During the dotcom boom, small miners were reborn as telcos and IT start-ups; but now there is another switch, this time to uranium mining, and despite the cynics one thing remains certain - it more often than not results in a re-rating of the stock.

As the price of the nuclear fuel has risen by threefold to $US122 a pound in the past two years many gold and base metals explorers - and companies that turned their back on mining during the IT boom - have elected to switch their focus to uranium.