Nukes on the defensive: industry veteran Jim Graham says Japan's troubles will prompt improvements but should not be an excuse to deter growth.

• Author: Reuteman, Rob
• Position: PLANET PROFIT REPORT

Though he retired from life as a corporate executive in 2009, he continues to work as a consultant. His firm, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Consulting LLC, provides services to the nuclear fuel industry; based on 40 years experience in the mining and energy industries, with the last 26 in the nuclear industry.

Consulting work has taken him around the United States, Sakatchewan, Australia, Korea and Japan.

Graham retired in 2009 after 16 years as president and CEO of ConverDyn, the Englewood-based joint venture between Honeywell International Inc. and General Atomics. ConverDyn provided oversight for the only U.S. facility, in Metropolis, Ill., that converts raw uranium into nuclear fuel. There are only four such facilities in the world.

While he ran ConverDyn, Graham also was a senior vice president for General Atomies, responsible for the company's nuclear fuel cycle activities from 1992 until 2004, During that lime, he oversaw the permitting, design, construction and operation of the first leach uranium mine in Australia, which has one of the largest resources of uranium in the world. Australia now has three mines to extract uranium but no nuclear power program.

For two years. Graham worked as CEO of Cotter Corp. when it was owned by Commonwealth Edison. He supervised the reclamation and surface cleanup of the Schwarzwalder mine in Jefferson County, when' high-grade uranium was mined on and off from the 1950s through early 2002.

Graham's stature in the industry is such that he's a former member of the Nuclear Energy Institute board of directors and past chairman of its Nuclear fuel Supply Forum. He also chaired the board of governors for the World Nuclear Fuel Market and co-chaired the World Nuclear Association's 2U07 Global Nuclear Fuel Market study in London.

He's written more than 100 papers and presentations to the nuclear industry, high schools, universities and governments on the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear power.

Before his involvement with uranium, Graham spent nine years with the French oil company Total, as president and CEO of its North American mining entities.

ColoradoBiz: On March 11, the earthquake in Japan and subsequent tsunami triggered the worst nuclear emergency since Chernobyl. What has been the effect of Japan's nuclear reactor problems on the nuclear power industry?

Graham: The events at the Fukushima reactor site have definitely caused everyone in the nuclear power industry to take a step back and look at exactly what happened. We need 10 make sure any nuclear facility can withstand a similar natural event. If improvements need to be made, they will be.

I just returned from a meeting of the World Nuclear Fuel Market group in Chicago; there were people from all over the world there, including Japan. The Japanese representatives said they were very embarrassed this happened in Japan. They said they were very demoralized about it.

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I would point out strongly that this was one massive natural event that overwhelmed them as a country. At the reactor site 1 would have expected a much more drastic situation, given the circumstances. The Fukushima reactors have performed beyond my belief, making me feel even better about the technology.

"When you put the event in perspective, we as a civilization are impacting the environment. We can't do what, we are doing as a civilization and not have some negative impart on the environment, At some point, you have to decide if...