Pinyon Plain Mine, Kaibab National Forest. Photo: Ecoflight ©.

Energy Fuels, Inc. opened a uranium mine called Pinyon Plain Mine, 7 miles from the rim of the Grand Canyon on December 21, 2023, according to the company’s press release. They plan to mill the ore into high assay low energy-enriched uranium (HALEU) suitable for power-plant use at their uranium mill in White Mesa, Utah. The Pinyon Plain is dangerous and unnecessary. Stockpiles, existing tailings, and weapons-grade uranium that can be “down-blended” for use in power plants are available in abundance, strewn about the country. But this is unappealing to investors, stock speculators, and their bought Russian-hating politicians, who live or die on new opportunities and threats – the new mine, the new technology, the new weapon, the latest terror, the new war, the new territory for exploitation (like the wheatfields of Ukraine). The residents of the Colorado Plateau are an obstacle to Progress, the free, unobstructed mining of uranium for the profit of a few well-financed mining corporations, most of them Canadian and for the inflation of certain political careers.