Regarding the irrational fear of nuclear, and the response to accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima:

From "Radiation and Reason"

"Itemized summary:

 Life is naturally well protected against all but the very highest radiation exposures and evolutionary biology has ensured this so that life may survive.

 The low casualty record in all radiological and nuclear accidents confirms the effectiveness of this protection, as do laboratory experiments and the benefits of radiation as used in clinical medicine for over a century.

 The commonly held view that radiation is exceptionally dangerous has been sustained by: a) residual memory of Cold War threats; b) unfamiliarity with the broad role of biology; c) a taste for the more exciting stories of accidents offered by the media; d) the guidance offered by a network of international safety committees that prefers caution to scientific evidence.

 This guidance has resulted in national regulations that specify that any exposure to radiation should be kept As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA), for no scientific reason.

 While the radiation released in a radiological or nuclear accident has a small health effect, if any, the emergency procedures taken with international guidance themselves cause suffering, loss of life and severe socio-economic damage, sometimes on a global scale.

 Current policy that aims to appease public concern rather than educate people about radiation has caused plans for new nuclear plants to be strangled by unjustifiable regulatory hurdles and escalating costs, resulting in uncompetitive energy prices and increased carbon emissions.

Two conclusions:

Bottom up, on radiation and nuclear energy we need a fresh programme of science-wide public education in schools and in the community as a whole via the media, omitting the ghoulish images used in the past. Local UK-based initiatives should contribute to worldwide re-education, for example through the BBC.

Top down, on radiation safety we need a complete sea change in international guidance. This should be based on scientific understanding and evidence, not the unjustified precaution inherent in the ALARA/LNT philosophy.[3]Initiatives for such a change should be pursued and supported by the UK more formally.[4]"

Continue: http://www.theenergycollective.com/roberthargraves/2379178/radiation-and-reason

It's handy for pro-nuclear Britain that former colonies Canada and Australia have so much uranium between that Kazakhstan is not a critical supplier. Australia once had several rich mines like Athabasca but they were played out. Now it's uranium as a byproduct of hard rock mining for copper or in-situ leaching of placer deposits.

There is no rush for 4th generation nuclear. Past 2050 we can replace coal with 3rd generation nuclear and partially reprocess the spent fuel. Decades from now we might need the highest possible burnup in order to conserve the resource. Oil and gas will be largely unobtainable post 2050 so we'll need alternative high yielding energy sources or face economic collapse.

I don't know about double James, I think that's gilding the lily or overly optimistic? Even so, and given the energy connection and the new climate change imperatives, the world is going to need carbon free energy and possibly lots of it to recharge the electric vehicles that could replace conventional transport inside a couple of decades!

We do need to find reliable and safe ways to use this resource if only to use up our huge stores of fissile material which unless transformed in FBR's will continue to pose a threat of total annihilation.

Even so, there's and even greater threat to all life and that is the carbon pollution we are adding to the atmosphere! Moreover, anything that can be ripped from the ground and sold for a profit will always be in demand, and none more so than the by profit demanding middlemen who add nothing but their profit demands and a little paper shuffling to justify their imposition and idyllic hedonistic lifestyles it supports?

What they can't corner is endlessly available sunlight and the even more endless biogas we produce from waste!

There's no mining opportunities in either of those latter examples James, although the clinically constipated might welcome some micro mining activities by nanobots to relieve them of their load and the build up of painful internal pressure (the pain the pain, oh the pain) that goes with it?

Sort of like an energy broker seemingly separated from the easy billions that once were easy money for those able to corner a market with their borrowed billions? Straining with confected concerns to separate the rubes from their earned wealth?

I believe that safer cheaper than coal, less toxic thorium might well be the new gold in the energy portfolio, James?
Alan B.

A reminder that future commodity prices, especially energy, are one of the hardest things to predict.

But Australia mines Uranium. Think of all the money we'll make.

Letta rip!

Thorium through Liquid Floride Thorium Reactors is the simple answer. Cheap electrical energy, liquid fuels for transportation, medical isotopes and space safe batteries are just some of the benefits of LFTR technology. No nuclear bi-products, carbon sequestration and an ability to burn existing old nuclear spent fuels.

A no brainer if you ask me

The main reason that uranium prices are set to double is that after Fukashima uranium prices dropped by more than 50%, now with Japanese reactors coming back on line, plus new Chinese reactors starting, demand will be back to pre-2014 levels.