Uranium is increasingly being seen by key mining professionals as a bridge to the future of both mining and power generation.
Since 2007 relaxed Federal Government policies have lead to an increase in uranium exploration, but many in the industry feel that Australia should increase its production and exports of the mineral.
Australia is home to nearly 40% of the world’s economically recoverable uranium but responsible for less than 20% of the world’s supply.
“Australia has traditionally punched below its weight in terms of uranium production,” former chairman of the Australian Uranium Institute Tony Grey said at the World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference held in Sydney in April.
In the second part of this four part series, Paul Hayes interviews Queensland Resources Council chief executive, Michael Roche, and discusses both the present and future of the Australian uranium industry.
Hayes: How do you see the current state of uranium in Australia?
Roche: We have a very supportive national government and a supportive Resources and Energy Minister in Martin Ferguson.
And we are well positioned to take advantage of growing markets such as in China. I think this is probably the best position the Australian uranium industry has been in for some decades.
Hayes: Has some of the so-called heat gone out of uranium debate?
Roche: People are taking more notice of the opportunity that nuclear offers to provide a low emissions power generation solution.
For countries that are not blessed with their own reserves of fossil fuels, or that have decided this is the best way to go to reduce their emissions profile, nuclear makes a lot of sense. Australia is very well placed in having substantial reserves of fossil fuels, and we have probably the other great fuel source that will be in demand in the 21st century.
Hayes: Would uranium mining in Queensland damage the State’s coal mining?
Roche: One of the first things that I did when I came to the QRC was ask the board, should we have a position on uranium mining?
We have around that board table a lot of coal miners, and the unanimous view was that yes, we should be arguing to the Queensland government that uranium mining should be allowed.
Former Premier Peter Beattie commissioned a University of Queensland report on uranium and the Queensland coal industry which found there is no evidence of a damaging affect on the State’s thermal coal industry from any move to mine uranium in Queensland.
Hayes: Is expanding uranium mining in Queensland and Australia inevitable?
Roche: We asked that same question in an opinion poll last year in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Townsville, and in Mt. Isa.
It was a good cross section of both urban and regional Queensland and 85% of the respondents thought that uranium mining in Queensland was inevitable. We could go to a part of the State such as the North-West mineral province, and the support for uranium mining is overwhelming.
The people see the jobs. They know that some of their major metal mines in the area are going to run out of reserves in coming years.
The people are looking to say, ‘where is the next generation of mines?’
Hayes: Have people moved past traditional negative perceptions of uranium such as nuclear weapons, waste, accidents?
Roche: There are still some residual concerns, unfortunately held very dearly in parts of the Queensland Australian Labor Party.
There are very strong advocates for uranium mining in the Queensland Labor party, just as there are people whose views were shaped in the 1970s and who haven’t really moved on.
But people still have concerns. By and large the concerns are held by the older generation. People who probably grew up through the Cold War era and equated uranium mining with nuclear weapons.
Whereas, the younger generation see the connection between nuclear power and low emissions. As those people go through the population I think there will be stronger view about the emissions reduction positives of nuclear and less concern about the nuclear proliferation aspects.
Hayes: Is Queensland damaging its future by maintaining its uranium ban?
Roche: I think the window of opportunity for uranium in Queensland is really in the next couple of years. Queensland could fritter away that opportunity for decades if they don’t bite the bullet.
With the change in policy in Western Australia a number of companies that have uranium interests in the west and in Queensland are starting to look much more seriously at Western Australia.
Even though their deposit might be a better one in Queensland they are now having to weigh up the cost of sitting on an undeveloped deposit in Queensland and waiting for a change of policy or a change of government, or do they move ahead with a bird in the hand, which is a Western Australian government that is now effectively encouraging new uranium mines?
Hayes: Will there be a change of uranium policy in Queensland soon?
Roche: We don’t see it as a strategy to simply wait for Anna Bligh and the Queensland Labor government to have a light bulb moment.
I think ultimately it will also come down to potential customers for our uranium putting some pressure on the Queensland government. Premier Bligh has had to answer those sorts of questions when she has been on trade missions to places like Japan, Korea and China.