

Published: April 30, 2008 at 7:31 PM

By SERGEI GOLUBCHIKOV
UPI Outside View Commentator

MOSCOW, April 30 (UPI) — On April 22 in Yerevan, Russia and the
former Soviet republic of Armenia signed a treaty to set up a joint
venture for the exploration and mining of uranium and other minerals
in Armenia.

The company is being established on parity lines and will be
registered within the next three months.

It was signed by Vadim Zhivov, general director of the
Atomredmetzoloto uranium holding, and Armenia’s Environmental
Protection Minister Aram Arutyunyan.

ARMZ manages all of Russia’s uranium assets and runs some projects in
Kazakhstan.

Today, AMRZ ranks second in the world for uranium reserves. This is
the result of the nuclear industry’s restructuring, and in particular
the pooling of its core plants under one umbrella.

With the focus on nuclear power, Russia is now planning its uranium
future carefully to warrant the successful development of its nuclear
industry.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has left Russia high and dry, with
many well-researched fields outside its boundaries, mainly in Central
Asia in the former Soviet Republics of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia.

For now, Russia has only one uranium-containing deposit, in the Chita
Region, with its Streltsovsky mining and chemical plant. Its total
reserves are estimated at 150,000 metric tons of ore. Other fields in
Eastern Siberia have a further 70,000 metric tons of explored raw
materials. Altogether, the proven reserves amount to 615,000 metric
tons. This figure also includes 344,000 metric tons from Elkon, the
largest recently explored Russian field located in the north of
Yakutia-Sakha.

Russia’s uranium-bearing provinces present a challenge for
developers. The largest of them — the Aldanskoye deposit — can be
developed only by sinking. The ore occurs at a depth of 300 meters —
nearly 1,000 feet — and mining is unprofitable.

During authoritarian times that problem did not exist: northern
uranium was obtained by the free labor of prisoners, including
political ones. In Chukotka, for example, they supplied the material
for the first atomic bombs. As prison camps closed down, uranium
mining in the northern latitudes stopped.

Now a search is on for an economically feasible way of opening up the
mothballed mines. This has become economically feasible as global
energy prices have soared since the 2003 Gulf War.

Uranium prices are increasing throughout the world; over the past
three years they have doubled, and not surprisingly. One cubic
centimeter of uranium is equivalent to 60,000 liters of gasoline, 110
to 160 metric tons of coal, or 60,000 cubic meters of natural gas.

—

Next: The future uses and demand for uranium

(Sergei Golubchikov is an associate professor at Russian State Social
University. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA
Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and
do not necessarily reflect the views of RIA Novosti.)

(United Press International’s "Outside View" commentaries are written
by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important
issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United
Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum,
original submissions are invited.)