{"id":27690,"date":"2012-02-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ashleydev.com\/2012\/02\/06\/nuclear-in-the-oil-sands-building-on-canadas-strengths\/"},"modified":"2020-08-27T11:43:15","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T15:43:15","slug":"nuclear-in-the-oil-sands-building-on-canadas-strengths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cna.ca\/fr\/2012\/02\/06\/nuclear-in-the-oil-sands-building-on-canadas-strengths\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear in the Oil Sands: Building On Canada\u2019s Strengths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada has high-quality uranium deposits and a highly developed base of nuclear technologies, including power generation, medicine, food safety, mining and processing, and materials science \u2013 in all of which Canadians have done well, as innovators and as businesses.<\/p>\n

That Canadian power reactor designs have been sold in six other countries — against substantial US, Japanese and European competition — is a remarkable technological and commercial success story, especially considering that they were developed and marketed independently by a small country, and only for civilian uses.\u00a0 Management of this business has passed to Candu Energy Inc., and Canadians will soon see what private industry can do with this opportunity given the current nuclear revival, which is being led by emerging economies.<\/p>\n

There are diverse examples of nuclear energy being used for process heat applications such as smelting minerals and desalinating seawater.\u00a0\u00a0 And today there are various new nuclear reactor technologies available or on the horizon (Generation III and IV reactors, small modular reactors and others) that promise to make nuclear power options even safer than they currently are, as well as easier to finance.<\/p>\n

The development of the oil sands has repeatedly faced difficult technical and economic challenges.\u00a0 While private industry was the main driver and investor, public sector actors played a significant role.\u00a0 Backed by industry consensus and assisted by economic policy through such measures as royalty and tax adjustments, these public sector champions enabled the development of the oil industry that Canada has today:\u00a0 our largest export earner and a huge wealth generator for the private and public sectors.<\/p>\n

Capturing more of the value of this resource within the Canadian economy is of interest to many in policy circles.\u00a0 So would be extracting the bitumen in ways that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and conserve cleaner fossil fuels.\u00a0 Among the options would be to apply nuclear power in place of natural gas to generate the heat needed for bitumen extraction.\u00a0\u00a0 While innovators in the oil sands industry are aware of the long-term possibilities of nuclear, for the most part they are currently occupied with closer-to-deployment technical advances.<\/p>\n

Currently deployed reactor designs would not be easy to apply to bitumen extraction in the oil sands.\u00a0 They require large, permanent installations with large support staffs.\u00a0 Even with these challenges, however, nuclear appeared in a 2003 study by the Canadian Energy Research Institute\u00a0 to be approximately competitive with natural gas in in-situ applications.<\/p>\n

Newer reactor designs such as the Enhanced CANDU 6, the Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR-1000), and other so-called Generation 3 and 4 reactors, some of which are close to deployment but have not yet established multi-year track records in operation, will further advance the safety of nuclear energy and could substantially improve its economics.\u00a0 Also, several small modular reactor (SMR) designs are being promoted \u2013 in varying degrees of proximity to deployment \u2013 with promises of further reductions in the financing, building and maintenance costs of nuclear energy, improving its applicability to non-power uses.\u00a0 These promised advances are mainly based on SMRs\u2019 portability, modularity, steam characteristics, and maintenance needs.<\/p>\n

Conversations with a number of industry experts in Alberta in mid-2011 elicited views like these:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they advance the technology, we might be interested.\u00a0 It\u2019s too far from deployment right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCoal and gas are abundant and cheap here, at least for now. Why should the province help nuclear, an outside industry, rather than coal or gas?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNuclear will be the likely option because it\u2019s the alternative with no greenhouse gases.\u00a0 But it takes time to develop that option.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe oil industry is actually quite risk-averse.\u00a0 They need to see a new technology demonstrated before they\u2019ll invest in it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those are anecdotal and attitudinal comments, but they reflect an industry state of mind:\u00a0 there is an economic opportunity in nuclear that is not being seized.<\/p>\n

The likely steps to realizing this opportunity could be:<\/p>\n