NRC committee to meet to discuss uranium study
The National Research Council governing board’s executive committee will meet next month to discuss the study that would determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia.
The meeting will take place Nov. 10 in Washington and will be closed to the public, said Jennifer Walsh, spokeswoman for the National Academy of Sciences.
Walsh said she does not know if the committee will decide during next month’s meeting whether to approve the study.
Virginia Uranium Inc. seeks to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit at Coles Hill, about six miles northeast of Chatham. VUI, through Virginia Tech’s Center for Coal and Energy Research, would pay for the study’s first phase focusing on the technical and public-safety aspects of mining.
That first phase would cost as much as $1.4 million. Virginia Tech’s Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research would handle the money and contract with the NAS for the study. The second part of the study, dealing with the socioeconomic aspects of mining, still needs to be developed by the Virginia Coal & Energy Commission. VUI would not fund the second part.
If the governing board approves the study request, the next step would be the NRC negotiating and entering into a contract with Virginia Tech’s Center for Coal and Energy Research. The board would then appoint a provisional committee of about a dozen scientific experts to perform the study and write its report.
There will be public comment regarding the makeup of the committee, William Kearney, NRC spokesman, said last month.
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Reader Reactions
National Research Council is part of National Academy of Sciences!
However, I believe that the state of Virginia and Virginia Tech should wash their hands of the study!
Virginia Uranium Inc and the Canadian side should handle the Study between them and NAS.
I feel that the state of Virginia is enabling VUI using Tech to funnel the money to NAS!
Again, THE STATE OF VIRGINIA SHOULD WASH THEIR HANDS OF AN INDENPENDENT STUDY PAID FOR BY A PROFIT URANIUM CORPORATION!
What happened to the National Academy of Science that you have been writing about conducting the “Study”? Did they wash their hands of this mess? No reputable scientist will touch this study? Only the money-hungary VT boys have jumped on this band wagon, hoping to get $ regardless of the source or have the Areva (French government company) folks gotten to the NRC committee?
It is reassuring that an academic institution with the integrity of Virginia Tech is facilitating this uranium mining study—“reassuring” because they are less likely to appoint uranium lobbyists to the panel of scientists to conduct the study. All anyone wants here is a truly objective study. If it cannot be mined safely, then so be it—conversely, if it can be mined safely, and the industry is monitored to insure this, then our area will have a major new boost in our economy, and will make a contribution to nuclear energy development, which we all know will make us a lot less dependent on foreign (and domestic) oil, who are as we speak jacking up gas prices again at their own will. We need more alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and biofuels development to get us off so much oil dependence, in spite of the self-serving ad campaign of the American Petroleum Institute that has saturated our airways recently. It will be very interesting to watch Tech’s appointment of the participating scientists for this study, and therein lies the integrity of the entire study.
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