Cameco Corp (NYSE: CCJ) is the 800-pound gorilla of the uranium sector. Cameco is to uranium what Wal-Mart is to retailing, and what Saudi Aramco is to petroleum. On a percentage basis, Cameco dominates its sector more so than either of the two. Cameco probably has more clout in turning off the electricity now powering your computer than any other company in the world.
 
Can you imagine what would happen if Cameco’s labor force hypothetically went on strike for six months? The repercussions would probably send fuel managers, who purchase the uranium that powers nuclear reactors, into a ghoulish panic. Consumers, who are oblivious to the importance of uranium, and believe electricity is their god-given right, just as many of us once took 20-cent gasoline prices for granted before 1973, might suffer a utility-bill shocker, should anything interfere with the steady supply of uranium to U.S. utilities. Imagine what would happen if we had brownouts and blackouts in the same way we had gasoline lines during the oil crises of the 1970s? Uranium is the least expensive part of the nuclear fuel cycle. Without uranium, however, a nuclear facility is about as functional as a car on blocks in some Alabama cracker’s front yard.
 
This week, the spot price of uranium rose to $40/pound, for the first time since Jimmy Carter was president. That should help grow the uranium business in Wyoming by leaps and bounds. In Part 5, we look at the largest U.S. uranium producer, Cameco-owned Power Resources.

And why it is called yellowcake? “Some of it is yellow; some of it is green or dark green. Some of it is black,” Drummond patiently explained. “The color is a function of how we dry it, not how we process it. There is a very definite correlation between drying temperatures of yellowcake and color. It also depends on what chemicals you use while processing. At Smith Ranch, we make uranium peroxide. It is very clean and yellow. We complex uranium with hydrogen peroxide to make our product. You can make different types of yellowcake. You can make a uranium diuranate, a complex made with ammonia.” Yellowcake can be made with other chemicals.
 
How is Wyoming’s ISR uranium dried? “We dry the uranium with vacuum dryers,” said Drummond. “The benefit of vacuum dryers is it’s a vacuum. Everything is sucked inside the canister so nothing escapes into the environment. There are no gases that escape.”

What precautions does Power Resources take to protect the environment during the ISR extraction process? “Since 1996, we have had zero excursions,” Drummond announced with steeliness in his voice. “We take very great pains to look at the topography, so if we do have an excursion, we make sure it does not enter what we call the ‘waters of the state.’ Any channel that could take that and move it into the ‘waters of the state,’ is something that we are very cognizant of.”
 
After the holes are drilled into the well fields, a company does a ‘baseline sample.’ Drummond said, “That’s a sample of the constituents in the water. When we mobilize the uranium, we mobilize other items. It is our duty here, after we start the well field, to return the aquifer back to baseline when we are done.” He added, “If we know what’s in the water before we start, then we know how to restore it to background.” Restoration of the underground can take anywhere from 18 to 36 months.
 
The company is meticulous in restoring the landscape as well. Any restoration work on the surface is called “reclamation.” That can involve farming. “When we start a well field, we have to, by license, remove the topsoil and store it somewhere,” Drummond explained.  “When we go back to reclaim the property, we take all the pipes out, we take the houses down, and cut our wells off. It’s all identified. We put an ID marker on the well. In 50 years time, when Farmer Joe comes around and wonders what was there, the state can say, ‘That was a uranium well.’ From the time we’ve stopped mining, we put everything back to normal.”
 
It takes from two to four months, or up to seven years, to exhaust a well field, depending upon the roll fronts. While it can take up to 24 months to put in a well field, reclamation and restoration take longer. “We put back the topsoil on, depending upon the weather, as soon as we can,” said Drummond. “We re-seed, during the spring or the fall, which is the best time for seeds. The seed we use is dictated by the regulators so we use a certain amount of native vegetation.” Because it’s very dry at the Smith Ranch, nearly bordering on desert, and because it is also very windy, slapping down the topsoil won’t last very long. “First, we plant some fast-growing oats to establish a root bed,” he explained. “If we just planted grasses, it would all blow away. Because we plant the oats, we have fat antelope and fat deer.” From our observations, the sheep were well-fed and frisky.
 
How does Wyoming ISR mining compare to other places, such as in Texas or in Kazakhstan? “In Wyoming, the water is pristine, very clean, even compared to Texas, where they do ISR,” answered Drummond. “The water’s pretty clean down there also.” Is the uranium the same? “When we bring our uranium to the surface, it comes up as uranyl dicarbonate,” he responded. “In Texas, it comes up as uranyl tricarbonate.” What’s the difference? It’s in the processing of the uranium. “We get about 8.5 pounds of pounds of uranium per cubic foot of resin,” he explained. “In Texas, they get about 3 to 4 pounds of uranium per cubic foot of resin.”

 
Drummond described the Smith Ranch ion exchange operation, “We have two columns in the ion exchange, each with about 500 cubic feet of resin.” The resin costs about $200/cubic foot and, barring mechanical damage, can last up to thirty years, according to Drummond. The polymer beads – they look like tiny plastic ball bearings – capture the uranium during the processing phase. “In Kazakhstan, you get about two to three pounds of uranium per cubic foot of resin,” he continued. “They use hydrochloric acid because of the water conditions. Of course, you’ve changed the chemistry of the water and have all the acid to clean up.” Drummond described the water in Kazakhstan as very brackish, and yellowish. “The TDS (total dissolved solids) is very high,” he added. “The water’s not fit for human consumption anyways.” He laughed, “Using acid over there cleans their water up.”