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

A four-fold increase in the penalty for carbon dioxide emissions will be necessary to make it worthwhile for companies to begin taking unaided action, McColl estimates. Current Canadian climate change policies, while still vague, suggest the carbon price will rise into the $60 range required to trigger cleanup investments in about 10 years.

The quadrupled emissions penalty is forecast to make investment attractive in “gasification” manufacturing of clean fuel and the next generation of atomic power plants, on top of CCS. Both additional approaches are expensive but projected to become competitive with the current cornerstone of thermal oil sands operations, natural gas, if the carbon price increases.

Technology is available to make synthetic gas from coal or charcoal-like coke left over by oil sands production, and dispose of carbon dioxide exhaust from the conversion process. Alberta’s initial package of subsidized emissions reduction projects includes a field trial of underground synthetic gas manufacturing in a Swan Hills coal deposit northwest of Edmonton.

Small, portable reactors are developing to make nuclear power a realistic option for a new source of electricity and heat in the oil sands, says McColl. He is an ardent advocate of atomic energy who has worked as a consultant on proposals for plants in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

His CERI team acknowledges that western Canadian communities, industry and governments are all wary of nuclear projects. “We recognize that the development path of these reactors would have to be slow and modest,” he says. The emissions cleanup scenario in Green Bitumen includes just enough use of the zero-emissions atomic source of heat and power by 2030 to whet industry and government appetites for more in the remote future.

“We can change the image of the oil sands,” McColl predicts. “But it’s going to take a long time. No individual party can do it on their own. It has to be a co-ordinated effort.”

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