(3 of 4)
The wealth of energy these innovations produce is startling. One tramload at 60% U3O8 is worth about $134,000. A single hole produces something like $150 million worth of uranium in the 10 days or so it takes to bore it. By mining just 140 tons of ore a day (a thimbleful compared with big copper-or iron-ore mines), McArthur River produces more than 18 million lbs. of uranium a year. That's 20% of the world's annual production, enough to run 40 standard 1,000-MW reactors for a year. That much uranium can satisfy fully 2% of the world's electricity demand--as much as would be provided by 140 million tons of coal (twice Canada's annual production) or 450 million bbl. of oil (more than twice Qatar's annual production). Cameco expects to take 585 million lbs. of uranium out of McArthur River during the next 25 years or so--not counting a second ore zone, not yet fully delineated, a few hundred feet west of the current mine. And that still won't be enough to meet the world's growing hunger for uranium.
Pick up a chunk of uranium ore (a low-yield variety, please, and don't hold it for long), and you will be surprised by its weight. Uranium is denser than lead. McArthur River ore is a glossy black that gleams like marble. It's easy to imagine the radioactive energy stored in this rock. Whatever your environmental stance, at McArthur River you can sense the elemental power of uranium, a clean-burning source of seemingly limitless electricity. And you can understand former Cameco CEO Bernard Michel's assessment: "The world is seeing a fresh start for nuclear power."
Michel, 65, a Frenchman who stepped down as CEO in January and was succeeded by American Gerald Grandey, 56, spent his career turning Cameco from a Canada-focused mining company into a worldwide energy conglomerate. Cameco's goal is to become the ExxonMobil of uranium: a vertically integrated multinational involved in every stage of the fuel cycle, from extracting raw ore to fuel enrichment to delivering fuel rods. The company is a middleman in the U.S.-Russian program to import and reprocess uranium from decommissioned Soviet-era warheads, for use in reactors. With its 15% stake in the Bruce Power nuclear-power plant on Lake Huron in Ontario, the company is also an electricity generator. McArthur River lies at the heart of a nuclear empire that Cameco says will soon stretch from Saskatchewan to Central Asia to Australia. Cameco's stock, which has been climbing since early 2000, hit a one-year low of $16 a share last September, amid uncertainties about the uranium market. But as war with Iraq has grown more likely, and McArthur River production has reached capacity, investors have pushed the stock back up to almost $24 a share.