Special Use Application Request in the Works to Address Anticipated Nuclear Energy Boom

NORWOOD – Despite the fact that the price of uranium has plummeted in today’s volatile economy, Energy Fuels Inc. president and CEO George Glasier said on Thursday in Norwood that with the U.S.’s climbing energy needs, the need for uranium ore has returned – giving cause to go forward with the construction of the Piñon Ridge Uranium Mill in the Paradox Valley.

If built, the mill would be the first uranium mill constructed in the U.S. in 25 years.

Energy Fuels Inc., a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange, owns approximately 880 acres in the Paradox Valley, 12 miles east of Bedrock, where the proposed uranium mill would be located. That location sits in the middle of the Uravan Mineral Belt, where high-grade uranium and vanadium is abundant. The proposed mill is being sized to process 1,000 tons of uranium ore a day, with the help of 85 full-time employees.

Energy Fuels has so far spent $8 million in the planning of the expected $150-million mill and has recently finished collecting baseline data at the site for the past year in an effort to define current conditions on and near the site for air, groundwater, surface water, soil vegetation, radiation, and wildlife.

Glasier is expecting to go through the special use application process with the Montrose County Board of County Commissioners sometime in May or June. If the special use permit is issued, Glasier anticipates submitting the Material License Application and Environmental Report to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment sometime in the fourth quarter of 2009. If the process goes smoothly, construction on the mill could begin early 2011.

Glasier was the keynote speaker at the Norwood Chamber of Commerce meeting in Norwood on Thursday; he explained how the location for the building of the mill was selected, and why the mill will be needed, soon.

Uranium, according to Glasier, is in its third boom cycle now, and nuclear-generated electricity will be doubling in capacity over the next 20 years in the U.S. “If you are going to have clean power, you cannot do it with just water, solar and wind,” Glasier said “You must have more nuclear.” Right now, he said, 115 million pounds of uranium is produced in the U.S. each year – not enough to meet the country’s demand of 175 million pounds a year, a number Glasier anticipates will climb.

“Four years ago the prices climbed back because nuclear power has come back,” he said, adding that there are 440 nuclear power plants in the world, 104 of them are in the U.S. “Companies around the world are committed to double their capacity in the next 20 years. Uranium inventories are going fast and we have to find new production sources.”

Southwestern Colorado/eastern Utah at one time had five operating uranium mills, but since the price for the ore fell in the 1980s, the area now only has one active uranium mill in Blanding, Utah, which Glasier said doesn’t have the capacity to meet the upcoming demand.

Stephen Antony, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Energy Fuels, said that the company researched seven possible sites in the western U.S. for its mill. Because the Piñon Ridge site was centrally located to the mines, it has “reasonable” access to water, it received a “favorable” reaction from the CDPHE, power is already available, it is located off of U.S. Highway 90, and that the “local community welcomes the project” the location was selected and purchased by Energy Fuels.

“Overall, there is a favorable permitting environment for both the mill and the mines, we believe,” Antony said. “We concluded that there is plenty potential for a 1,000-ton-per-day mill.” Energy Fuels did investigate the Pioneer Nuclear Site in San Miguel County as a possible mill site, but decided against it because “San Miguel County would be more reluctant to approve it.”

Glasier said the mill would have a substantial impact on the economy in the West End of Montrose County, as well as on the western communities of San Miguel County. He said that the mill will have the potential to create 85 full-time jobs – and that, along with trucking the ore from the company’s two area mines (the Whirlwind near Gateway and the Energy Queen near La Sal, Utah), jobs could be created for as many as 400 people.

“We need to create more jobs that pay higher wages rather than cleaning condos in Telluride, for instance,” Glasier said. “The mill will operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The mill has to operate all of the time. Hopefully, we can hire locally. Most of the jobs, we can train for.”

Glasier said an employee working in the mill will make $45,000-50,000 a year, with miners making at the most at about $90,000 a year and truckers making somewhere in between those two figures. At Energy Fuels, Glasier said 60 percent of employee bonuses are tied to safety and environmental compliance.

“This is a change from the old days of produce, produce, produce. We have initiated this program where we really stress environmental and safety issues and they don’t get paid nearly as much if they don’t comply,” he said.

With public hearings looming on the horizon for the mill, Thursday’s meeting was relatively quiet, with relatively little opposition to the mill voiced. Almost one year ago, Glasier held an informational meeting at the Norwood Community Center, where he fielded opposition regarding what health, safety and environmental impacts the mill could bring to the region. But at the April 16 meeting, Glasier said, it will be the public that decides whether or not the Paradox Valley will see the construction of the mill.

“There are going to be public hearings, and we know not everybody wants it,” Glasier said, of the mill. “The key is, if the majority wants it.

“If a majority doesn’t want it, it won’t happen. We will go somewhere else. That is why public hearings are so important.”