Wednesday November 01, 2006

Uranium crossover has occurred

321energy.com

Some time over the past day or so, the uranium crossover has occurred. I define it as the point where one pound of uranium costs more than one barrel of crude oil. Crude oil is now $58.57 per barrel. Uranium ore, U308, is now $60.00 per pound. The spot price of U308 is updated once a week. Over the past week, the price went up by $4.

I have brought up this possibility before. But it has occurred at a different price than I have expected.

I have a spreadsheet that says that 1 pound (0.45 kg) of uranium contains as much energy as 12,847 barrels of oil. Therefore, uranium remains under-valued.

The "nuclear-powered" portion of my portfolio (roughly 1/3 of the total) is doing well. I will continue to invest in good uranium mining companies.

(2006-11-01 23:08:05 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Sustainable energy is next, says Rabobank

business-times.asia1.com.sg :

Rabobank has earmarked its Singapore office to play a key role in the Dutch bank's move to tap into the development of sustainable energy where, its chairman Bert Heemskerk says, huge opportunities are on offer. 'The next Google will be in the area of sustainable energy,' Mr Heemskerk says. 'This will be the booming business in the decades to come.'

Rabobank has its roots as the farmers' bank. The bank is the world's only privately held bank with a AAA rating by Standard and Poor's. Mr Heemskerk sees Rabobank's co-operative ownership structure as being possibly more of a plus than a minus compared with being a listed company. While decision making is decentralised in a co-operative and hence involves convincing a lot of parties, he points out that 'once you have chosen the right track, you can move much quicker than any other bank'.

(2006-11-01 12:36:35 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Efficient land transport crucial to economy: minister

business-times.asia1.com.sg :

Some $207 billion of domestic goods were transported from Singapore's industrial hubs to its airports, sea ports and customs checkpoints for export last year. So a land transport system that provides efficient links to these export exits is crucial to the economy, Transport Minister Raymond Lim said. More than eight million trips are made every day over road and rail links between residential, employment, education and recreational centres.

About 12% of Singapore's land is used for transport - the same as for industry - and almost 15% for housing. Singapore has 780,000 vehicles. So keeping traffic flowing smoothly remains a fundamental objective, Mr Lim said. 'In the past 15 years, our vehicle population grew at 2.3% per annum, while roads, measured in lane-km, grew at 1% per annum. In the next 15 years, we expect annual road growth to be halved. As our road-building programme enters maturity, the choices that we are faced with are not difficult to imagine. What level of congestion can we tolerate?'

For a dense urban city-state like Singapore, it would be catastrophic to allow private transport to be the dominant transport mode, he said. So the decline of public transport's share of overall trips will have to be reversed and eventually raised. Making public transport the mode of choice will be the first of the three priorities the new land transport road map will focus on.

See also :

1. New transport road map to be drawn up

(2006-11-01 06:48:56 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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