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The spot price of uranium was around $70 to $72 a pound before the Fukishima nuclear accident in Japan.This caused the price to dive down to the $45 a pound area.It has been creeping back to the $55 a pound area.Germany has or is closing several nuclear plants also.But new plants are opening in India and China because it is a low cost alternative to produce electricity.
The American scene is slightly different as there is no shortage of electricity but nuclear generation is preferred because it is cleaner and safer.There is only one nuclear incident in the last ten or so years.Also the price of natural gas and oil is rising.So it is not surprising that a small uranium producer in Wyoming(Ur-Energy) has pulled down a contract for 90,000 pounds at an average price of $62.92 per processed pound.Some of this contract may have gone for $65 per pound.This is a very small portion of the resource in U.S.A But it is important to note that it is an American producer and an American user.However this may be the start or even the continuation of a trend.As both small and large producers are starting to rise in their share prices.Energy Fuels which has one of two processing plants in U.S.A has seen it's price(after splitting) go from $5.75 per share to$6.20 per share;Denison Mines has seen it's price go from $1.05 per share to around $1.35 per share and lastly Cameco,the biggest Canadian producer, has seen it's price go from $18.00 per share to $22.25.Most of this increase has been in a few months except or since October.This increase in the price of uranium has resulted in an increase in Cameco's market capitalization of $2 billion in two months.
A lot of the smaller uranium companies were starting to consolidate because there is not enough contracts around .Mega Uranium,in particular, has bought a few small companies and now sees that it 's acreage is worth more now .Also Denison Mines has a huge amount of acreage mainly in the Athabasca basin in Alberta;now it has a more valuable resource to buy other small companies.It just bought a company called Rockgate Capital.Mnay of these deals are all share deals.Look for more consolidation in the uranium industry and one or two producers to rise from junior to mid-tier status if the trend continues in uranium prices.One will likely be Denison Mines with it's huge acreage and one may be Ur-Energy with it's processing plant and excellent acreage near the plant.
The orbit theory has been used to explain the gradual warming of the earth over the last century.This theory is based on the knowledge that the universe is not constant in size but is expanding in size;it is moving outwards.This results in our entire solar system moving outwards.The planets will move at different speeds.Smaller planets will move faster than larger planets just as a baseball will move faster than a basketball.Consequently the earth will move faster than the sun outwards.
Genesis
Apparently it took almost 400,000 years for the universe to expand or move in any way.Like a ball of cellophane that is all rolled up.Now the universe is several million years old and has unwrapped at first at greater speed and then at a slower speed.I believe that at this age the unwrapping (or expanding) has slowed down.It is easy to think of it as billions of planets wrapped into a ball and gradually expanding outwards.As our solar system moves outwards the planets will move at a different rate than the sun.But the differential in speeds is decreasing. There is only a finite amount of energy in the universe. As it unwraps,energy dissipates and the unwrapping or expanding slows down.Now the universe is several million of years old and is slowing down in it's expansion.
Centrifugal forces
The earth is caught in a belt or zone in it's orbit around the sun.It will move to the edge of the envelope(containing the orbit) because of the "extra" speed it has because of moving faster than the sun.However it is believed that the universe is slowing down in it's expansion outwards because of it's age.There will gradually be less and less force to move the earth to the edge of it's orbit zone and it will move back to it's original orbit.
The proof
The proof is the reason for having a theory at all.The earth has unexpectedly warmed up 3 to 4 degrees above the average temperature over the last century.As the differential between the earth's and the sun's speed reduces, the theory expects that the earth's warming will increase only slightly and then start to cool down.The earth's orbit will gradually return to it's original shape.
Many scientists today still believe that excessive hydrocarbons in the atmosphere are the cause of "global warming".Industrial processes (primarily combustion) release CO2 and hydrocarbons,including carbon particulates,that change the density of clouds in the atmosphere.The sun's rays in theory can penetrate the clouds and electromagnetic belts around the circumference of the earth and strike the earth warming it up.However the solar rays
bounce back into the atmosphere and now can no longer escape the clouds.This warms up the atmosphere -apparently 3 to 4 degrees over the last century.However this theory has some technical difficulties.
History
There have been times in the past when the measurement of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere has been higher than today.The temperature was lower than today not higher.This may be explained because it takes many years of cloud buildup to raise the temperature even 1 degree Celsius.Therefore there is not a strong ,tight correlation between hydrocarbons in the atmosphere and an increase in temperature,or if you want there is a lag in the correlation.
The Surface
The sun's rays only release solar energy(or photons) when they are at the right angle of entry and hit the right surface.There is a significant release when a ray hits a solid material or surface.But there will not likely be a major release when it hits a gas like water vapour or carbon dioxide.
Air Pollution
Americans and Europeans complain that a large source of air pollution comes from the tar sands.There is a large release of carbon dioxide and other hydrocarbons.A lot of hydrocarbons and CO2; but not all of it rises.Some ends up falling to the earth and a lot goes into the ocean and falls to the seabed.So it does not seem likely that this significant release is impactful enough to make the clouds so dense that it prevents the sun's rays from escaping the atmosphere.Nor does it seem that hydrocarbons mixed with water vapour would be able to trap the rays inside the atmosphere.
Conclusion
The position of the Americans and Europeans is that an increase in production of heavy oil will increase air pollution and lead to an increase in global warming.But there is no conclusive proof that increasing heavy oil production will cause the earth's temperature to rise in a significant way. send consulting business to daleandmac@gmail.com
Yesterday's blog talked about the ripple effect related to improvements to the rail into Churchill and to the port.The ripple or waves emanate from the original investment and have secondary effects.So the improvement of the port causes a number of secondary investments such as motels and lodges in Churchill.The previous blog talked about expected secondary investments made by Nunavut.There is no way to check and see if these investments have been made or will be in the future.However there is another indicator of the kind of increases that can come from the ripple effect.Another company that was given notes and help is called Logistec.It is a Quebec based company and handles various aspects of moving cargo.They were told that they would get some help on a new installation in Churchill.Two notes were made in August and the stock was trading about $27 to $29 a share.It is not known what they did if anything but there is a vacuum in the north for companies like Logistec and now the company trades at $56 a share.This is an increase in equity of about $125 million.It is hoped that Nunavut got the same kind of ripple effect.Logistec will get further help on any other projects in the north.
Yesterday's blog(on Blogdaleupsome) talked about project work that was done on Churchill,Manitoba.I have seen in the Globe and Mail the changes to the port recently.This construction and the renovations to the rail had an impact on several stocks including Stantec, Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway.It was also stated that the amount of impact on each company is difficult to tell.It is also difficult to tell the impact on Nunavut Territory.It is important to have a healthy Nunavut Territory in the Eastern Arctic.This is our Canadian presence in the Eastern Arctic.
Before the project work was given out to improve the port at Churchill some notes were directed towards Nunavut.It was pointed out that investments in Churchill might be profitable later as Churchill must become larger and more prosperous in the future.I thought that a lodge might be susccessful and a bay in the harbour for smaller craft.Churchill could be an
important transshipment point for communities on the west side of Hudson's Bay and Southhampton Island.Nunavut could also possibly do resupply to Quebec communities on the east side of Hudson's Bay.It is not certain how much investment Nunavut made in Churchill nor how great an opportunity they took.But it is certain they will benefit in some capacity.There should be some ripple effect from a stronger Churchill.
Environment and weather experts have noticed a gradual increase in temperature over the entire earth over the last century and the last two decades in particular.One theory I have called the hydrocarbon theory;it posits that industrial processes that require combustion release more and more hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.These hydrocarbons combine with the water vapour in clouds to form more and more dense clouds.These clouds have particulate matter and new gases that are more dense than ordinary clouds.These clouds allow the sun's rays to hit the earth's surface and after losing much of it's energy(largely photons) they do not have enough energy to bounce back and escape the magnetic belts and the new dense clouds.So the sun's rays remain in the atmosphere and warm up the earth's temperature as much as 3 to 4 degrees over the last century.
The second theory (the orbit theory) believes that the earth is largely contained by centrifugal forces to stay in a tight band rotating around the sun.This tight band is compromised by the movement outwards of the earth at a faster rate than the sun is moving.This process moves the earth closer to the sun as this tight band is stretched but not broken.In fact, as the earth's movement outwards starts to slow down the normal orbit will gradually take shape again.This theory believes that the earth may warm up another 1 or 2 degrees and then start to cool.
The difference is that the earth is not warming up because of industrial processes and for example the combustion used to create heavy oil in the Alberta Tar Sands does not affect "global warming"
The orbit theory looks at the universe for the grounds of it's theory.The universe has been expanding for many years now.It is impossible to tell whether it is expanding at an increasing or decreasing rate.It will expand outwards away from the centre at first at an increasing rate and then at a decreasing rate as the amount of energy stored up will gradually dissipate.The expansion has been caused by the energy of all the galaxies being compressed into a small space and gradually expanding outwards like cellophane rolled into a ball.But there is a limit to the expansion as there is to the cellophane expanding.There is a finite amount of material in both balls.
Slowing down
It is possible that the difference between the speed of the earth and the sun (travelling outwards from the centre) will soon reduce;if it has not already done so.If the earth was going to move out of it's orbit instead of just bending it's shape then it would likely have done so already.It can almost be guaranteed that the rate of expansion of the universe has been greater in the past
than it is today.It is the velocity of the earth travelling outward that might take it out of it's present orbit.However if it has broken out of it's orbit envelope the warming of the earth would have been greater than it's present rate of increase which is roughly 3 to 4 degrees over the last century.After all,the difference in the phases of the orbit around the sun can make the difference between summer and winter or 80 to 100 degrees.So in conclusion the earth's orbit may be bent or misshaped but still in the same orbit.
