A prospective WA uranium developer has called for a ban on mining to be overturned so the state can provide green energy for power-hungry tech giants in the US.
A prospective Western Australian uranium developer has called for a ban on mining to be overturned so the state can provide green energy for power-hungry tech giants in the US.
On Monday, Toro Energy said WA could capitalise of growing demand for uranium as a source of clean energy by dropping a ban on mining the resource put in place in 2017.
That request came as the company announced to the ASX integration of its recent vanadium find into its Lake Maitland uranium resource.
Toro executive chairman Richard Homsany said big technology companies were driving new investment into the uranium and nuclear sector.
“Microsoft, Google and Amazon have recently committed to source nuclear energy to power their AI and data centres, while expressly recognising that nuclear energy has a track record of providing a reliable source of safe carbon-free energy globally,” he said.
“Against this backdrop and driven by the global push towards net zero, it is becoming increasingly clear that any regulatory or policy stance against exporting uranium to countries that need nuclear energy to grow their economies and support their de-carbonisation agendas requires immediate re-evaluation.”
The price of uranium has risen nearly 500 per cent since the post-Fukishima accident lows of 2012 to 2021 and currently sits at about $US83 a pound.
Boss Energy – one of Australia’s few active uranium miners – expects costs once its Honeymoon project is ramped up to come in at about $US32/pound.
Lake Maitland is part of Toro Energy’s Wiluna uranium project, which also encompasses the Lake Way, Millipede and Centipede deposits, and a processing plant.
Design for a uranium pilot plant in Perth is being finalised and an updated scoping study on Lake Maitland is due to be completed by the end of the year.
Wiluna was exempt from the state government’s ban on uranium mining in 2017 as it already had state and federal environmental approval.
State approval lapsed in 2021 as the project had not substantially progressed.
Cameco’s Kintyre and Yeelirie, and Deep Yellow’s Mulga Rock, also had a conditional exemption due to their approvals under the former government.
Cameco’s projects were iced after gaining federal environmental approval until market conditions improved.
Deep Yellow is expected to release a revised feasibility study for Mulga Rock next year and plans to be mining in 2028.
The WA Liberal and National parties have vowed to overturn the ban should either win the 2025 state election.
Such a move would help other project proponents in WA such as Cauldron Energy, Paladin Energy, and Elevate Uranium
WA has 226,000 tonnes of known uranium deposits, or about 13 per cent of Australia’s reserves.
Australia hosts more than one-quarter of the world’s known uranium resources.
