Fortune: In uranium we trust
For one Colorado rancher, uranium is the key to the future.
NEW YORK (Fortune) — With just one more permit from the State of Colorado, Energy Fuels Resources Corporation founder and CEO George Glasier can break ground for the first new U.S. uranium mill since the Cold War.
Glasier's Piñon Ridge Mill, in Colorado's Paradox Valley, has been long in the making. EFR has spent nearly $9 million on development of the mill, with construction expected to cost another $130 million, possibly beginning in 2011.
CH2M Hill has designed the computerized mill to process up to 1,000 tons of uranium daily, five pounds of uranium to the ton. The mill's design is so environmentally friendly and technologically advanced, there's nothing like it in the world, Glasier says.
He's already talking to overseas customers: "The Chinese are acquiring uranium assets everywhere they can," he says. And here at home, he estimates that, in the country's clean energy future, electric utilities will generate enough need to boost uranium from its present $46 to a more robust $70 per pound. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission already has 22 applications for new nuclear plants nationwide; globally there are 53 new plants under construction and 436 operational. …
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