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Computare
An Alberta CO2 Opportunity – The Oil Sands
•Nuclear Process Heat
–Many studies of application to oil sands
–Low temperature steam from CANDU
–Large capacity  of CANDU’s inconsistent with size of oil sand projects
–AECL even designed and built a higher temperature test reactor (organically cooled)
The nuclear industry has long dreamed of application to Alberta’s oil sands. Many studies have been done. Oil sand projects tended to be too small to utilize the large energy output from CANDU reactors. Processes used for extraction tended to require higher temperatures than available from CANDU. I understand one incentive for AECL to embark on the development of a higher temperature organically cooled reactor was the potential for application to the oil sands.