President Biden issued an order Monday blocking a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm from owning land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base, calling its proximity to the base a “national security risk.” The order forces the divestment of property operated as a crypto mining facility near the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. MineOne Partners Ltd., a firm partly backed by Chinese nationals, and its affiliates are also required to remove certain equipment on the site. More, from the AP:

• This comes as the US is slated on Tuesday to issue major new tariffs on electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar equipment, and medical supplies imported from China, according to a US official and another person familiar with the plan.

To meet growing demand for uranium worldwide, Australian-based Peninsula Energy Ltd. said that it has begun construction on a central processing plant in northeastern Wyoming.

The company’s Ross processing plant will take uranium processed at other Peninsula-owned mines in northeastern Wyoming and produce yellowcake, which is then shipped to Illinois to turn into enriched fuel for nuclear reactors.

The fuel supply chain looks upbeat for Peninsula.

On Monday, Peninsula expanded its estimate for uranium underground in its flagship Lance project near Gillette by 7.8% to 58 million pounds.

The company also expanded its estimates for uranium deposits by 19.6% to 26.2 million pounds in its nearby Ross and Kendrick mines, also located in the northeastern Wyoming area.

“This resource growth comes at an opportune time with the United States government continuing to take meaningful action to reinvigorate its domestic uranium production and nuclear fuel cycle capacity, [while] the company continues preparing for the resumption of commercial production at our U.S.-based Lance projects,” said Wayne Heili, Peninsula’s managing director and CEO, in a prepared statement.

Uranium Going Nuclear

Several uranium companies in Wyoming are posturing for increased production of the commodity because of higher demand in the United States for nuclear fuel, especially since federal lawmakers have responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by banning imports from Russia.

This month’s ban by Washington has spurred domestic development of nuclear fuel for reactors and led to many uranium mining companies to restart production in Wyoming and elsewhere.

Uranium spot prices hit $107 per pound in early February but have since backed off to about $91 a pound as of Monday, according to Atlanta-based UxC LLC, which tracks uranium spot prices on a nuclear fuel exchange.

Peninsula does business in Wyoming through its Strata Energy Inc. unit, which operates the Lance project near Gillette and other mines.

The Ross central processing facility is a key part of Peninsula’s supply chain in Wyoming.

“This is a key piece of the jigsaw for us, providing the ability to produce a finished product for our customers without having to rely on any third-party processing facilities,” Heili said.

“We remain confident of hitting our production targets for 2025,” he said.

Samuel Engineering Inc., with offices in Wyoming and Denver, was hired by Peninsula to get the project ready for restart of production before the end of 2024.

Double Capacity At Ross

The Ross plant was originally built in 2015 as an alkaline in-situ recovery facility capable of producing up to 1 million pounds annually of uranium. Samuel was hired to build additional plant facilities to expand production capacity to 2 million pounds.

Instead of digging up uranium in a mine or surface pit, Wyoming’s mining companies perform in-situ recovery of the mineral. This kind of operation involves pumping oxygenated water with an occasional addition of bicarbonate of soda into the ground to get at the uranium.

In-situ mining has low environmental impact.

In this process, the uranium is dissolved and pumped to the surface, where the mineral is stripped from the water. The water stripped of uranium is then returned underground.

In March, Peninsula agreed to sell between $88 million and $117 million worth of Wyoming uranium to a European nuclear fuel buyer from the Lance project.

To pay for restart of production at the Lance facility, Peninsula raised nearly $60 million in late 2023. Combined, the company plans to take uranium mined at the Kendrick, Barber and Dagger project in Crook County, Wyoming, and convert it to yellowcake at the Ross processing facility.

The agreement with the European buyer requires the company to sell 1.2 million pounds of uranium over a six-year period starting in 2028 to Synatom, which manages the supply of enriched uranium to Belgium’s nuclear power plants.

With the inclusion of this new sales agreement, the company’s total contractual sales obligation over the upcoming decade is 6 million pounds.

Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.

LARAMIE — It’s officially “series season.”

This summer, with the help of some longtime Wyoming football followers, we will count down the Top 25 homegrown products in program history.

As always, what these guys did in professional football doesn’t matter. This is all about production in Laramie. A couple of the guys on this final list may not have been born here, but they grew up in Wyoming and graduated from a in-state high school.

Once we put a bow on these selections, we’ll move on to other states like Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, etc. You get the picture.

So, let’s get this party started:

No. 25 – Cory Talich

Linebacker, 1990-93, Pine Bluffs, Wyo.

Résumé in Laramie

Cory Talich was named second-team All-Western Athletic Conference during his sophomore season in Laramie back in 1991. That year the Pine Bluffs product finished with 64 tackles, including 11 for loss. He also forced two fumbles and picked off a pass. Talich racked up 167 tackles during his tenure in Laramie. All but five of those stops came during his final three seasons. He brought down the ball carrier 16 times behind the line of scrimmage and capped his career with two quarterback sacks and three interceptions. Talich’s brother Jim also played linebacker for the Cowboys from 1994-97. His son Nathaniel suited up for the UW basketball team in 2022-23.

About Pine Bluffs

Just a stone’s throw from the Nebraska border on Interstate-80, Pine Bluffs is home to roughly 1,100 residents. The town is located in Laramie County, just 42 miles east of Cheyenne.

(Cody Tucker and Jared Newland both work for Townsquare Media, which owns 7220sports.com. Kevin McKinney has been a color commentator of Cowboy football for five decades. Ryan Thorburn now works for the University of Wyoming in a sports information role after spending decades in the newspaper industry, most recently at the Casper Star-Tribune. Sally Ann Shurmur, the daughter of former UW football coach Fritz Shurmur, is also a veteran of the newspaper industry, working as a journalist, columnist at the CST for 43 years. She currently writes for Cowboy State Daily.)

– University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players