Letting off steam

Well, I suppose I didn't need to be any sort of prophet to foresee that the uranium market would crash as a result of what's happening at Fukushima Dai Ichi. So now I'm feeling both poor and despondent. I hold significant (for me) uranium stocks, and I'm supposed to be heading over to the USA to work on some uranium exploration projects. In the meantime, I'm learning heaps about reactors and the nuclear fuel cycle, and I find it fascinating, so that's some consolation.

It is no surprise that the stock market, which seems to be populated largely by ignorant speculators, would react in this way to an incident of any sort in any nuclear power plant anywhere in the world. It is a universal fact that when people lack understanding, they replace knowledge with emotion on sometimes religious scales. The anti-carbon lobby is an excellent example of such ignorance.

But in an attempt to retain some level of optimism, I feel it is important to look at a few fundamentals:

• The first fundamental is that in spite of the scale of the "malfunction" at Fukushima Dai Ichi, the operators appear to be handling the matter extremely well, and radiation levels aren't anywhere near "disaster scale". So this has the potential to show that a serious malfunction at a nuclear plant doesn't have to mean holocaust. Of course it does help that the steam is being blown offshore.

• The most fundamental of the fundamentals in the uranium market are that there are currently 62 new power reactors under construction around the world, and this construction will not be halted because of the current negative sentiment - that you can be sure of. There are a further 158 reactors on order or planned, and 324 proposed. This is in addition to the 443 currently operational reactors (minus a few in Japan), most of which will continue to operate for decades to come. So the demand for uranium is not going to go away. On the contrary, as long as people insist on breeding, populations will need increasing amounts of energy, and there are very few ways of generating the sort of base-load capacity required.

So, if you have some spare cash lying around, may I suggest that you keep a close eye on uranium stocks in the next few weeks. There are already some bargains out there, as share prices continue to be decimated.

Seismic percussions and repercussions

By now we're all aware of the seismic event that took place 130km off the coast of Honshu, Japan, on Friday 11th March. The magnitude 8.9 (that's a big one) event occurred at a depth of roughly 24km in the subduction zone interface of the Pacific and North American plates.

Japan operates a number of nuclear power stations that have been affected by the resulting Tsunami, and although they have been shut down, at least two of them are reported to be having cooling issues. This makes me nervous, because if a nuclear "incident" of any kind results from this, it is likely that it will have a disastrous effect on the industry as a whole. Thousands of people can be killed in the coal industry every year, and nobody thinks twice about it, but if one person gets a radiation burn, the entire planet goes into a flap and nuclear power generation is set back another 30 years. It's absurd, but that's the way it is, and if the uranium price takes a dive, then I will not need the much awaited visa. I will be out of a job, and significantly out of pocket too, as all shares and share options will become worthless overnight.

It is fortunate that unlike the Ukrainians, the Japs are both technologically advanced, and non-secretive. If anyone has the ability to maintain the integrity of these systems, it is they who can be relied on. So I'm holding both thumbs.

Why blog at all?

It's a good question. I suppose it is simply a means of communication that is consumed on a completely voluntary basis. In the past one might have sent postcards, or emails, but while these are more personal, they are not always appreciated. We are constantly bombarded by information these days, so we have tended to develop (frequently judgemental) filters that are often not very discerning when it comes to personal communication.

So here it is; an alternative to emails, where, I hope I will be able to give an insight, only to those that want it, into the sometimes odd thoughts and places that an itinerant soul finds himself.

The very last thing I want this to be is like a FarceBook page. It will not be about ME, and it will not be yet another travelogue. I will retain my anonymity as far as possible, and only those that know who Nomadix is, should..... well, should know who I am.

Extrasolar visitor

So, while I was sitting and waiting for my visa, I looked out of the window and saw some things in the sky that look like stars. I'm pretty sure most of them are stars, but apparently there will be something else for us to look at, up there in the firmament, in a few months time: Comet Elenin, which was discovered last December by a Russian amateur astronomer, Leonid Elenin, is coming in on a hyperbolic orbit, the perihelion of which will be roughly halfway between our Solar orbit and the Sun, and will occur in September. The comet's closest approach to Earth will take place on 17 October, when it will be roughly 0.232 AU (35 million km) from us. If this comet doesn't lose too much in the way of volatiles before it gets to us, we should be able to see it with binoculars, and perhaps even with the nude and unclad eye for a good month either side of this date! Well actually, since it will be between us and the Sun before about 1 October, we may only be able to see it some time thereafter.

New horizons

Inertia is a measure of the reluctance of a body to change speed or direction. We all suffer from inertia from time to time, and of late, I have been quite severely afflicted by it. But now......, I await the documentation that will allow me to "get on my hoss and go west"!  New horizons await.