Fracking for Yellowcake: The Next Frontier?

[Oscar]

Fracking for Yellowcake: The Next Frontier?

[ http://www.jeffrubinssmallerworld.com/2 ... -frontier/

Posted by Jeff Rubin on February 4th, 2013

under SmallerWorldTags: Eagle Ford, fracking, Uranium, Water

It works for oil and natural gas, so why not frack for uranium too? After all, America relies on foreign uranium just like it depends on foreign oil.

In the U.S. these days, it seems like you can sell almost anything if you spin it as part of the pursuit of energy independence. Enter Uranium Energy Corp. A junior mining company with Canadian roots, UEC is developing the newest uranium mine in the U.S. And it’s counting on fracking to do it.

Texans, in general, are no strangers to fracking. UEC is operating in the heart of fracking country, south Texas’s Eagle Ford basin, one of the most prolific shale plays in the country. Instead of oil and gas, though, UEC (recently profiled by Forbes Magazine) is fracking for yellowcake.

The technology is basically the same. It involves injecting a mixture of highly pressurized water and sand into an underground formation in order to break open fissures in the rock that allow the energy riches within to be extracted. In this case, it’s a slurry of uranium ore that’s then dried and processed into powdery yellowcake, an intermediate product that eventually becomes fuel for nuclear reactors.

Of course, the very idea of fracking for yellowcake begs the question—just because you can do something, should you?

The world isn’t exactly running short of uranium. Prices tell you that much. Uranium prices have plunged from more than $90 a pound before the last recession to just more than $40 a pound following the Fukushima disaster. Friendly countries like Canada and Australia are able to ramp up supply, as can less friendly countries like Kazakhstan. Yellowcake is also exported by Niger (part of the reason, according to some, that nuclear-powered France is taking such an interest in neighbouring Mali right now.)

What’s more, the emergence of cheap natural gas from shale plays is making nuclear energy less attractive to U.S. power utilities. Many are considering shuttering some high cost nuclear stations and switching to cheaper natural gas, just as they’ve been doing with a number of coal plants in recent years.

When it comes to fracking for yellowcake, even more pressing than shaky economics is the obvious potential for environmental contamination. The process is not only extremely water intensive, as is typical of fracking, but it’s also happening at a shallow depth. Unlike the Eagle Ford’s oil and gas reserves, which are miles underground, the in situ uranium mining is taking place at the same level as local groundwater supplies.

According to the International Energy Agency, the amount of fresh water used for global energy production will double over the next twenty-five years. Whether it’s Alberta’s oil sands that run on water from the Athabasca River or the countless gallons used to frack underground stores of oil, gas and now even uranium, it’s easy to see why.

[Oscar]

Uranium Energy Corp

[ http://www.uraniumenergy.com/about_us/profile/ ]

Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE MKT: UEC) is a U.S. based uranium production, development and exploration company.

The Company’s operations are managed by professionals with a recognized profile for excellence in their industry, a profile based on many decades of hands-on experience in the key facets of uranium exploration, development and mining.

The Company controls one of the largest databases of historic uranium exploration and development in the country. Using this knowledge base, the Company has acquired and is advancing exploration properties of merit throughout the southwestern U.S.

The Company’s fully licensed and permitted Hobson processing facility is central to all of its projects in South Texas, including the Palangana in-situ recovery mine and the Goliad in-situ recovery project which is fully permitted for production and is in the initial stages of mine construction.

The Company is well financed to aggressively pursue its key development targets. [ . . . ]

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Officers and Directors:

[ http://www.uraniumenergy.com/about_us/d ... _officers/ ]

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In Situ Recovery (ISR)

[ http://www.uraniumenergy.com/uranium/in_situ_leach/ ]

Uranium Energy Corp is employing in-situ recovery or ISR mining technology at the Palangana uranium project. ISR is injected-solution mining that reverses the natural process that deposited the uranium in the sandstones. On-site ground water is being fortified with gaseous oxygen and introduced to the uranium ore body through a pattern of injection wells. The solution dissolves the uranium from the sandstone host.

The uranium-bearing solution is brought back to surface through production wells where the uranium is concentrated on resin beads for trucking to the Company’s Hobson processing plant to be concentrated further and dried into yellowcake for market. This pattern of injection and recovery wells, plus surrounding monitor wells that serve as a safeguard, is called a wellfield.

For more information on ISR mining view the animated video below. (Turn your speaker volume on)
[ http://www.uraniumenergy.com/uranium/in_situ_leach/ ]


“Reversing Mother Nature”, an essay by www.StockInterview.com

[ http://www.uraniumenergy.com/_resources ... f5abd2038f ]

Please click here to view “Reversing Mother Nature”, an essay by www.StockInterview.com,

[ http://www.uraniumenergy.com/_resources ... f5abd2038f ]

which explains how the ISR process works; and contains interviews with the leading ISR experts who have designed all the ISR mines currently operating in the United States, and many others internationally as well.

There experts are now members of Uranium Energy Corp’s technical team.

Please click here to review their bios and Cvs.
[ http://www.uraniumenergy.com/about_us/technical_team/ ]