New surge, old fallout from nuclear age

GATEWAY, Colo. — Plans for 100 new nuclear power plants around the world have pushed the price of uranium skyward and set off a frenzy of exploration in Utah and western Colorado.

More than 18,000 new mining claims in the two states have been filed in the past year. The number of uranium companies snatching them up has jumped from 10 to more than 400 over the past couple of years. And since 2002, when the yellow-and-orange-tinged ore fell to $7 a pound, the price has climbed nearly 1,900 percent.

This area of the country holds a rare and valuable combination of uranium and vanadium — both processed from the same ore — and pieces are falling into place to turn exploration into a full-fledged mining boom.

"I think it's going to go big-time this time," said Terry Bunker, who has ridden out 40 years of ups and downs since he began, at 14, mining uranium with his father near Uravan, Colo.

Bunker once again has strapped on his miner's belt and is going into the dank depths of the Whirlwind Mine, where miners are shoring up a tunnel in anticipation of hauling out ore this year.

Nearly everything is in place to "go" — from the miners' dusting off jack-leg drills and Geiger counters to the $138-a-pound-and-still-climbing price for uranium, coupled with worldwide demand that outstrips supply by 80 million tons.

There are 440 nuclear power plants operating in the world, using much of the world's processed uranium. An additional 100 are expected to be built, increasing demand for the metal.

That push has the makings of a uranium boom on the order of the 1950s atomic delirium that swept across the Uravan Mineral Belt — one of the richest uranium deposits in the country — when Charlie Steen hit his mother lode and turned Moab into a hotbed of millionaires.

Different times

But out here, where Marie Curie once packed uranium out by mule and where the metal for the world's first atomic bomb was chipped out of rock walls, the feeling is more of a horse race before the starting bell.

"This is the slowest boom I've ever seen," joked longtime miner Johnny Dufur, whose family is sitting on 70 claims in southeastern Utah.