According to the news, BHP Billiton will start selling Australian Uranium to China as early as this year.

Besides the ethics of selling nuclear fuel to a country with nuclear weapons, it strikes me that there's some economic silliness going on here. After all, with energy prices due to substantially increase over the next decade or two, won't we get a better ROI if we Aussies just hold onto our Uranium and watch the price increase? Or use it ourselves when oil hits $400/barrel?

Short-term gain, long-term pain, by the sounds of it... I read a narrative imagining a Perth man of the year 2030 - humming along in his electric car, listening to a news report of Saudi Arabia complaining to the UN energy watchdog about Australia cutting back production...

Or maybe BHP knows that less controversial alternatives such as solar and wind are closer to prime-time than they seem? Is this also why Bluescope steel seems to be saying to the government - or at least, just stopping short of saying - "we want a global Carbon Trading Scheme, not a local one"? Because they know they will get the energy they need at a decent price if a global scheme is enforced??