Uranium mine project licensing: Cameco's current experience

Environmental assessment and licensing requirements for new uranium projects have become more complex, and can have a substantial influence on the timelines needed to bring new production on-line. This increased complexity is taking place in an era that is witnessing a resurging interest in uranium exploration. The assessment and licensing process has evolved to include more sophisticated ecological risk assessment, more detailed waste rock and tailings management plans and comprehensive socio-economic impact assessments. While such assessments are fully compatible with sustainable development objectives, they do take time. The current challenges, as encountered by Cameco in its most recent work, are associated with timelines, predictability and effectiveness. All are needed in the process if market demands are to be met efficiently. The good news remains that the assessment process, while frustrating at times in its duration, strongly supports our main collective environmental goal, which is to solidly support the clean environment aspects of nuclear power at our end of the nuclear fuel chain. (author)