The Ageの記事、'Uranium on rise as dust settles on Fukushima' by Peter Ker (March 10, 2012)から。
'Nuclear may remain the only answer in a future where nations want energy without greenhouse gas emissions.
As the Friday afternoon shadows grew longer, Michael Jones thought the $10 million deal was in the bag.
* be in the bag 〔成功・契約などが〕確定して、確実で、間違いなしで、保証されて
The Impact Minerals boss had spent months negotiating a farm-in to the company's uranium deposit in Botswana, and finally the planets looked set to align.
''We were on the verge of what would've been a significant deal for us,'' he said, declining to name the suitor. ''They were going to leverage off their share price for the cash involved in that deal.''
But, just as the working week was drawing to a close that March afternoon, the deal suddenly changed.
Seven towering waves 15 metres high smashed into the eastern coast of Japan, claiming thousands of lives, homes and towns.
A nuclear power station was famously among the collateral damage and, while he was safe in Perth, Jones knew that he too would be affected by the catastrophe.
''I thought this is just gonna be a disaster for us,'' he recalled.
With a partial meltdown in progress at the Fukushima power station, the uranium sector would soon be swamped by the killer tsunamis, and Impact's Botswana deal was swept away with it.
''It basically disappeared over that weekend,'' Jones said.
A year on, the Fukushima disaster continues to weigh heavily on the industry, but an increasing number of investors believe the time is right to wade back into the uranium sector.
* weigh heavily on ... ～に重くのしかかる、～に重荷になる
It's no secret that uranium stocks fell off a cliff following the Fukushima failure. More than $1.5 billion was wiped of the value of ASX-listed uranium plays on the first day of trading after the disaster.
Paladin Energy and ERA lost more than $1 billion of that and within six months both companies - aided by troubles in Europe and a few self-inflicted wounds - had shrunk to barely 20 per cent of their former selves.
The spot price for uranium fell sharply, and a round of impairment charges swept through the industry.
* impairment 損傷を与えること
But the impact was most profound at the junior end of the market, where the fallout from Fukushima changed companies.
In an unfortunate collision between marketing and timing, Renaissance Uranium listed just three months prior to Fukushima as a ''pure-play'' uranium stock. Within months those ambitions had changed, and managing director David Christensen now describes the company as a ''broad based minerals exploration company''.
Renaissance is not the only uranium play now scouring its tenements for traces of other minerals to help pay the bills until uranium recovers.
Prior to Fukushima, Thundelarra Exploration had been devoting about 75 per cent of its time and money to developing uranium assets, but these days it spends more time talking about copper and gold.
''We have scaled right back on uranium … the company will be spending 10 per cent or 15 per cent of its effort on uranium this year and the rest would be predominantly copper and gold,'' said Brett Lambert, who stood down as managing director of Thundelarra this week. ''From a technical perspective it's not the right thing to do but from a market reality it's the only way to go forward.''
The trend repeated through the many company presentations at last month's Paydirt uranium conference in Adelaide, prompting one industry veteran to quip that copper and gold had never before enjoyed so much airtime at a conference devoted to uranium.
Many analysts and funds managers believe the punishment handed out to the uranium sector after Fukushima was overly severe.'
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