Uranium Boom Fuels Upbeat Industry Meet

Nearly 110 years after the country's first uranium claims were staked in western Colorado and a quarter-century after the uranium industry last went bust, a gathering of industry representatives this weekend heralded a new boom in radioactive rock. Uranium Expo 2005 brought together nearly 300 people from 45 uranium-related companies and five countries Friday and Saturday, giving heavyweight credence to what had been hinted at with the reopening of mothballed mines and the scramble for more uranium processing facilities: Another uranium boom is underway. "Talk about a uranium boom - we are in one," said Arden Larson, a Grand Junction geologist who organized the conference to bring together a uranium-focused group, ranging from miners seeking jobs to mining-company executives looking for investors and properties. Mining in a rich uranium belt arching across western Colorado has already gone through booms in the 1950s and 1970s. But an estimated 75 million pounds of uranium and 500 million pounds of the steel hardener vanadium still are locked in ore under the Uravan Uranium Belt - enough for a third boom. The catalyst for that boom is a shortage that has pushed uranium prices to nearly $30 a pound from a low of $7 and vanadium to more than $10 a pound, up from $2. That financial news