TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT?

Lemme make sure I understand this: They wanna use nuclear energy to produce oil, thereby generating nuclear waste AND greenhouse gases. Well, at least they’re not funding terrorism. Except by feeding our addiction to oil and the internal combustion engine. We're going to have to get a lot more desperate for energy before I like this idea.

Nuclear-powered oil sands
Ben Lando, March 30, 2007 (UPI)

WHO
Nuclear energy reactor manufacturers such as Energy Alberta and the oil companies mining Canadian oil sands.

WHAT
Nuclear energy is being tested as a fuel substitute for natural gas in the energy-intensive oil sands development projects.

WHEN
The Energy Alberta projects are expected to go into operation by 2017. Similar projects are in planning stages.

WHERE
Canadian oil sands projects are in the north central region of the Alberta Province. There are also heavy oil sands in Venezuela which could be developed with this technology.

WHY
The oil sands have hydrocarbon content but, unlike lighter crudes, there is a dense mixture of sand, water and clay which has to be refined out, requiring much energy-consuming processing, now done with natural gas which is 60% of the crude oil’s processing cost. As oil demand and oil price rises, the economic recovery of this energy source becomes perhaps feasible if a process can be used that does not consume more energy than it produces. The two technologies now most commonly used to bring up the sands, Cyclic Steam Stimulation and Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage, both leave too much processing to be done. Nuclear power could theoretically develop the crude more thoroughly at a lower cost, especially since Canada has uranium supplies near the oil sand regions.

QUOTES
"It's quite energy intensive," Jeffrey Collins, director of Global Oil for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, told United Press International. "There is still a strong gain positively in terms of the amount of energy you're able to get out of it versus the energy you use…Nuclear power plants can address several issues," Collins said. "You could try to reduce the amount of (carbon dioxide) emissions because you don't have to burn as much hydrocarbons, i.e., natural gas, to generate the steam and electricity or to create hydrogen that can be used in the upgrading processes…And you'd have a near zero emitter from a nuclear power plant. So that's the clean-energy side of it."