Executive Summary
Oil produced from the oil sands region in northern Alberta Canada is an increasingly important contributor to the world’s oil supply. The thermal, in-situ recovery of bitumen from oil sands is an energy intensive process. Currently, most in-situ oil sands plants create steam for this process by burning natural gas, a high quality fuel with volatile pricing that is in demand for other uses such as home heating, electric power generation and chemical feedstock. Canada has made commitments to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions. These commitments, in combination with the desire by the oil sands producers to make better use of natural gas and other fossil fuels has resulted in interest among the Alberta oil sands producers in nuclear power as a source of oil sands process heat.