Areva announces $500 million deal

Areva has made a $500 million deal with Xcel Energy to supply the utility's Monticello nuclear generating plant in Minnesota. This should be good news, right?

Not so fast. For Idaho Falls, the real news may be at the bottom of a story posted Sunday on http://www.coolhandnuke.com/ and written by Dan Yurman, formerly of Idaho Falls, who blogs Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes (http://djysrv.blogspot.com/).

In December, Areva announced that due to a cash crunch it was suspending construction on the Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility near Idaho Falls. Now, the French-state owned nuclear company appears to be considering a stake in the Urenco enrichment plant in southern New Mexico. Urenco is a uranium enrichment firm owned by several German utilities and the governments of Great Britain and the Netherlands.

"This new development suggests the firm is taking a page out of the playbook of the beer brewing industry. The way some brewers have boosted production capacity is to simply buy other breweries with existing plants and swap out the product line. ...

"If that is the case, and this is only speculative, then it could be that Areva is thinking it would be a lot cheaper to take an equity stake in an existing uranium enrichment operation, like the one in New Mexico, than to spend $3 billion on a new plant in Idaho."

http://www.coolhandnuke.com/Cool-Hand-Blog/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/92/Areva-inks-500-million-nuclear-fuel-deal-with-Xcel-for-Monticello.aspx 

Of Google ads, Slurpees, Soupy Sacarl's jles and Richard Nixon

Wow, do I really want to be a 7-11 franchisee?

Every time I see a 7-11, I have to go in and get a Slurpee. I would never go out of my way for an Icee, but the Slurpee is a whole different animal. I would go five miles for one.

I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, "Idiot! They're the same thing -- ice and syrup! And even if there is a difference, what difference does it make?"

You're absolutely right, but you were not the 10-year-old kid in 1966 who rode his Columbia bike (not a Schwinn Stingray, alas) to the 7-11 on Foulk Road practically every day to get a Slurpee. They had just been introduced, and buying one would get you an "I Have Slurped" button, which was very, very cool. To keep things from getting old -- and to keep kids like me coming back -- 7-11 frequently introduced a new button. If you want to see them all, here is a link: http://sites.google.com/site/slurpeebuttons/home/button-gallery.

(Note to self: Does the Internet have a mind of its own, or has it assimilated mine? As I was writing this, I thought to myself, "What would happen if I Googled "I have slurped button"? Look what I got. This is so cool!)

Slurpees, the Polaroid Swinger, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass ... of such things are Baby Boomer memories made.

Soupy Sales (1926-2009)

Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)

You probably want to know what this has to do with anything, so here's the pitch. The reason I started thinking about 7-11 was because Google put this ad at the top of BizMojo Idaho today:

7 11 Franchise Great Franchise Opportunities From 7-Eleven! Invest & Be Your Own Boss Franchise.7-Eleven.com

Yes, Google looked at the content of this blog and decided this belonged at the top, "above the fold." Was it because I have been reporting so much on franchise restaurants? That would be my guess, but I don't suppose it's important.

No matter how much I might want to be a 7-11 franchisee (I don't, really), because of the agreement I made with Google Adsense I am bound by my sacred honor not to click on this ad. That's because anytime someone clicks on a BizMojo Idaho Google ad, a little bit of the pay-per-click money goes to my account. My grand total for December was $6.03, and I'm already on track to beat that this month.

Let me make this perfectly clear: I would never encourage BizMojo readers to indiscriminately click on the Google ads that are conveniently placed all over this blog.

That would be too much like the late Soupy Sales (another icon of my youth), who on New Year's Day 1965 told his young viewers to go into their hungover parents' bedrooms, find the green pieces of paper with pictures of bearded guys on them, and mail them to Ol' Uncle Soup.

He only collected a few dollars, and he got reprimanded by his television station, but the notoriety was priceless.

Anyway, I would never try anything that brazen to enrich myself. No, I would not encourage anyone to take five minutes out of their day to click on every Google ad on my page, holding out perhaps the promise of a epic party sometime this summer.

In the words of former President Richard Milhous Nixon, "Yes, we could do that -- but it would be wrong."

If, however, you find any Google ads on BizMojo Idaho even remotely interesting ("Wind Generators Generate Your Own Power And Save Money. Learn How It's Done Today. DailyLife.com"), I would hardly discourage you from clicking on them. And if you become a 7-11 franchisee, I will be the first customer to buy a Slurpee from you.

Carl's Jr. eyes spring opening; Dickey's taking applications



Dickey's Barbecue Pit food, artfully arranged.

 Here's the latest on new restaurants: It’s most likely going to be spring before the second Carl’s Jr., at North Yellowstone and Holmes, opens its doors. Meanwhile, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, on 17^th Street, is taking job applications.

On Thursday we called Kelly Grieve, spokeswoman for CKE Restaurants, Inc., to find out if an opening date has been set for Carl’s Jr. Driving by earlier in the day, we noticed the framing was well under way. Grieve said the calendar they keep goes out three months, and the second Idaho Falls location isn’t on it yet.

That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be sooner, and I said, “I’ll be checking in with you periodically. People here are very interested in restaurant openings.”

“I know!” she said. “I was ordering flowers for the opening (on 17th Street) and the lady was telling me how excited she was.”

So there you have it, Idaho Falls. Your enthusiasm for chain restaurants is being noted all over the country. Whether it brings Red Lobster, In-n-Out Burger, etc. here any faster remains an open question, but it can't hurt, can it?

Idaho farmers harvest record income in 2011

The Associated Press reports this morning that farmers and ranchers in Idaho cleaned up in 2011.

The basis for the story is a report released Thursday by the University of Idaho projecting farm cash receipts for 2011 at $7.4 billion, a 29 percent increase compared with 2010 (which wasn't too shabby itself -- farm cash receipts increased that year by 12 percent.)

UI economist Garth Taylor says nearly every crop and livestock sector posted strong gains in 2011. The report shows farm net income, or the money farmers and ranchers kept, fared even better and rose 88 percent last year to $2.6 billion.

The familiar calls for ending farmers' subsidies are bound to start erupting right about now. But in our focus on high tech, retail and home construction, it would be unwise to underestimate multiplier effect of agriculture in a state like Idaho. Farmers and their spouses buy trucks and cars, groceries and clothing, ATVs and DVDs, etc. Imagine what the local economy would be like without agriculture.

The other thing to bear in mind is that while commodity prices have been high, they are cyclical. A strong dollar can dampen exports, and the Euro's problems are driving people to the dollar. Let's hope the rest of Idaho's economy has recovered by the time farm prices crater, as they inevitably do.

Here is a link to the report, called The Financial Condition of Idaho Agriculture: http://www.cals.uidaho.edu/aers/PDF/outlooks/financialcond2011.pdf

Covering the media bases: BizMojo on the air soon

I recently got an email from Tim Lewis, Riverbend Communications' news program director, asking if I'd like to go on the air with him to talk about local business.

Naturally my answer was yes, for promotional reasons and for the fun of it. Expanding to radio adds another medium to the BizMojo Idaho profile, which already has Web (blog, Facebook and Twitter) and print (Idaho Falls Magazine) in tow. I'm to report for duty Tuesday morning at 8:05. We will be on Newstalk 690 and 1260, on the a.m. dial.

What I'd like in advance is some questions you'd like me to answer or address. Like Shoptalk before it, my approach to this blog is to tell people what they want to know, give it to them short and sweet and make them feel like they're part of the conversation.

Also, please show some understanding if I say "uh" or "y'know" too much as I try to get my thoughts together on the air. I'm glad my mother won't be listening, y'know, because she's been on my case about it for more than 40 years. And for my dear wife's sake, I must remember to irrigate my sinuses.

We're looking at 15 minutes, people. I wonder how long it's going to seem as it happens.