Ambient office  = 128 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Roma tomato from Central Market = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 73 nanosieverts per hour

Part 3 of Part 4 (Please read Part 1 and Part 2 first)
       The director for fuel cycle programs at industry trade group the Nuclear Energy Institute said, “It’s slowed down the growth of nuclear globally and led to some countries cutting back or ending their nuclear program. Supply was not as quick to react to this huge loss of demand.”
       The promised “nuclear renaissance” has not come to pass. New reactor builds in the U.S. such as the project in South Carolina have been cancelled after billions of dollars had been spent. Westinghouse, a major U.S. supplier of nuclear technology to the global nuclear market went bankrupt, partly as a result of over confidence in the expansion of the nuclear power reactor market.
      Since uranium prices peaked in 2007, prices have fallen from one hundred forty-seven dollars a pound to a current price of between twenty and twenty-five dollars a pound. An analyst of the uranium mining industry said, “There’s such a glut of inventory in the market that it’s just not profitable for some of the mines to produce, so the price has just really plummeted as a result of that.” 
      Both U.S. and Canadian uranium mining companies have suffered from falling uranium prices. Cameco is major Canadian uranium mining firm. It has just announced that it is going to close the biggest uranium mine in the world indefinitely. Originally, the company had intended to close the mine for ten months out of the year while it waited for the price for uranium to rise once again.
         Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy asked the U.S. Department of Commerce to investigate whether or not the U.S. reliance on foreign uranium supplies is a risk to national security. The requested investigation began last month. One possible outcome could be for the U.S. to restore the old trade barriers to uranium import. This would guarantee that U.S. uranium miners would continue to be involved in supplying the U.S. military with uranium for fuel and weapons. The two private companies that called for the investigation want the U.S. to ensure that U.S. uranium producers control at least twenty-five percent of the U.S. uranium market. The companies complain that they cannot compete with uranium from countries such as Russia and Kazakhstan.
      Currently, about one half of the uranium consumed in the U.S is supplied by Canada and Australia which are long-time allies of the U.S. Although these countries do not have state-subsidized uranium operations, U.S. uranium producers are having difficulties competing with them too.
        A previous Department of Commerce investigation of U.S. uranium production in 1989 said that “One of the main problems beyond the U.S. industry’s control is that the richest and most accessible uranium deposits are not found in the United States. The resources of Canada and Australia have higher uranium content and a lower production cost per unit.”
        The report found that the current situation with respect to uranium mining and importation of foreign uranium did, in fact, injure domestic uranium producers. George H. W. Bush, the new U.S. president inaugurated in 1990, took no action with respect to the conclusions of the 1989 investigation.
Please read Part 4

Ambient office  = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 86 nanosieverts per hour

Pineapple from Central Market = 49 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 69 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 63 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office  = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 68 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 66 nanosieverts per hour

Peach from Central Market = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 69 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 63 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office  = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Beersteak tomato from Central Market = 71 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Halibut – Caught in USA = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 4 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
       In addition to the competition from the Russian weapons grade ore in the 1990s, a wave of deregulation led to the development of a competitive power market in many parts of the country that would drive nuclear power out of the energy market. In the 1990s, the U.S. government privatized the Department of energy’s uranium enrichment operations. Forty-five thousand metric tons of uranium were transferred to the new private company that was created. In the early 2000s, U.S. uranium production reached its lowest level since the 1950s.
       In the early 2000s, the nation of Kazakhstan, one of the old Soviet states, began developing uranium mining. In a few years, it became the biggest uranium producer in the world and the second biggest supplier of uranium to the U.S. market. Kazakhstan was able to increase production so rapidly by using something called “in situ leaching.”
        Niger, Mali, Mongolia and Kazakhstan are all currently mining and selling uranium into the international market. They have very lax regulations which allow the in situ leaching mentioned above. It is a cheap method of separating uranium from ore. Toxic chemicals are pumped into uranium mines and uranium is processed from the run off of the leaching liquids. It can be very damaging to the environment and public health. A company spokesman for a uranium mining consultancy said, “Those are countries where their environmental institutions are very weak, their legislation is non-existent, so if you’re competing with in situ leaching in essentially low-governance areas of the world it’s going to be really, really hard.”
      In the first years after the turn of the century, the prices for uranium rose. This was caused by declining stockpiles and the fact that interest in nuclear power was on the rise in the U.S. and in developing nations such as China and India. Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy were two private uranium companies that were started during this period. Both companies were started in Canada but they have uranium mines in the U.S. The CEO of Energy Fuels said “I would say at that time it was pretty frothy and in Canada particularly, there was just a lot of venture capital entering the uranium space for investment.”
       In 2008, there was a global financial crisis that caused a reduction in the world-wide demand for electricity. During this same period, fracking technology was developed that resulted in a flood of cheap natural gas. This had an adverse impact on nuclear power plans. In addition to cheap natural gas, the rise in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power made nuclear power even less competitive in the energy marketplace. In 2009, the Department of Energy began to sell excess uranium to pay for the cleanup of a federal uranium enrichment plant.
       The nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan in March of 2011 caused a tremendous public rejection of nuclear power. Following the disaster, Japan shut down all of its nuclear power reactors. After eight years, they are just beginning to turn them back on. Germany decided to halt the use of nuclear power completely by 2022 and they have pursued the shutdown of their nuclear power reactors as planned in the intervening years.
Please read Part 3