World’s largest uranium deposit could light up Paris

MCCLEAN LAKE, Canada, July 24, 2007 (AFP) – Hidden in Canada’s northern Boreal Forest, amongst hundreds of wild rivers and lakes, the McClean Lake uranium mine produces enough ore to light up Paris.

Day and night, massive trucks and mechanical shovels shake the earth and move some 5,000 tonnes of rock each 11-hour shift that clench the precious material used to feed nuclear reactors around the globe.
At least five trucks working in tandem crawl through the dirt and debris in the open pit mine daily to a nearby processing plant.

The Athabasca region of Saskatchewan province is “the largest producing geological basin in the world,” Yves Dufour of France-based Areva, which holds a 70-percent stake in the McClean Lake project, tells AFP.

In 2006, one quarter of the world’s total uranium supply of 39,429 tonnes originated from just three mines in this region about 1,000 kilometers north of Regina: McClean Lake, Rabbit Lake, and McArthur River, which is co-owned by Areva and Canada’s Cameco, the world’s largest uranium producer.

“It’s an enormous deposit,” said Dufour.

“The region consumes about 40 percent of Areva’s resources and produces about 50 percent of the company’s total uranium output, which is enough to meet 30 percent of France’s nuclear energy needs,” he said.

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