Gold Stock Bull

Nuclear energy use is growing and will be a huge part of future power production. Environmentalists have mixed opinions about nuclear energy. On one hand nuclear power is potentially dangerous energy source with the problem of storing radioactive waste. On the other hand, nuclear power is a sustainable energy source, reduces carbon emissions, produces no greenhouse gases and decreases dependence on foreign oil.

Both sides of the arguments are valid and the drawbacks must be considered along with the benefits. But what if a nuclear reactor could be built that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium. And many are optimistic that thorium could be the key to unlocking a new generation of clean and safe power.

Thorium promises what Uranium could never deliver - an abundant, safe and clean energy. India, having about 25% of the world’s thorium reserves, has planned its nuclear power program to eventually use thorium exclusively, phasing out uranium as a feed stock. They believe it to be the “fuel of the future.” Norway also has large deposits of thorium and has recently been debating whether to focus on thorium plants.

Thorium has another remarkable property. Add plutonium to the mix - or any other radioactive actinide - and the thorium fuel process will actually incinerate these elements. That’s right: it will chew up old nuclear waste as part of the power-generation process. It could not only generate power, but also act as a waste disposal plant for some of humanity’s most heinous toxic waste. So thorium might just be able to kill two birds with one stone. Not only does a thorium-fueled reactor produce significantly less high-level waste, but it can also dispose of the decommissioned nuclear weapons and highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors using more conventional fuels. Oh yes, it can also generate electricity and is estimated to be 10 times cheaper than current nuclear energy production.

There is three times as much thorium in the Earth’s crust as uranium (thorium is about as abundant as lead), and much of it is easily accessible, such as in the monazite beach sands lying on the shores of southern India and Brazil. Apart from its abundance, thorium has other advantages over uranium, a major one being that all of the mined thorium is usable in a nuclear reactor, whereas only 0.7% of natural uranium is the fissionable U-235 isotope. After all the factors are considered, a unit mass of thorium contains about 40 times as much available energy as compared with uranium.

One company that has already begun developing thorium-fueled nuclear power is the aptly named Thorium Power (THPW), based just outside Washington DC. Thorium Power is a nuclear energy pioneer and the leading developer of thorium-based nuclear fuels. They are producing technology to overcome the main drawback to thorium, which is the fact that it is not vigorously fissile, and it needs a source of neutrons to kick off the reaction. Unlike enriched uranium, which can be left to its own devices to start producing power, thorium needs a bit of coaxing. The way Thorium Power gets around the sub-criticality of thorium is to create mixed fuels using a combination of enriched uranium, plutonium and thorium.

At the center of the fuel rod is the ’seed’ for the reaction, which contains plutonium. Wrapped around the core is the ‘blanket’, which is made from a mixture of uranium and thorium. The seed then provides the necessary neutrons to the blanket to kick-start the thorium fuel cycle. Meanwhile, the plutonium and uranium are also undergoing fission.

The primary benefit of Thorium Power’s system is that it can be used in existing nuclear plants with slight modification, such as Russian VVER-1000 reactors. Seth Grae, president and chief executive of Thorium Power, and his team are actively working with the Russians to develop a commercial product by the end of this decade. They already have thorium fuel running in the IR-8 research reactor at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow.

“In the first quarter of 2008, we expect to have lead test assemblies in a full-size commercial nuclear power plant in Russia,” said Grae.

CNN wrote an article on Thorium Power stating:

“Licensing the technology to firms that win the U.S. contracts to eliminate the Soviet warheads could generate tens of millions of dollars in royalties for Thorium Power. An even larger market would be commercial nuclear power plants, which today spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the U.S. alone to store highly toxic plutonium waste. Using thorium technology, Grae says, they could turn their waste into more fuel that would leave far less radioactive material behind it.”

Nuclear-technology giant Westinghouse evaluated Thorium Power’s system as an option for burning surplus military plutonium, and the company predicted that this would be “substantially” cheaper, quicker, and more effective than the alternative method - burning plutonium with uranium.

Thorium Power believes there is a market for about four thorium-powered reactors each in Russia and United States just for plutonium disposal. It’s also aiming for reactors dealing with commercial plutonium by-products in Europe, Japan, Russia and the USA. It is estimated that 225 of the 444 commercial nuclear power plants in operation worldwide are suitable candidates for conversion to Thorium/uranium fuel.

Grae is also enthusiastic about the benefits thorium fuels offer the environment. “All nuclear compares well to coal, in terms of no emissions into the atmosphere, including no carbon dioxide,” he said. The environmental credentials of his company are also boosted by the presence of environmental lawyer and former member of the Centre for International Environmental Law, David MacGraw, he added. Grae muses that Thorium Power may be the “only nuclear company in the world with an environmentalist on the board”.

There is also significant political backing for thorium, with Senators representing several Western states, including Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, working on legislation to promote thorium. They say it’s a cleaner-burning fuel for nuclear-power plants, with the potential to cut high-level nuclear-waste volumes in half. Senator
Hatch is currently proposing the “Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007,” which aims to ease concerns about nuclear waste by requiring DOE to develop standards for reactors to use thorium fuel rather than uranium.

Thorium could also be a solution to several international disputes, such as Iran and Egypt’s desire to develop nuclear energy. If they were to use thorium, with no weapons-grade byproducts, this would eliminate any concern from Western nations about intentions to build nuclear weapons.

Thorium Power has been receiving more press lately, including an article in the India Business Insight - Priming For Power (11.24.07) - The newspaper reports that Thorium Power Inc. is among the companies vying for construction and equipment contracts worth $100 billion in India’s efforts to raise nuclear power production.

While the possibilities are blue-sky for Thorium Power, we view this as a speculative investment. The company is listed as an “over the counter” stock and comes with all of the additional risk associated with OTC securities, so do you own due diligence and proceed with caution.

However, with a market cap under $100 million and billions in revenue up for grab, this stock could easily be a 10-bagger over the next few years. But they still must prove that their technology is ready for commercial implementation and overcome some political hurdles.

Thorium Power stock has broken out over the past week, doubling from the October low of $0.16. As the promise of thorium reaches more investors, the stock could see a sharp increase in value even without significant news. At these prices, it might be worthwhile to take a small position if you have a portion of your portfolio allocated to speculative plays and extra cash to invest. I do not currently have a position in THPW, but will be considering taking one in the near future.

Happy investing.

Information sourced from:
http://www.thoriumpower.com/
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?p=212

The pull-back we are seeing in gold and silver is nothing more than some high-volume backing and filling, within the major uptrend. The annual Christmas rally which started in August has a lot of life in it yet.

The sub-prime mortgage debacle is nowhere near solved, and we can count on the central banks to do what they do with every problem they run into: print more money.

Nova-Gold just made headlines with news about a problem that most miners are all too aware off: It’s costing more and more dollars to build a mine. The majority of exploration companies even if they find gold, never build a mine! It either costs too much, or it is located in an area that is too remote, or the area is no longer safe. The number of problems are endless. I’m confident that Nova-Gold will find a way, in view of the fact that the deposit at Galore Creek is large enough to pursue. Other companies, with smaller deposits are going to have a hard time bringing their gold to the surface. There have been no large gold finds for a number of years, and the increase in the amount of gold being produced is getting smaller.

The price of gold, adjusted for inflation (using the official CPI rate which is deliberately held down), would have to be over $2,200.00/oz, just to match the $850.00 price reached in 1980. The world has since added several billion new consumers. Gold is still cheap!

The central banks on balance, have less gold on hand than they claim to have. They will soon be reluctant to sell the gold that is still in their vaults, for fear that the price they can obtain, will be less than what they can get in the future, and they surely will want to avoid the mistake made by British PM Gordon Brown who with much fanfare, sold gold at $260.00/oz in 2001.
Or how about the Canadian central bank, which over a period of time, sold more than 90% of its gold, and put the money into US Treasury notes. Some 38 billion dollars worth!

The Wizard of Id once asked his finance minister, to supply him with some more money, so he could continue with his pet projects. The finance minister answered: “Oh, but we can’t do that Sire!’ “Why not”, demanded the Wizard. “Because we don’t have any more gold to back the currency.” “Thank goodness” replied the Wizard. “For a minute I thought you were going to tell me that we’d run out of trees!”

Charts courtesy www.stockcharts.com

Featured is the daily gold chart. The uptrend is well defined. Price is carving out a pennant. A breakout at the green arrow could happen at any time, and will quickly take gold past the old high of 850.00 set in February of 1980. The supporting indicators are positive (green lines).

Featured is the December silver futures chart. Price tested the support level early today, marked by the rising 50DMA and the horizontal support at 14.00 (green line). Price closed near the high point of the day. The 50DMA and 200DMA are in positive alignment (green arrow), and both are rising. These are all bullish signs. A close above the blue arrow will start silver in search of the upper blue speed-line once again.

Featured is the HUI index of unhedged gold and silver stocks. The uptrend is well defined. Price produced a buy signal today (green arrow), after it tested support at the 50DMA. The supporting indicators are positive (green lines), the longer-term target for the HUI is 490 (resulting from the upside breakout at 400). This breakout has now been tested, and the HUI is getting ready to resume its uptrend. The fact that the HUI rose strongly, while gold was down in price today, is a very bullish signal for both gold and the HUI index.

DISCLAIMER:
Please do your own due diligence. I am NOT responsible for your trading decisions.
Happy trading!

Peter Degraaf is an on-line stock trader with over 50 years of investing experience. He sends out a weekly Email to his subscribers. For a 60 day free trial, contact him at itiswell@cogeco.net, or visit his website www.pdegraaf.com

The increasing awareness of the illegality of the Federal Reserve, coupled with the rapid decline of the dollar, must have the boys at the Fed a bit concerned. The idea of returning to sound money backed by gold and silver means that the U.S. government could no longer simply print the money it needs for wars and lining the pockets of its corporate bed buddies. There seems to be increased attention lately on the dollar’s demise, with Iran’s leader calling it a worthless piece of paper at the recent Opec summit. If nations start trading oil in another currency, you can expect a rapid acceleration in the decline of the dollar. But I imagine we would go to war with Iran, like we did with Iraq, before this would happen. Either way, we are looking at much higher prices for gold and energy in the near future. Buying gold under $1,000 or a gallon of gas under $5 will soon be a distant memory.

Eliminating the Federal Reserve would remove the control of the U.S. government and military from a small group of international bankers running the show and destroying this country and our currency. It would take away much of their power and put a halt to the confiscation of wealth from the poor and middle class citizens, most of whom are unaware of the hidden tax of inflation. So, it wasn’t surprising to hear that FBI agents raided the offices of the Liberty Dollar, an alternative currency that is backed by gold and silver. As the dollar loses value and presidential candidate Ron Paul gets more attention for his desire to end the wars, return to sound money and abolish the Federal Reserve and IRS, I expect more crackdowns and censorship. But the silver lining is that the raid will only draw more attention to the issue and more support for Ron Paul. Here is the story…

Federal agents have raided sites in Idaho and Indiana linked to the “Liberty Dollar,” a silver coin used by groups that oppose the Federal Reserve System and the federal income tax. The organization reportedly was preparing to sell and distribute “Ron Paul” dollars to support the Texas congressman in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

The company makes and distributes Liberty Dollar barter currency in various denominations and had announced that it had been closed down by a raid of FBI and U.S. Secret Service officers who confiscated gold, silver, platinum, medallions, documents, “everything but the desks and chairs.”

“Make no mistake, the FBI and Secret Service raid on the Liberty Dollar … was a direct assault against the U.S. Constitution and your right to own and use gold and silver in any way you choose,” von NotHaus wrote in an urgent notification of the situation to supporters.

“It’s incredible how few people know the facts about the Federal Reserve. The organization chaired by Ben Bernanke is not ‘Federal’ – it is instead a cabal of private and international banks that does not answer to the United States government. And while there is some precious metal stored in Fort Knox, it doesn’t back the debt based ‘fiat’ U.S. dollar that they issue, because nothing backs it except your trust in the system! Even a casual look at the Fed’s history leads one to wonder how an institution that profits mightily from its own policies of victimizing Americans has maintained control over the money of the wealthiest nation on Earth. For those who have made a serious inquiry, the Federal Reserve is shadowed in deceptive origins and fraudulent policies.”

Silver investors may want to take notice that the Feds also raided Coer D’Alene’s Sunshine Mint, where the coins are printed, and agents seized huge pallets of silver and gold worth more than $1 million that the organization says back the paper certificates issued to its customers.

Click here for full Washington Post article

Click here for the full Seattle Post article

Click here for a video

If you are interested in supporting Ron Paul, please consider being a part of history and donating to his campaign on December 16th, the anniversary of the Boston Tea party. On December 16th, 1773, American colonists dumped tea into the Boston Harbor to protest an oppressive tax. This December 16th, American citizens will dump millions of dollars into the Ron Paul presidential campaign to protest the oppressive and unconstitutional inflation tax - which has enabled a flawed foreign policy, a costly war and the sacrificing of our liberties here at home.

Peace and prosperity to all.