. . . Over the past several years, a looming shortage of uranium to fuel the nation's power plants has pushed up the price of the radioactive metal. Selling for well under $10 a pound a decade ago, the price is above $36 and projected to go higher.
The higher price has sparked a rush back to the mountains and deserts of Utah by prospectors who hope their Geiger counters will again start clicking and pointing the way to rich ore deposits.
There are six companies, including Max Resource, that have exploration projects in various stages of completion and permitting on state lands, said Jim Springer, spokesman for the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.
There is a similar rush to explore federal lands in the state. "We've seen a half dozen projects out of this office alone," said Frank Bain, a geologist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's office in Moab, which covers Utah's Grand and San Juan counties. "There hasn't been activity like that since at least the early 1980s."
Resource analyst Kevin Bambrough at Sprott Asset Management in Vancouver said uranium shortages loom for U.S. utilities that need to fuel their reactors. And that is especially true for those utilities that want to build new nuclear power plants.
"The supply is just not there," he said.
The higher price has sparked a rush back to the mountains and deserts of Utah by prospectors who hope their Geiger counters will again start clicking and pointing the way to rich ore deposits.
There are six companies, including Max Resource, that have exploration projects in various stages of completion and permitting on state lands, said Jim Springer, spokesman for the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.
There is a similar rush to explore federal lands in the state. "We've seen a half dozen projects out of this office alone," said Frank Bain, a geologist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's office in Moab, which covers Utah's Grand and San Juan counties. "There hasn't been activity like that since at least the early 1980s."
Resource analyst Kevin Bambrough at Sprott Asset Management in Vancouver said uranium shortages loom for U.S. utilities that need to fuel their reactors. And that is especially true for those utilities that want to build new nuclear power plants.
"The supply is just not there," he said.
