The Colorado Independent reviews some tough questions about a proposed uranium mill in southwestern Colorado. While nuclear energy enjoys a mixed resurgence in the United States, alarm about logistical challenges presented by the Piñon Ridge Mill highlights Coloradans’ fears.

To be clear, the Piñon Ridge Mill is a uranium processing site, not a nuclear power plant. Uranium ore comes into the mill, and refined yellowcake, essential to the production of nuclear fuel rods, goes out. Yeah, that yellowcake. State officials remind us that, while there’s a mystique of danger around the essential ingredient to produce nuclear fuel–and nuclear weapons–really it’s not that big a deal.

“When you’re dealing with yellowcake shipments, they get carried in pretty much a dump truck,” said Capt. Allan Turner of the Colorado State Patrol’s Hazardous Materials Transport Safety and Response (HMTSR) team.

“We actually had one of those turn over in the city of Colorado Springs, turn over in the median, and people were going to the hospitals with facemasks on, thinking they were contaminated with radiation, when in actual fact it doesn’t really present that much of a hazard.”

I feel better already. Yellowcake, at a glance, is as benign as asphalt. Of course, we’re still waiting to measure the environmental impact of two recent asphalt spills in the Poudre River. And the article points out that before the ore becomes yellowcake, a whole lot of sulfuric acid is involved. Few are casual about the potential risk there. That means more hazardous materials on Colorado roadways. (For more about how uranium ore becomes yellowcake, and what yellowcake still must go through before becoming “hot,” read here.)

Assuming the public health factor is not an issue, does trucking yellowcake in and around the state present other risks? Is there a security factor to consider here? I mean, yellowcake uranium is apparently worth implicating when designing a justification to go to war. So how carefully is the substance handled along the way?

After processing, the mill would ship out about 200 pounds of yellowcake a day in sealed, steel 55-gallon drums.

Two facilities in North America can then turn processed yellowcake into fuel rods for nuclear plants: one in Metropolis, Ill., and the other in Port Hope, Ontario, near Toronto. Facilities in Great Britain and France can also convert yellowcake into fuel rods, meaning the yellowcake would have to first be trucked to ports in Texas. Europe, where nuclear power is much more prevalent, is one of the major potential markets for the Piñon Ridge yellowcake uranium.

“It’s a global commodity,” said Frank Filas, environmental manager for a U.S. subsidiary of Ontario-based Energy Fuels. “It could go just about anywhere, but it’s not going to North Korea and it’s not going to Iran.”

Emphasis mine. Let me just say that I’ve spent a little time in and around Naturita, and security is not that tight. If someone wants to take a barrel of yellowcake off a truck–or seize the whole truck–on Highways 90 or 141, he’ll be able to. So I have to wonder whether it’s true that Colorado-produced yellowcake won’t go to North Korea or Iran. I’m sure my concern is just the byproduct of believing the government back in 2003 watching 24. I can see the episode now. Terrorists steal yellowcake off a truck in western Colorado, and Jack Bauer and the team mobilize to foil the plot before American-hating jihaddists can reach the Gulf of Mexico to put the substance on a ship bound for Oman. Where the government once encouraged us to think in these terms, we’re now told it’s not a big deal.

I don’t know the answer to the question “Is this a bad idea.” I suspect after all it’s probably pretty benign–until something goes wrong. I’m all for increased jobs in Colorado, especially on the economically stunted Western Slope. I rather fancy the notion of the Colorado Proud logo on a barrel of yellowcake. Little, though, about the Independent’s article is exactly reassuring.