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Computare
An Alberta CO2 Opportunity – The Oil Sands
•Oil sands projects are more and bigger
•Extraction and upgrading generates CO2
•About 0.10  tonnes CO2 per barrel
•A 50,000 bpd plant could utilize 1 power plant
•Nearly eliminates CO2 from production
•Avoids 73 Mt/yr at 2 million barrels/day
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Oil sand projects are tending toward larger installations. A very preliminary review suggests that the use of nuclear energy for extraction and upgrading could avoid the 1/10 tonne of CO2 typically generated by the production of a barrel of oil using current techniques.  Oil sand projects now appear to be of the size which could utilize nuclear plants.

Nuclear energy provides a means to nearly completely avoid the CO2 emissions associated with increasing production from Alberta’s oil sands.

Reference:
Donnelly, John K. and Duane R. Pendergast, Nuclear Energy in Industry: Application to Oil Production, 20th Annual Conference of the Canadian Nuclear Society, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 1999 May 30 - June 2. Posted at: http://www.cns-snc.ca/events/CCEO/nuclearenergyindustry.pdf