ABSTRACT
The hillside of ore that comprised the Mary Kathleen uranium deposit in Queensland, Australia, was discovered in 1954 during weekend prospecting by a taxi-driver who sold off his rights for what now seems a derisory sum. Canada has adopted a nuclear power programme which uses a technology based on natural uranium fuel and is conscious of the military uses of enriched uranium. Although uranium resources, like other minerals, are owned by the provinces, the Canadian Atomic Energy Control (AEC) Act gives the federal government jurisdiction over Canada's uranium industry and the export of uranium is closely controlled. A crucial element was whether customers should be free to use spent fuel for reprocessing without government approval, an issue on which agreement was not reached until January 1978. The production of plutonium is invariably part of the nuclear fuel cycle, and any degree of commitment to the nuclear fuel cycle involves the production of plutonium.
