A Canadian Energy Research Insititute economist thinks nuclear power could undercut the “dirty oil” hype

Reactors could contribute to an oil sands makeover

By Gordon Jaremko

May 01, 2009

David McColl’s book reveals its surprise ending in its title: Green Bitumen. This tale about a clean version of the fossil fuel that environmental critics love to attack is no fantasy, the author says.

He is a senior economist with the Canadian Energy Research Institute. In four meticulous volumes, packed with financial and engineering mathematics, his epic documents the potential of technologies listed by its subtitle: The Role of Nuclear, Gasification and CCS in Alberta’s Oil Sands.

The report compiles 18 months of studies done by eight experts on a team led by McColl. The conclusion expressed by the title at first startled him as much as it is bound to shock the industry’s green opponents when CERI releases the book this spring. He is not an oil sands veteran or specialist. His business experience is in atomic power, which promotes itself as the strongest zero-emissions alternative to fossil fuels.

“It was surprising,” McColl says in describing how the results came together in unexpected ways during the research effort. “We looked at a scenario that, quite frankly, is reasonable.”

His team owed a realistic job to its sponsor, which is a fixture in a research park beside the University of Calgary. The institute describes its performance targets in its motto: “Relevant, Independent, Objective.”

CERI is a 34-year-old think-tank supported by a national array of federal, provincial, academic and industry agencies. Influential reports, often sparked by questions from the energy sector’s commanding heights, are routinely priced in thousands of dollars per copy to cover big research costs. The non-profit agency’s products have served as guides through complex fields ranging from 1980s natural gas deregulation to current wind power planning.

“We ended up creating green bitumen,” McColl says. He hopes CERI will make an exception and sell his team’s report at a popular price point. In an enthusiastic conclusion to a 63-page summary of its research findings, his team presents an antidote to fashionable opinion of the northern bitumen belt as a dark breeding ground of the world’s dirtiest oil.

After showing how options currently opening up to the industry can be combined to maximum effect, the document makes a bright prediction: “If such a scenario unfolds in Alberta, the oil sands could pave the way as a bold new energy system, producing hydrocarbons to power our economy with almost zero greenhouse gas emissions being released into the atmosphere.”

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