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Gold/Mining/Energy : Oil Sands and Related Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Taikun who wrote (2089)	8/28/2005 1:03:43 PM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25575

I don't understand why someone doesn't just use a nuclear reactor to produce steam through a heat exchanger and then use the steam (which would pose no threat of radioactive contamination whatever) to melt the bitumen. Converting it into electricity and then back into heat would be expensive and wasteful. Kind of like a guy I heard of who bought a gasoline generator and hooked it to a electric hot water heater to produce hot water, therby wasting about 80% of the BTU content of the gasoline. The Phase 1 transmission objective is to supply power to facilitate additional oilsands development and bitumen production. Nuclear generated electrical power would be used to produce process steam. The produced steam would be used for the in-situ process of extracting bitumen from oilsands. Existing commercial SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) developments near Ft. McMurray predominantly use natural gas (CH4) fired generators to produce steam for subsurface injection. Recovered bitumen is processed into synthetic crude oil, much of which is exported to the US. An additional 2-GW of electrical power capacity will provide enough extraction steam to produce more than 4 million barrels of synthetic crude oil daily, while sharply reducing CH4 consumption and eliminating CO2 emissions. Though capital intensive, this would be a cost-effective, long-term and secure energy solution for North Americans. It would be the first step in the development of Saskatchewan into the largest producer and exporter of electricity in Canada.