Come on.

george grombacher 0:12
Well, I thought this is George G. And the time is right. welcome today’s guest strong and powerful James Sykes. James, are you ready to do this? Let’s do it. George, let’s let’s go. James is the CEO and director of baseload energy. They are a fully funded uranium exploration company and organization controlling 100% of the rights to surface exploration of the seven 2000. Hector’s in otha boska Basin. James, tell us a little about your personalized more about your work and why you do what you do.

James Sykes 0:42
Thanks, George. I’m a hardcore geologists. That’s what I do best. And that’s what I love to do. I was fortunate enough to find what I wanted to do with my life when I was in university, took a few years bouncing around trying different things biochemistry now didn’t didn’t like it. But geology kind of it talked to me, I’ll fit well. So I’ve followed up with that pursued my career, and I’ve just loved every minute of it. So I do what I do, because I really enjoy it. I am into uranium exploration because I’m a nuclear energy bull. I believe nuclear energy’s a way forward. For for noxious, you know, for not just now but all of humanity down the road. It’s been around since the 50s. It has been a constant baseload producer of energy. In all seriousness, it is probably one of the safest forms of energy, despite what a lot of people think when they when they think of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, they lose their hats, but that’s not the case. Uranium nuclear energy, very safe form of energy. So I like to, I like to contribute to our our energy sources going forward.

Unknown Speaker 1:48
Nice. I appreciate that. So hardcore geologist. Are there certain. What is geology? James? The study of rocks, study of rocks, do you have a favorite rock said a stupid question?

Unknown Speaker 2:02
No, actually, not really. I have a favorite mineral but not a favorite rock and it’s Garnet butts. Yeah, anything with uranium in it, I love got it. And what has uranium in it? You ran a night coffee night. A number of different secondary minerals correlate there’s a there’s quite a few uranium bearing minerals.

Unknown Speaker 2:24
So I talked about I mentioned that you control 100% of the rights to the surface surface exploration. Tell me more about what that means.

Unknown Speaker 2:34
Right so surface exploration in Saskatchewan anyway is you have the rights to it actually to explore underneath the surface. So you can explore anywhere from surface to to underground for you know X amount of kilometers which is as deep as you can pretty well drill. And that’s basically what the the government allows us to do. Now it doesn’t give us the rights to do anything else like to build infrastructure or anything like that we would need other other rights and other permits to do that. But to just do simple exploration, put some drill holes into the ground or run some geophysical surveys to see what’s under the ground first to get people on on bedrock if there is any and just do some mapping or do some kill sampling. That’s what the surface rights allows us to do.

Unknown Speaker 3:20
Nice. Okay, when you say get people on bedrock, if there is any, what is what is the value there

Unknown Speaker 3:27
you get to learn the geology straight off what you see or what you can expect to see in underneath you. That’s what bedrock allows you to do just basically outcrop so rocks right at surface and it allows us to get an idea of the the stresses and the forces that were applied in the area and then we can make inferences on which direction we want to go. And just it helps us build the build a story of where we are, as most times especially in northern Canada, you’re stuck with you’re stuck with a lot of overburden so on the glaciers came by and they deposited all the dirt and sand and boulders and everything all it obscures the the bedrock below so you can’t see what’s going on. And that’s where diamond drilling comes in. Because you have you have to see the rock you have to make discoveries and discoveries most of them are made with with a diamond drill. But the cheapest way to figure out your geology and what’s happening is to look at outcrops if you have

Unknown Speaker 4:26
got it, okay, so, your opportunity your challenge is, is looking at this area 72,000 Hector’s how, how big is that.

Unknown Speaker 4:39
We’ve actually got three projects and we’ve got about 200,000 Hector’s. Okay, so it’s Yeah, we’ve got quite a large land package. How big is that? So very good question. Roughly. That’s roughly 200 kilometers by 100 kilometers. Okay, got it. So it’s a big area. Very big area. I need to know you know what I am? I’m off on my numbers. I’m pretty sure. Now that doesn’t make sense. It’s still a big area. I know one of our properties measures about 40 kilometers by 30 kilometers.

Unknown Speaker 5:12
I just our largest property. I just went with it, James. So people are listening like No way. But no. Okay. So you mentioned it Canada stuck with overburden. So when the glaciers rolled across, they just dumped a bunch of stuff. So that’s the overburden that is not the bedrock. And it’s your challenge and opportunity to find the bedrock to then determine where are we going to drill? Because I’m assuming that you just can’t infinitely drill holes in because it’s cost prohibitive?

Unknown Speaker 5:46
Absolutely correct. Yep. When you’re assuming that it’s roughly between $300 to $400 per drill meter, like all in costs, that’s it’s not very cheap. So if you want to, if you want to drill down to 100 meters depth, you’re looking at 30 grand, 40 grand per drill hole. So the costs do start to add up. But this is why we rely very heavily on geophysics. So airborne geophysics, ground geophysics, surveys that will penetrate through that overburden, and will reflect the the geophysical characteristics of the rocks and the minerals beneath the surface. So sometimes we’re looking for gravity loads, because clay alteration in these hydrothermal systems that we’re looking for, will alter your rock. So when you turn, now, most people have been on rocks, and they know what rocks are, and they perceive the idea of rocks as being very hard and not broken up. That is, you know, that’s the best case scenarios that you grant it. Everyone knows what a granite is, or at least should, I hope, but it’s a really hard rock. And in certain situations, you have structures come through faults that reverberate through these rocks, break them apart. And sometimes these structures have fluids moving through, and then the fluids interact with the rocks, and can actually turn them into clay. So if you can imagine the natural processes processes of the earth, turning hard rocks into clay, well, that shows up in a geophysical survey, because you’ve gone from now a higher dense granite to a lower dense clay. So one’s heavier than the other. And that’s some some geophysical surveys will pick up on that they will show you where the dense rocks are in the light rocks are not necessarily saying that it has to be clear alteration. But it’s those are the type of parameters and features that we’re looking for. Other other features that we get from geophysics, looking at electrical magnetic surveys, just trying to pick up on certain minerals that will help us find these structures of interest and possible fluid flow pathways.

Unknown Speaker 7:47
Fascinating. And I imagine that these technologies or ways to to perform geophysics are changing and have certainly changed the course of your career.

Unknown Speaker 7:58
Absolutely, absolutely. I’ve seen them evolve in the last 15 years, and it’s quite impressive. I imagine like one survey I really like to use is called empty. And when you consider geophysics, a lot of it is especially emgu physics, is you’re pumping the signal into the earth, or is empty the signal source for an empty survey, excuse me, our electrical strikes on the earth. So lightning, when lightning strikes the earth, all of that energy is pushed along into certain layers of the earth. And an empty survey will use those electrical strikes the energy produced from those electrical strikes to produce its produce its visuals.

Unknown Speaker 8:45
So I’m probably going to use a really clumsy analogy or metaphor. Are you sort of akin to a radiologist? No, no, not at all. Okay, so my thought was just like you’re trying to look under the surface and then read the results.

Unknown Speaker 9:04
And okay, yep, that’s that’s actually a very fair analogy. Yes. Absolutely. Then go by go back on that for what we’re trying to do. Okay. Never had radiology worked on. I was just picturing somebody just clicking a button and I’m getting a scan of things. But yes, yeah, it’s,

Unknown Speaker 9:22
it’s because you could, you could rip the scan off. And when you’re looking at it, you’re certainly looking at it in a different way than I would. And so it’s your expertise in how you’re interpreting this information. Versus I’m like, I don’t have any idea what what what this is. I imagine that that is a competitive advantage you have to others. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, nice. So, how did you come to decide on the the other basket basin

Unknown Speaker 9:53
tigard Athabaskan basin is the world’s highest grade uranium capital. It’s phenomenal. Even Even when you start looking at other commodities in the world, you don’t you don’t find these jurisdictions where you can constantly get 1% to 10% 25%, copper nickel or anything like that. But now you get that in the Athabaskan basin. The two largest mines in the Athabaskan basin have over 20%. You throw away grades, that’s just that’s mind blowing you’re looking at. You’re looking at some of the most valuable rock in the entire world and those mines and that’s again, that’s kind of typical for the Athabaskan not necessarily the 20 percenters, but at least over 1% is a very common grade. And that’s that’s what really drives drives exploration in the area, is when you have these high grade occurrences, either the value of your rocks are extremely high, you’re because it is a higher grade as well, your operating costs should theoretically be lower, because you’d be mining less of a product than or less material than other jurisdictions. So in comparison, you have operations in Africa, which are mining anywhere from point 01 to let’s say, point 1%. So orders of magnitude lower than what we commonly have in the Athabaskan basin.

Unknown Speaker 11:13
So advantages and advantages and disadvantages of me trying to, to develop a mine in Canada versus Africa. Better rocks in Canada, probably more infrastructure. Y’all are very accustomed to mining. But I imagine that it’s tough because you can only mine for two weeks a year because the rest of the year, it’s snowing.

Unknown Speaker 11:42
It’s not that bad. Canada is not that bad at all. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t see there being too many differences I honestly haven’t looked at at Africa in our mining jurisdiction perspective and trying to find the ins and outs of of operating costs and things like that, which, you know, I do know that both have their own regulations in place. Canada has very strict regulations, which, when done, right, everything, everything leads to a nice economic operation and environmentally friendly, good social governments. We have a lot of that going for us. But that’s not to say Africa doesn’t as well, because I know there are a lot of African operations that all follow the same suit. There are definitely a lot of a lot of similarities between the two. The big thing for us, because when the uranium space is that we have to worry about nuclear radioisotopes. And that’s, that’s what differentiates us from any other mining operation doesn’t matter which which jurisdiction in the world because we’re all monitored by by larger, larger organizations such as IE, International Atomic Energy Association, who have mandates and just kind of protocols in place for uranium mining that that companies are expected to follow.

Unknown Speaker 13:08
Which makes sense. Absolutely, it certainly makes sense. So what what is, is your desire expectation for when you’re doing this exploration? What, what are we hoping we’re is going to happen,

Unknown Speaker 13:25
we’re hoping to make a discovery, we’re hoping that our drill holes will be successful, and that we will intersect some high grade uranium, myself, I’ve been involved with at least three different projects, that’s directly and indirectly, I’ve got over 550 million pounds of uranium credit my name. So I’m looking to expand on that my personal goal is to reach a billion pounds of discovery. So I want to really push that envelope. So when we are drilling, when we are exploring, that is exactly what we’re looking for. We are looking to make a uranium discovery something because our exploration strategy differs from a lot of our peers, we’re looking for things outside of the conventional sense. But things that would be even more economic than than what people are trying to look for things where you’d be mining to depths of less than 200 meters from surface. So it’s an open pit. That’s that’s our goal, where our goal is, is to find something with the lowest footprint, and also the lowest operating costs we want to make, we want to not just make a discovery for investors that they would benefit from that alone. But we want to make a discovery that, that our investors in the world will see would be a deposit that would go into production in the near term, so that everyone benefits in the long run.

Unknown Speaker 14:41
Nice. I appreciate that. So the reality that nuclear energy is is one of the cleanest and most efficient even though people are confused because of a handful of events that have happened over the last 50 years or so. That combined with your expertise and your track record of 550 million pounds, looking to essentially double that, and do it in the most cost effective, efficient way possible. Okay, great. So how do people how do people either invest with you? Or how does how does that process work?

Unknown Speaker 15:26
Yeah, it’s pretty straightforward. Most of the times people can invest in us through the open market. on the TSX v here in Canada, our stock symbol is find fi nd in the States on the OTC QB, where under Bs, E and F. So if any investors are interested in the uranium spot in in the uranium marketplace as it is, which has been taking off, kind of say uranium is probably up at least the 30% 30 40% in the past two weeks. So it’s it’s definitely a riveting market right now. And people are people are making money hand over fist. But the best way to get in is through the open market, do your own due diligence, first, check out our website. We’ve got a lot of material on there that you can review. We’ve got videos on YouTube, which I do a little bit more technical talks, but I tried to dummy it down for the non geologists so that they can understand what I’m seeing and where I’m coming from and, and how basically likes to likes to explore. But then also, you can follow us on LinkedIn, I’ve got her page there Twitter. Those are definitely the main ways my email is always open and available to to respond to any questions.

Unknown Speaker 16:42
Excellent. Is as it’s been in the ether in the news that rare earth minerals or conflict minerals, I figure what the term is. And there’s a concern that that China controls a lot of them, how how, how does what you’re doing play into that if, if at all.

Unknown Speaker 17:02
There, they can be kind of similar. The rare earth minerals are typically just, you know, almost like a cyst or stream of minerals to what we’re doing. However, uranium has been noted by the US as being a critical mineral mineral just because there’s not a lot of production coming out of the US side from their own uranium mines. And so a lot of that has been coming from Canada and Kazakhstan. Whereas rare earth minerals, yeah, the earth minerals are definitely controlled by China. States have done a great job of finding some, some at home supply, basically, and have been progressing that forward. So that’s absolutely wonderful. But which basically, the two are not entirely the same, although they are. They’re both trying to achieve the same long term goal or the same end goal. And that rare earth minerals are being used primarily for new energy sources, renewable energy sources, but also electric vehicles, which should help this whole the whole battle against climate change. So there is that synergy between the two. But if we all keep going electrical vehicles, that means we’re going to be drawing more heavily on the baseload power front. And if we do that, well, geez, there’s no better baseload power source out there. The nuclear energy, which is where I do think these go hand in hand again.

Unknown Speaker 18:20
Yeah. All roads lead back. I like to do. Oh, well, James, thank you so much for coming on. Give us the website. Again, if you haven’t already.

Unknown Speaker 18:30
I have not but the website is www.baseload.com. baseload is spelled ba SEOD is in a load of or? Excellent. Well, if

Unknown Speaker 18:43
you enjoyed as much as I did, show, James, your appreciation and share today show the friend who also appreciates good ideas go to baseload.com. It’s be a selod.com. You can find baseload on the Toronto Stock Exchange under find, and the over the counter at bs en F. And check out baseload. Send James an email, check out the YouTube where he talks about incredibly complex, confusing things and easy to understand ways. Thanks. Good, James. Thanks a lot, George. Take care. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. It’s we’re all in this together.