Now this is going to make a lot of people very happy

From Yahoo/Associated Press:

Venezuela seeking uranium with Iran's help
Iran is helping to detect uranium deposits in Venezuela and initial evaluations suggest reserves are significant, President Hugo Chavez's government said Friday.

Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz said Iran has been assisting Venezuela with geophysical survey flights and geochemical analysis of the deposits, and that evaluations "indicate the existence of uranium in western parts of the country and in Santa Elena de Uairen," in southeastern Bolivar state.

"We could have important reserves of uranium," Sanz told reporters upon arrival on Venezuela's Margarita Island for a weekend Africa-South America summit. He added that efforts to certify the reserves could begin within the next three years.

A bit more:

Chavez's project remains in its planning stages and still faces a host of practical hurdles, likely requiring billions of dollars, as well as technology and expertise that Venezuela lacks. Russia has offered to help bridge that gap, and Chavez has announced that the two countries have created an atomic energy commission.

But Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom, has said there are no concrete projects and that any joint work on mining deposits of uranium or the radioactive metal thorium would have to wait until Venezuela decides whether it wants Russian help exploring them and, if so, create a joint venture for the purpose.

Now this should be fun in 10-15 years when President for Life Chavez nationalizes the Russian facility. And they have Thorium as well -- Thorium is turning out to be quite the fuel to use for power generation. Very simple to clean up and reprocess the waste -- not like U235.